Cracked Performance | HM80 Hall Effect Keyboard
Disclaimer: Product was provided by Sikakeyb for review but all opinions are my own. Sikakeyb, a chinese keyboard company that recently surfaced to the scene that has lowkey surprised the community with it’s outstanding performance and value, let’s see if it proves itself worthy.
Technical Specifications
▪︎ Hall effect
▪︎ Gateron Jade Pro switches
▪︎ 0.01mm-4mm rapid trigger
▪︎ SOCD, Rapid Trigger, Snap Tap etc
▪︎ 8kHz response rate
▪︎ 82 key full RGB
Quality & Unboxing
The packaging was a sleek white cardboard box with the keyboard in a plastic sleeve inside, nothing special, nothing short of standard. Mine came with a manual, switch and keycap puller, extra spacebars, cable a few of the magnetic jade gaming switches from gateron which you can switch out and have a feel for them which is a nice touch. The overall quality of the HM80 actually feels solid despite the fact that the case is made of plastic and not aluminium, there were no flimsy parts, just a solid feeling plastic keyboard.
Build
The keyboard comes built with gateron jade pro switches on an aluminium plate which is a really nice plate option for a louder, brighter, more pronounced sound. It comes with factory lubed plate mount stabilizers that sound very good out of the box with only the tiniest bit of rattle on the left shift key. The keycaps on the keyboard are double shot pbt that feel really high quality but I think the colour scheme they went for the keycaps and keyboard aren’t as appealing for most of the customer base, but I guess it’s just preference, on the back side of the keyboard it does have an aluminium weight piece used mostly as an accent piece and 2 step adjustable feet with rubber for anti slip. They also included an LCD display on the top right that can do pretty cool stuff for example, GIF display, key travel tester, games, reaction time tests and has a LED light bar underneath.
Thoughts on Sound and Feel
Personally the natural deep tones of the plastic case and the aluminium plate is a really nice combo, keeping a higher pitched louder clack from the plate and keeping it a rich bassy tone from the foams and plastic case really makes it sound balanced, the sound is better than most hall effect keyboards but Magger68 just slaps it down in my opinion. The typing feel on this board is exceptional, it doesn’t feel harsh like some tray mounted hall effect boards and if you press hard enough, there is a little bit of flex to help with that.
Performance
I can’t lie, this thing feels hella responsive. While I don’t have statistics to prove this but it definitely just feels incredibly responsive, I can feel it this time, it’s not a game changing difference but it’s just so nice to use, the rapid trigger starting from just 0.01mm feels pretty nuts.
Pros
+ Good 80% form factor
+ Lots to offer in the package + Sound and feel
+ Exceptional performance
Cons
– Price $245 USD (on sale at the time of post for $179 USD from Gateron)
– All plastic chassis
– Software
– External looks and visual appeal
Conclusion + TL:DR
All in all a great keyboard that’s not super considerate of aesthetics and premium feel at all. If you want a pure performer, one and done keyboard and looks don’t matter as much to you, this could be a good option. But if you want something that also looks good on your desk, maybe look elsewhere. For the RRP of $245.99 USD, I personally think it’s a bit expensive for pretty much an all plastic keyboard, on sale though at gateron for $179.99 I think it could be considered. For me personally I won’t be keeping this on my desk as I prefer my nice looking customs and to me the performance isn’t a ground breaking difference but that’s just me.
