Thermaltake X1 RGB

Big, heavy and blisteringly quick.

Thermaltake has been quietly beavering away making affordable and genuinely great gaming keyboards for a long time now — the Poseidon Z is a particularly fine example — so in unboxing the more premium-priced X1, we were expecting great things.

Out of the box, the first thing that struck us is just how heavy the X1. Weighing a cookie under 1.6kg and at 46 x 17cm, this is a robust slab of key-bejewelled metal that takes a commanding amount of real estate on the desk, even without the wrist rest. The X1 comes in two Cherry mecahnical switch flavour options; Blue or Silver (which costs 10 bucks more). Our review unit was fitted with the latter — and we were so enamoured, we reckon these’ll be our go-to switches from here on out. With a 1.2mm actuation and 3.4mm travel combined with no physical pressure point, the Cherry Silvers are super quick, and as long as you’re not a rage gamer, super quiet. Key spacing here is also spot-on, making banging out paragraphs comfortable.

You also get headphone and USB passthrough (keep in mind the X1 will eat two USB ports on your PC to utilise this feature) and media controls — including a very Corsair K-series volume scroller. A nice touch is the included pack of red replacement keycaps for the core gaming WASD nesting, although this does muddy the backlighting in that region just a touch.

The X1 also boasts its own mobile app which allows users to switch macro sets on-the-fly. You can control lighting colours and preconfigured modes from the app... with your voice, which absolutely no one needs to do that. Ever.