Archives for August 2017

If you’re a fan of gaming, then there’s an excellent chance you’re familiar with Thermaltake and its accessories brand Tt esports. We’ve used hardware from Thermaltake for nearly a decade, but have shied away from Tt esports until recently. A few months ago, Tt esports introduced a new mechanical gaming keyboard with Cherry MX switches. We’ve spent the better part of the past month with the MEKA PRO mechanical gaming keyboard customizing and learning every detail of it. Is this keyboard a worthy addition to your gaming rig? Without further delay, let’s take a closer look in this Tt esports MEKA PRO keyboard review.

Key Features of the MEKA PRO Keyboard

• Red LED illuminated backlighting
• Four pre-configured lighting zones
• Cherry MX Blue (Brown and Red) switches
• Anti-ghosting support
• On-the-fly record macro key settings
• Six key / N-key rollover

Per the press release, “The MEKA PRO Cherry MX Mechanical Gaming Keyboard comes in a simplistic durable design packed full of features and functions for the most avid gaming enthusiasts. This includes the use of the latest and highly responsive Cherry MX Blue Switches with a 50 million click lifespan, individual per key red backlight illumination with 7 stunning lighting effects, 4 pre-configured game mode lighting zones, 100% anti-ghosting support, and on-the-fly macro recording for ultimate customization of your gameplay settings.”

Tt esports MEKA PRO Keyboard Review

First Impressions

• Clean, well-packaged box, big keyboard.
• Keyboard has a modern look and nice feel. It’s not as big as initially thought, surprisingly slim for the box size. It functioned well with a laptop pictured (see the bottom of this post.)
• While the keyboard cord is a good length of 1.8 meters, we would have preferred it a bit longer making it easier to reach more desktops. Also, we would have preferred a braided cable
• The deep red lighting is a nice touch. It illuminates nicely, especially in a dark setting.
• Initial tapping of the keys are smooth and quick, but the Cherry MX Blue switches are loud.  

Specifications

MEKA PRO Design and Features

If you’re familiar with Tt esports keyboards, then you’ll notice how closely the MEKA PRO resembles the Poseidon Z Illuminated and RGB models. The key difference is internal–the switch. This new design incorporates Cherry MX Blue, Brown, or Red switches.

As you can see from the bulleted Key Features list, the MEKA PRO offers plenty in the way of gaming features. These are all pretty much standard among ~$100 gaming keyboards. One feature not included in many gaming keyboards are pre-configured lighting zones. The MEKA PRO has four of them: FPS, MMO, MOBA, and RTS. The matte black finish across the board looks great.

On the underside, there are five rubber foot pads and two retractable legs. Whether you use the legs or not, the keyboard will grip a flat surface well.

Package contents include the keyboard, eight red key caps, one key cap puller, quick installation guide and warranty policy.

Performance Testing – Everyday Use

As an everyday, standard keyboard, the keys are a bit annoying to type with. They sound too much like a typewriter. It’s almost obnoxiously loud and would wake my family if they slept next door. It’s one of those things you have to get used to when using Kailh or Cherry MX Blue mechanical switches.

Typing up documents wasn’t too bad. The draw back here is that words are typed up too quickly. It’s an awkward feeling as words are rapidly misspelled. This was due to the rapidness of keys. It requires you to change their style a bit.

Then some keys appear to be a little slower than others. I often found myself mistyping things which typically doesn’t happen with non-Blue switch boards. However, it might be from lack of experience rather than work.

Another item was that the Backspace button was super soft, almost too much in comparison to the rest of the keys. At first, I thought there might be a manufacturer defect, or it was somehow damaged. It just felt abnormally soft compared to most other keys. The same experience was observed with the Enter and Shift keys. These three keys threw me off whenever pressed. It might be intentional on the part of Tt esports; nonetheless, I was thrown off.

Another thing to note about the Backspace key is that I noticed it sticking. It held for a certain length of time and caused the delete area to go past what was intended. I tried to delete a sentence and ended up erasing a bit more. I found that the standard keys have a bite, a precision to them when pressed down. Overall, I found the MEKA PRO somewhat disappointing for use as a regular keyboard.

