Driver

There is no software driver support for the Das Keyboard Prime 13, with all functionality being hardware based. As such, I have chosen to combine the Driver and Performance pages into one here.

Performance

There is full N-key rollover USB here, as Aqua's test confirms. If you see just six-key rollover, make sure to use Fn + F12 simultaneously until the indicator LEDs flash to toggle between NKRO and 6KRO. Similarly, no key chatter was detected using Switch Hitter.

There is not much else to describe here which you have not already seen - the Das Keyboard Prime 13 is a fairly standard keyboard in that it does everything expected of a QWERTY keyboard, but better than most office keyboards. It would have been nice to see some options for other typing layouts, however, as I am not a fan of the default QWERTY layout anymore with Dvorak and Colemak having proven to be more efficient. That said, I do recognize that the target audience may not necessarily care to switch and re-learn typing, so I can see where Das Keyboard is coming from.


There are no dedicated media buttons, and the function keys have secondary media functionality. Fn + F5/F6/F7 controls track playback, and Fn + F9/F10/F11 controls volume. The secondary legends do a good job of indicating which does what. In addition, Fn + F1/F2 controls the brightness of the backlighting. There are seven steps of brightness control, including off, so there is plenty of control available here. Lighting is uniform on the primary legends, but the secondary legends, whether below the primary ones or front-printed, aren't as well illuminated, as mentioned previously. At 100% brightness or thereabouts, that should not be an issue.


As always, the sound of a keyboard is based on more than just the switch type. So when comparing sound clips, consider the keyboard as a whole. In this case, I have provided above an example sound clip of me typing on the Das Keyboard Prime 13 sample at ~100 WPM. For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with tactile switches. I did bottom out here, although it is definitely possible not do so for a quieter typing experience. In terms of actuation and bottoming out, the usual Cherry high QC did NOT carry over this time with an average actuation force of 44.70 cN for the MX Brown switches averaged across twenty keys on the sample provided. That said, it is still within spec, and I did not feel it when actually typing, so I will give them the benefit of a doubt here. Not that Das Keyboard could have done much here, though. Bottoming out seemed regular, and nothing else jumped out at me that was any different from the rest.