deskthority

The gist

If you are in a hurry this is the gist:

The good

• €139. Very aggressively priced mechanical keyboard with RGB backlight
• Lots of backlight modes and an easy to use software to customize them
• Full size and TKL options
• ANSI and ISO options
• MX Blue, Red, Brown options
• Clean design with minimal branding

The bad

• Very low quality PCB-job
• Badly designed legends
• Bad acoustic
• Rubber coating
• Cable management could be an issue

Intro

A little late in the RGB bandwagon, Cooler Master finally released its own RGB keyboard. It seems you can’t be a serious manufacturer if you don’t have at least one RGB model in your catalog. Cooler Master took their time to release the MasterKeys, they probably wanted to be sure to do it right...

CM is one of the few keyboard manufacturers that look at both the EU and US markets. We all know how problematic is to release a product in Europe, so I can only praise CM’s efforts in that regards. Unfortunately the same care should be devoted to product development, what is really lacking here is attention to details and a better beta test phase.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The outside

The box is very simple and nicely done. Contrary to the Novatouch (but similarly to other CM products) there’s no waste of packaging material, so it gets my 5-stars eco-friendly sigil. Thank you CM.

Aesthetically the keyboard is very close to the Novatouch. Very simple lines, no branding, black and elegant. Everything a gaming keyboard nowadays is not. Kudos to CM design choice and I hope they will keep this trend.

The Pro S is the TKL version, a full size will also be available but I explicitly requested the smaller brother.

Unfortunately they once again used the nefarious rubber coating on the case. Let me stress on this: despite what fanboys have to say, the rubber coating has absolutely no functional property. It’s there just because it’s cool. It attracts dirt, dust, grease and it’s impossible to clean. I spilled one small drop of tea on it and now it is stained forever.



The connection port is a micro-USB. The cable is good quality braided and gold plated. USB port on the cable is L-shaped and the connector on the keyboard is on the right. There’s no way to change cable management/orientation and I can see an issue if you need to route the cable far to the right.



All in all it’s a fine board. Looks and feels sturdy, it’s pretty heavy and stands still on your desktop thanks to the more than adequate rubber feet (tilting on the back to obtain a higher angle).

Keycaps and switches

The bad news is that the legends are badly designed, or actually, they seem a bit rushed with noobish alignment errors all over the places.

Let’s count together:

1. PAGE UP is aligned to the center while PAGE DOWN to the left
2. In the "' key, the ' is actually a ,
3. The -_ legends are both incredibly badly aligned
4. In the ~` key, ` is badly aligned to the bottom
5. & is too thick
6. ^ is too thin
7. < and > are too thin and aligned too high
8. ESC is too big
9. (9 and )0 are not vertically aligned between each other
10. , and . are not vertically aligned
11. % is too big
12. { is badly aligned horizontally to [ (same as ]})
13. some letters don’t look correctly aligned to the center or at least to the visual center

I could probably find more if I keep looking but I understand that most wouldn’t notice or care about these issues. I contacted CM about these issues and they assured that they will be working on fixing (some) of them in a very timely manner but I don’t know if the corrections will be already available in the first batch of MasterKeys. CM missed a good beta testing phase here… or well… they didn’t even look at the legends.

That being said, the font type is not the worst I’ve seen and the overall look is good.

Looking under the keycaps you find a nice white plate. Very intelligently CM used white for better radiosity and an augmented Christmas Tree backlight effect.

In fact light bleeds more than it shines through the legends, but let’s talk about that later.

The keycaps are the same old OEM coated with lasered legends that we all love to hate. Nothing bad and nothing good to say about them. There’s very little you can do with keycaps if you want them backlight compatible.

The switches are Cherry original with the very sexy transparent housing. In my case I have MX Browns but Blue and Red will be available too.

Stabs are Cherry plate mounted.

Typing experience

Cherry MX browns are light and just vaguely tactile. The keyboard feels pretty good and returns a satisfying typing experience. The MasterKeys is a solid mechanical keyboard even without backlight.

It is not without fault, though. Before going any further let’s listen to a sound sample.

MasterKeys audio sample

This is a detail of a single keypress:

MasterKeys keypress

Some of you might have heard that little “ping” at the end of each keypress. Here’s an amplified detail of what happens, pump up the volume:

MasterKeys reverb

It’s not terrible to the point of being irritating, but still annoying. I think the keyboard structure should be rethought to optimize acoustics. To be honest even expensive Filco keyboards suffer of similar issues, but definitely CM didn’t care much about acoustic. Again, this could have been solved with some beta test. (Just so you know, the WhiteFox has no reverb whatsoever).

