The Aukey KM-G6 is a mechanical keyboard made for those on a budget. Featuring LED backlight keys with lighting animations and gaming lighting configurations, and also having a full mechanical keyset, the Aukey KM-G6 is a great keyboard for anyone who wants a full blown mechanical keyboard at an affordable price.
The most well known mechanical keyboard switch is the Cherry MX switch, but you won’t find any of these for under around £70. The Outemo blue switches that the Aukey KM-G6 use are just as good, and feel exactly the same as Cherry MX Blue’s, but just a little louder. The Aukey KM-G6 keyboard uses these switches, and they offer a great typing and gaming experience.
The keyboard body is mainly made of of aluminium, with plastic lining around the edges. This means that the keyboard weights over 1 kilogram, giving it a really hefty and sturdy feel, that makes it feel high quality. The keyboard also won’t move around the desk, as the weight keeps it firmly in place on rubber feet. On the back of the keyboard, you’ll find two kickstands that allow you to raise the back of the keyboard if you want.
Using the standard keyboard layout, QWERTY, the keyboard has 104 keys, including a full numpad. Each key had an individual fixed colour RGB light underneath, that can be turned on and off, brightness changed and more. I’ll go into the lighting a little later in the review. The key caps are made out of a matt black feeling plastic, that puts up well against keyboard use. The keycaps allows the colour of the RGB to shine through, so you’ll be able to see your keys even in the dark.
Now onto the interesting bit – the keyboard switches. These switches are called Outemo Blues, and work and feel very similar to Cherry MX Blue’s. They deliver a nice travel, and a very audible click sound that lets you know when the key is activated – great for gaming. When the key is depressed, you feel a bump, and then a click that lets you know when the key is activated. Every single key on the Aukey KM-G6 has this switch, and it works great. I’ve used the keyboard to type up a few essays, this blog post, half a book and a few other long form writing pieces. I’ve also done a lot of gaming on it, and it works great. The typing experience is amazing, and it’s on par with top end mechanical keyboards I’ve used before.
The RGB lighting is a big feature of this keyboard, and it’s great too. The keyboard comes with eight preset game modes, for popular games such as League of Legends and real time strategy games, which have the lights on for keys that you use in the game. It also allows you to set two custom lighting modes, where you can choose yourself which keys you want highlighted in your favourite games1. There are also animations you can have, such as waves on the keyboard, as well as having the last pressed key left with the light on for a few seconds. You can also change the speed of the animations, as well as the intensity of the light. You can also have all the keyboard lights on so you can easily see where all the keys are if you are doing work in low light.
I really recommend the Aukey KM-G6. It’s a great keyboard on a budget, and you won’t find much difference between it and the top end keyboards on the market. You can get it on Amazon for £36.99 (at time of writing).
Thanks for reading!
- I have a custom lighting mode for Skyrim. ↩