QPAD Flux 65 Model 5 gaming keyboard review

I can only think of two reasons to get a 65% gaming keyboard instead of, at the very least, a tenkeyless: you either have a desk the size of a playing card, or you actually fell for the Alt+F4 trick once, and now harbour an everlasting bigotry towards the Function keys that conspired in your humiliation. Regardless, we’re all friends here, and boards this dinky can have a time and a place – especially if they’re as good as the QPAD Flux 65 Model 5.

It’s not perfect. For 120 quid I would’ve liked less plastic and more metal in the casing, and there are no flippy feet to adjust the height. Everything else, though, is lovely. The mechanical switch design is a super-smooth, magnetic/Hall effect Gateron number, which makes keystrokes briskly responsive with just the tiniest, perfectly judged amount of resistance, keeping individual presses feeling tight and purposeful. Plastic shell or no, build quality is top-shelf too: keys are solid and stable, and the interior is dampened up the nines, so the whole thing stays strong without producing any bothersome pinging sounds on a bottomed-out press. For typing, while I’d personally prefer a higher angle, it’s been comfortable enough for RPS writing duties and hasn’t fatigued a single finger.

The accompanying app, meanwhile, looks a tad amateurish (and installer triggered a Windows Defender warning), but out of its dull grey menus spill customisation option upon customisation option. These range from the usual stuff, like macro recording and backlight controls, to the kind of per-key Rapid Trigger and actuation distance settings (the latter being a key perk of magnetic switches) that could keep keen peripheral mechanics amused for hours. For everyone else, the Model 5 is a fine keyboard all by itself. It even has the same 8K polling rate as that Turtle Beach Burst II Pro mouse, except this being a wired keyboard, there’s no battery life for that feature to needlessly gobble.

Quick Kits is a hardware review series about pouring as much fully-tested PC gear knowledge down your eyes as we can – within two or three paragraphs.