In the inside

Screw driver time! Let’s open this bitch!

4 screws total. 1 under the main label, 1 voids the warranty, 2 en plein air.

Removed the top casing (which requires some craftsmanship) you have to deal with two more screws that hold the plate to the bottom. Unscrewed the plate you are presented with a very intricate PCB.



The main processor is a Holtek HT32F1654 (32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 @ 72 MHz); the LED drivers I believe are three little buggers called MBIA043GP, for which I couldn’t find any additional info. The RGB LEDs I’m told are a CM own product, designed for the industrial market by a super secret division I’m not allowed to talk about (no kidding).

The PCB is dirty with some solder paste residue, the solder points are clearly “cold” with a very bad solder job in at least three points.



In all fairness this is a pre-production sample, but it’s clear that CM is trying to keep costs as low as possible in the production lane.

Let there be light

This won’t be long. CM did their homework when it comes to backlighting and the MasterKeys has everything you need… and you don’t need actually.

Video time (sorry upside down ).
Light bleeds everywhere, CM went as far as making the plate white so the effect is even more dramatic. If you don’t look for them, you barely notice the legends. CM succeeded in releasing one of the best USB tanning device; whether that is good or bad is up to you to decide.

The number of Backlight options is almost embarrassing. Apart from the usual all-on, breathing, rainbow, you get some as fancy as useless ripple effect, rain, color cycle, starry night and even a Snake-like mini game.

I’ve found the “custom mode” probably the nicest of all and the only one I would probably use. By pressing FN+F10 you enter a backlight editing mode where you can pick the keys you want lighted (or not) and of course their color. You can do that directly on the keyboard or you can more easily customize your unicorn vomit keyboard with a dedicated software (Windows only).

The software is less horrific than you’d expect for a gaming keyboard, it’s a bit slow but well designed and it also takes care of updating the keyboard firmware (when CM release a new one).

Unfortunately the software is just for backlighting, you can’t change the layout in any way, or edit the macros (that the keyboard seems to support).

Every single light effect I tried is just distracting, whatever you are doing on your computer you don’t want the keyboard to spit 16millions colors on your face. You can surely have some fun showing your friends how cool is your new gaming device… if that’s what you are after… but apart from that you’ll probably just use the all-on/all-off mode and possibly the custom mode.

This has nothing to do with the MasterKeys of course, it’s true for any keyboard of this kind, and Cooler Master here did everything right.

What I was promised and couldn’t actually test is the SDK. CM will soon release a set of developer’s tools that should let you interact with the keyboard in the most interesting ways.

It will be used mostly in games I reckon, for example the keyboard could change color based on your character health status, but in the right hands the API could become a very interesting tool.

An LED could flash when you get a new mail for example, or when your twitter feed updates. You could create new backlight effect or even mini games. I hope CM will release the SDK soon and I’m looking forward to putting my hands on it. Until then I find RGB backlight just a gimmick.

More features

The keyboard has an interesting FN layer, mostly dedicated to media keys (play, pause, volume up/down, …) but no darn MUTE key. Why?! Only CM knows.

FN+F1/2/3/4 are dedicated to LED management, color and intensity.

FN+F5/6/7/8 is the repeat key multiplier. Useful mostly in gaming, you can make each key press more or less “aggressive”.

FN+F9 windows lock.

FN+F10 lets you program the LEDs Custom mode.

FN+F11/12 macro recording.

Anti-ghosting, N-key roller and a processor that is faster than my first computer. CM Europe couldn’t say what the polling rate is, but I’m pretty sure it’s 1ms (+ debouncing).

Conclusions

I hate wall-of-text reviews in forum posts, let’s try to sum it up.

The MasterKeys Pro S is a backlit TKL mechanical keyboard with a MSRP of €139. The review could stop here.

You are getting a nice looking mechanical keyboard with full RGB backlight for a price last year you could only dream to get a decent keyboard (let alone backlit).

Unfortunately to do so Cooler Master had to cut costs everywhere they could. The PCB quality and QC are evidently low, keycaps design is rushed, acoustic just so-so, API not ready at launch. They had one year to design it right and they really missed a great opportunity.

