HiGround Opal Base 65 Keyboard Review: More Hype Than Substance

What impressed me, though, is the Base 65’s RGB lighting—between the wide case, achromatic silicone dampening, transparent switches and keycaps, and the reflective aluminum plate, the RGB perfectly shines, making this keyboard a agleam centerpiece connected immoderate desk. Sadly, programming the RGB is simply a spot of a chore, and astir of the mill presets person incredibly constricted customization.

Paying for Looks

The redeeming grace is HiGround's popular civilization collaborations. You tin get a keyboard made in collaboration with Minecraft, and antecedently determination person been tie-ins with crippled and anime series, including Naruto, Pokémon, Attack connected Titan, Gundam, and Yu-Gi-Oh. However, this usually comes with a tradeoff: Would you alternatively person a high-quality keyboard oregon 1 designed aft your favourite media franchise? This keyboard is flashy, colorful, and a connection piece. But too visuals, the Base 65 keyboard doesn’t bash thing new, oregon thing that justifies the price.

I besides privation to enactment the “all income are final” enactment successful astir of the company's merchandise descriptions. Combine this with monolithic marque tie-ins and an accent connected “limited” drops, and I’m reminded of the collab-based hypebeast sneaker civilization of the 2010s; a selling strategy that emphasizes exclusivity and makes radical leap astatine “rare” (i.e., artificially scarce) products and presume they’re much valuable/higher-quality than they are. I cognize this is simply a batch of advertizing rhetoric that sits extracurricular the prime of the extremity product, but I deliberation it’s important to see why the keyboards are the mode they are, and why they merchantability good contempt immoderate of the issues they whitethorn have. (As a broadside note, aggregate keyboard collaborations from HiGround are presently being scalped connected StockX.)

I besides recovered immoderate vexation erstwhile trying to reappraisal this keyboard because, erstwhile HiGround had a merchandise coming up, each azygous leafage connected its website would redirect to a password-protected countdown. This meant that the keyboard’s documentation, drivers, and adjacent basal merchandise accusation were unavailable for the full clip portion waiting connected a constricted merchandise (in this case, the Minecraft keyboard collection).

Ultimately, it's hard for maine to urge HiGround’s keyboards unless you really privation a branded keyboard for a definite media franchise and are OK with the sacrifices to the physique prime and typing experience.