Performance Testing – Gameplay

Gameplay consisted of the following games and times:

With Rainbox Six, I found the MEKA PRO had some difficulty pressing some of the video game “hot keys.” For example, to pull up the Ubisoft screen, one had to press Shift-F2. This was rather difficult to accomplish and took a lot of time, one which players usually don’t have.

Also, I don’t like the Enter Key. Some games like this one require quick hits to the Enter button, and it felt unresponsive. I noticed that the mechanical keys tend to make my fingers and wrists a lot more tired as the game went on. With long-term games such as Siege, it requires a lot of holding down buttons and rapid pressing which can be rather tiring.

Overall, it’s just okay for shooter games that keep you under tension or require quick dodges. I found my fingers tiring quickly, beginning to lose a lot of their mobility as the rounds went on, and often when crouching, my pinky would start to tire of holding down all the buttons.

With Rimworld, the MEKA PRO was much kinder. The quickness of the keys made things much easier to move around the map. It was still tiring, but not nearly as much as the previous game. I found this game worked perfectly with a mechanical keyboard. After 3 hours of play time, I liked using these Cherry MX Blue mechanical switches a lot more.

However, the distance between keys was bothering, and the relative softness of the larger keys was a bit off putting, Again, this could be personal bias/preference.

On Mount & Blade, I couldn’t stand the super hard keys. It’s a problem with the F1-F9 keys. They require the top fingers to reach, and considering that the game involves using F1-F9 a lot, it makes it very hard to arrive at these keys without feeling like one is uncomfortably stretching their hands.

Finally, on Total War, there was no noticeable change. A good game play could have been achieved just as easily with a non-gaming keyboard.

Pros:

• Relatively Compact. It fit well with two laptops and a bunch of other stuff on my desk.
• It has excellent ambient lighting in the background, works perfectly at night.
• The alphabet buttons felt fantastic! There’s good response on most keys, and there’s nice feedback.

 Cons:

• Clicking noise on the keyboard is obnoxiously loud thanks to the Cherry MX Blue switches. Fortunately, there are other switches available such as the Cherry Brown and Red. The keys sometimes sound like an M1 Garand reload ping when typed.
• The Enter and Backspace keys felt a bit too soft. It threw the nice tapping of the other keys off a ton. This feels like a gaming keyboard, and those other keys have vast uses when typing. I found that a regular keyboard works much better with it.
• I’m not sure about the issue I have with the F1-F9 keys. I dislike them; it makes it so that for highly tactical games such as Mount in Blade where the F1 key plays a significant role, it is incredibly uncomfortable. It’s possible to key bind these to different keys, but the difficulty of using these in the first place offsets it I felt.
• With the mechanical keys, there’s the issue of my fingers getting tired, especially in games which require a lot of finger dexterity. Fingers lost a lot of strength quickly and were tired by the end of the game. Plus, there was one sticky Backspace key.

Final Thoughts and Ratings

The MEKA PRO mechanical gaming keyboard has a list price of just under $90. Fortunately, it’s available on Amazon for $20 lower at the time of publishing.

There are scores of gaming keyboards available each with a variety of features, so shoppers will compare until they find the right keyboard for them.

What do you think of this Tt esports MEKA PRO keyboard review? Do you agree or disagree with our verdict? Let us know in the comment section below or via social media. We’re eager to hear your thoughts.

Don’t hesitate to head over to the Tt esports homepage to see their current line-up of products. The Tt esports Black FP gaming mouse comes with a 2-year warranty. Should you need to reach Customer Support, click on this link.

This review was co-written with Gamer Jack Yang. All photographs are the copyrighted property of Thermaltake or Beantown LLC © 2017.

FTC Disclosure: Tt esports provided Beantown LLC with one (1) MEKA PRO mechanical gaming keyboard sample for review purposes. Both writers opinions are 100% their own and neither are paid product ambassadors.