I do not understand why they don’t ask for feedback before going live. I would probably do it for free, but the goal here is not to build the perfect keyboard, just a good product that sells to the average user. We are probably not the target reference but it hurts nonetheless, because it would take so little to fix the few issues.

So, it’s not a quality keyboard, but it’s a good deal for €139 (surely less in the coming months), BUT of course they have to fix at least the PCB quality, because as it is now it’s pretty bad and I don’t know if I could recommend it.

One last thing. I’m pretty sure the firmware and CPU are more than capable of handling custom layouts. CM already have a good software to update the backlighting, why not let people also customize the layout? Backspace in place of | is something I’d love to have as the Mute key, and possibly PGUP/DOWN on FN+Arrow UP/DOWN too.

Hi Matteo,

Thanks for the review!

As you know we are working/worked on a few things (as since you have a pre-release sample)
- Legends: will be changed (and double checked by you if you want, we have each other on Skype ghehe)
- PCB: Soldering pictures are forwarded and will be watched for mass production QC too

Anyway, thanks for the time taken to spend and write this review.

CM Bram wrote: ↑ - Legends: will be changed (and double checked by you if you want, we have each other on Skype ghehe)

of course I want! You should contact me earlier!

CM Bram wrote: ↑ - PCB: Soldering pictures are forwarded and will be watched for mass production QC too

happy to hear, I'll add a note to the review.

Great review, but I am sad to hear that CM Storm is going down the same route as the other manufacturers and prefer to bling out their boards instead of looking at the pure typing quality again.

This means something Costar-good, like the Quickfire Rapid (first generation without backlight) is never coming back. For a solid Cherry TKL in ISO, it's either Filco or DIY now.

Did you notice whether the stabilizers on this are clipped or not?

shreebles wrote: ↑
This means something Costar-good, like the Quickfire Rapid (first generation without backlight) is never coming back. For a solid Cherry TKL in ISO, it's either Filco or DIY now.

If you want that why would you buy anything other than filco anyway ? Its the go to costar style board for a standard no frills layout.


The board looks nice , but for me backlighting is not a thing so i will buy a filco or if i want MX layout with better feel a novatouch.

shreebles wrote: ↑Did you notice whether the stabilizers on this are clipped or not?

you mean with a screw?

matt3o wrote: ↑The keycaps are the same old OEM coated with lasered legends that we all love to hate. Nothing bad and nothing good to say about them. There’s very little you can do with keycaps if you want them backlight compatible.

ABS doubleshot:



Vortex and Ducky make them (can be seen on the One and Shine 5). The Ducky set can be found new from retailers for just 25€, and even Chinese keyboards have been using them for a few months now. A bit thicker than the average OEM caps, and of course more durable by design. I am a bit disappointed to see that CM chose cheapness over quality there too.

Thanks for the review, I appreciated the part about sound which is too often forgotten. Not too surprised about the issue you're mentioning, it's found in many commercial keyboards anyway (and it's one of the reasons I'll probably never buy one again, custom FTW).

matt3o wrote: ↑

shreebles wrote: ↑Did you notice whether the stabilizers on this are clipped or not?

you mean with a screw?

I see now how one might misunderstand this question. Of course stabilizers clip to the PCB and screw-in stabilizers are only found on old boards.

No, I meant clipped as in, modded, "legs clipped". A popular mod that I feel is essential to removing Cherry stabilizer mushiness. According to reviews, this has been done at the factory for some more recent Cherry stabilizer-equipped boards.

I understand that you cannot see it without desoldering the PCB from the plate, but if you have ever done the mod you will feel it instantly.

workshop-f7/cherry-corp-stabilizers-gim ... t2780.html

andrewjoy wrote: ↑ If you want that why would you buy anything other than filco anyway ? Its the go to costar style board for a standard no frills layout.

The problem is that for me, no board delivers like the QFR did, and it is amazing for the price range. The Filco is multiple times the price that a QFR was, without actually delivering that quality. A MJ2 sounds more hollow than a QFR, and the latter is very easy to dampen. Although I do have to give them credit for making modern MX Brown keyboards that don't ping, overall I think price and quality are a mismatch on the Filco. ABS caps, non-detachable cable, and a case that does not beat the old Quickfire Rapid grey case (no branding, no soft-touch surface), for a much higher price.
Also I had tried a Filco MJ2 where the paint on the plate was chipped and the plate rusted underneath. I've not seen that on a QFR.
Problem with the QFR is the quality of the PCB, but that is only an issue if you want to put in your own switches.

