Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro L
Innocuous black rectangle by day...
The MasterKeys Pro L design is incredibly utilitarian and relatively portable, with a thin bezel and only a few peeks of keyless surface to be seen, but the functionality doesn’t live up to its spartan appearance.
This unit is one of the more wallet-friendly offerings in the RGB world of mechanical gaming keyboards, especially considering the Cherry MX switches. The cable is braided and detachable, plugged in via micro-USB, and there are cablemanagement guides to feed it left, right or centre.
Cooler Master offers a range of three different MasterKeys Pro sizes, the M has an even more crammed surface, melting the numpad into the arrow keys and losing the dedicated profile keys, while the S removes the numpad altogether. Although the regular-sized keys felt sturdy and stable, the spacebar was particularly flimsy and rattled obnoxiously with every tap.
The software allows for per-key RGB control and includes an impressive array of effects, our favourite of which allows you to play a game of Snake on the keyboard, navigating with the arrow keys. While the lighting control is simple and intuitive in the software, it lacks any kind of macro organisation and leaves it up to the physical keyboard to record and manage them. This on-thefly macro management isn’t explained in any documentation and we had to watch a video to figure out the correct keysequence for recording.
Verdict
If you don’t use macros, then this is a fine keyboard, just not the best for the asking price.