All in all it's a shame they don't sell boards like that, I'd love a board like the QFR but with LEDs.

andrewjoy wrote: ↑The board looks nice , but for me backlighting is not a thing so i will buy a filco or if i want MX layout with better feel a novatouch.

Well, better feel is subjective of course. I had a Novatouch for a while and silenced it, it's great for a work board when you don't want to make any noise, but my daily driver is still a Cherry(Zealio) based board.

I see.

First of all, let me say that I'm a costar stabs fan. I really don't like any cherry stab variant. That being said for some reason these masterkeys stabs are less mooshy than I'm used to. Definitely better than the V60's for example. I don't know why, I can't say if they are "clipped" or maybe just lubed, but anyway they work pretty well.

If they are less mushy they are probably clipped. If the stabilized keys go "clack" like the rest of the keys, they are clipped.

On a stock G80 for example, all the keys go clack, except for the stabilized ones which go "thunk". While thunk is definitely an agreeable sound, the feeling is mushy. After clipping, they also clack but feel much nicer.

I hated Cherry stabs and preferred Costar, until I tried clipped and lubed Cherry stabilizers. Now I prefer the latter, because they are more compatible with keycaps, caps are easier to change, and no risk of losing the small stabilizer inserts. They feel the same if not better.

matt3o wrote: ↑The MasterKeys Pro S is a backlit TKL mechanical keyboard with a MSRP of €139. The review could stop here.

I think I might already have a buyer as someone recently asked me about recommendations for a Cherry MX backlighted keyboard. I'll see if I can make him wait until this one is released.

EDIT: He might want an ISO version though.

Thanks for a great review. I'm considering this keyboard and have a few questions regarding the on-the-fly macro programming:

1. Is the Fn layer programmable? I.e. assign a macro to Fn-C. Or create an Fn arrow cluster under my right hand
2. How easy to swap/remap keys on this keyboard. In particular I want to swap backspace with \, Caps lock with L_ctrl
3. Can Fn key be moved to other keys such as left ctrl?

Thx for the review..Sounds like a nice attempt by "Cooler Master" to get sum gamer folks in their corner...
Would i get one ? Or recommend someone get one??

Wel to be honest...no
I would advise you to add €20 and go on ebay and grab a nice Filco TKL board..And if you'r nice you can even find someone to help out with the hassle of customs and so on..

Or just save up , and grab a nice Poker3 or sum "input-Club" TLC..hahahaha

To bad manufactures don't distinguish them selfs from the masses by giving us something really unique like CM did with their first Topre mx-compatible board..Potentially a great product but they had to F-up the build

i think it's time for them to give us sum nice ergo-clears hahahaha That would instantly make me a CM fan-boy hahah.

I was looking at the release page and notices this snippet:

If six or more keys are pressed, it automatically switches over to N-key rollover.

Could you test if it works in Linux? They mention iOS, but that's probably because of Noppoo Choc Mini and a few other NKRO boards that don't work on it.

Very nice review,

I can fully agree on the rubber coating, that finish is a step up from the glossy ones but it is still a fingerprint magnet.
Once I owned a QFR and had to remove the rubber coat because it was impossible to clean, sold this board later.

The caps are also quite ugly for my taste but that is the sacrifice you have to bring with backlit.
And I do not blame CM here, they still stay very decent compared to other "Gaming" products.
We are just a fraction of the potential market and the bigger mass want's backlit, so CM has to please them first.

Usually I feel a strong urgency to vomit over Gaming-Christmas-Trees but CM did a nice job here, I'd swap the caps anyway.

The price is nice but It's sad that PBT isn't standard for mechanical caps... Dropping that much on a keyboard just to buy aftermarket caps for 50+ is quite frustrating.

CM Storm made another QFR case before the rubber-coated one. IIRC it was only on the MX Black versions. Rough, grey plastic. Looks really good especially with white keycaps. Almost metal-like.

It's the best case CM storm ever made IMO, easily beats the QTK, Novatouch, and the Masterkeys too probably since it's the same as the Nova.

IMO, on par with the Filco MJ2 cases, although those may last longer because they're not spray-painted.

returning to this review and in particular the target audience for this keyboard.
sum times i'm surprised by companies thinking most consumers don't want to pay a bit more for a product.?

It's all about the marketing and i don't mean you should stand on a soapbox and shout propaganda
Consumers can spot and are indeed fed up with that so they think a product should cost x or y because that's the reference they have of mass production.

We don't have to look far to see that there is a better example. Apple is banking on old fame the fame that they used to have in regards to quality above all else.

Let me give you a different example. Years back it was known that if you wanted to have a good quality computer case.
you bought a Cooler Master case design and quality best in the market..but there was a big opening untaped market share left open. Where brands like "Fractal Design" stept in and got a big slice of the pie.. Stil CM is doing a good job like with the "MasterCase Pro 5" in short don't be afraid to look at the competition and perhaps have a higher line.. Like ducky is doing with their newer line one..

heaving said that i can appreciate a budget keyboard..to wheel in people with a little budget. So now it's time for a second line perhaps later this year The community is ready to help..

people like matt3o know what they are doing..And critical people like my self love to help..helping the guys from Wooting.nl was real fun..and CM did an awesome job on hosting the first keyboard meetup in the Netherlands ..we rooting for you

TuxKey wrote: ↑people like matt3o know what they are doing..And critical people like my self love to help..helping the guys from Wooting.nl was real fun..and CM did an awesome job on hosting the first keyboard meetup in the Netherlands ..we rooting for you

???

There have been keyboard meetiups in the Netherlands before, not too far from webwit's hometown I believe.

Nice review, man. I'm trying to open mine. Could you please indicate where the other three screws are ?

You said one is under the back label, I can see that. I can see two more (?) on the front plate near the Enter and Tab keys. But I cannot find the other three on the back.

Thanks

Nevermind, it's morning here. They were there, in plain sight.

Can you please, however, confirm the positioning of the two on the front?

I don't have it at hand, but I seem to recall that 2 screws were under the label, one of them under the "warranty voids if removed" sticker (or something like that). The other two are just there in plain sight

I got a cheap rapid-I on ebay a little while ago and was still planning on havesting the MX reds from it at that time. It felt like a terrible waste so I instead put some effort into cleaning it - with a very little care for the keyboard. It either cleaned up perfectly or went back to the havesting stack. So I removed the whole case (same rubber coated plastic here) and put it into the dish washer at ~40°C

Came out perfectly clean and very cool looking. Ended up cleaning the rest of the keyboard and use it to display custom keycap sets.

Just saying ... maybe the dish washer can get those tea stains out?

@matt3o, another quick question. Do you remember by any chance if the RGB LEDs are embedded in the switch or separate from it?

I was thinking of running a little experiment on mine and replace all the switches. But if possible, I'd like to preserve the lights as well.

Thanks

Thanks for the review, mate! I actually like Cooler Master as a company, but I their mechanical keyboards, at least for me, are hit or miss. Still, I appreciate the review.

DrPsyche wrote: ↑

19 Sep 2019, 10:29

shreebles wrote: ↑

16 Mar 2016, 07:16

I see now how one might misunderstand this question. Of course stabilizers clip to the PCB and screw-in stabilizers are only found on old boards.

No, I meant clipped as in, modded, "legs clipped". A popular mod that I feel is essential to removing Cherry stabilizer mushiness. According to reviews, this has been done at the factory for some more recent Cherry stabilizer-equipped boards.

I understand that you cannot see it without desoldering the PCB from the plate, but if you have ever done the mod you will feel it instantly.

https://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/cherry-corp-stabilizers-gimme-back-my-clack-reviewed-

The problem is that for me, no board delivers like the QFR did, and it is amazing for the price range. The Filco is multiple times the price that a QFR was, without actually delivering that quality. A MJ2 sounds more hollow than a QFR, and the latter is very easy to dampen. Although I do have to give them credit for making modern MX Brown keyboards that don't ping, overall I think price and quality are a mismatch on the Filco. ABS caps, non-detachable cable, and a case that does not beat the old Quickfire Rapid grey case (no branding, no soft-touch surface), for a much higher price.
Also I had tried a Filco MJ2 where the paint on the plate was chipped and the plate rusted underneath. I've not seen that on a QFR.
Problem with the QFR is the quality of the PCB, but that is only an issue if you want to put in your own switches.

All in all it's a shame they don't sell boards like that, I'd love a board like the QFR but with LEDs.

Hi,

When I got my CoolerMaster Masterkeys S PBT, I actually didn't realize then that it came with Costar stabs. They always rattle like hell. I've found the topics where guys suggested a way out to silence them: taping the aluminum tape to the insert and lube the wire.

At least you can actually silence Costar stabs. I'd say rattly Cherry stabs are the biggest downfall of Corsair boards.