Closer Examination

Looking closer at the GamaKay TK75HE shows why spare keycaps might be a good idea, especially if you prefer your stock keycaps to be in one or two colors at most. This is an increasingly common trend now to have a semi-custom keycap set used as stock keycaps to try and differentiate your products from others. The TK75HE comes in two colors, with the white one going for white, light blue, and dark blue keycaps. The black version goes for black, gray, and yellow/gold as seen on the first page. The third color is employed on seven keycaps, and these tend to be the ones that get spare keycaps included in the box by a few brands to match the second keycap color. Either way, I do think this color combination works well enough. As the name suggests, this is a 75% form factor keyboard with 81 keys in total in this modified US ANSI layout. Compared to an 87-key TKL keyboard, you lose out on Insert, End, Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break, and Menu, which isn't the end of the world—you can get these back via layers and/or software key mapping anyway. There is room for a 82nd key here though, and of course the volume scroll wheel in the top right corner takes up some space too. The indicator LEDs are located just to the left of the final key column and bezels are quite small to make this one of the smaller 75% keyboards on the market too. It's also fairly clean with branding on the front bottom right corner only and keycap legends employing a straightforward typeface with location on the top left of the keycaps. Secondary legends are placed above the primary ones, and note that the keycaps are opaque so they won't be backlit anyway.


Turning the keyboard around, we see a two-piece ABS plastic case used to house the GamaKay TK75HE. There's the expected plastic sticker in the middle with the various certification stickers too, and we see four rubber pads at the corners to help add friction against the resting surface. GamaKay also provides two sets of keyboard feet at the top, each with rubber bottoms, for a total of three elevation steps to choose from.


A dedicated on/off switch is also seen on the back to help turn the keyboard on for use in either of the two wireless connectivity modes. Bluetooth is self-explanatory, and helping with the 2.4 GHz mode is a pre-paired low profile USB dongle which is hidden on the back as seen above. This makes for an easy storage compartment when not in use too. Wired connectivity comes in the form of a USB Type-C port in the top left corner on the back facing away from the user. The cable is thick, in white to match the off-white case of the keyboard, is the usual 6' in length, and goes to an available USB Type-A port on your PC where USB 2.0 (USB 3.2 Gen 1) will suffice for power and data alike.


A look from the side shows the built-in elevation of the keyboard, which I would classify as medium profile and can maybe benefit from a wrist rest if you are not used to touch typing with hands hovering over the keys at all times. The provided keycap puller helps remove some of the keycaps for a closer examination, without scratching their sides as with the plastic ring-style cheaper keycap pullers I usually see in the price range of this keyboard. GamaKay is using the OEM keycap profile here with the keycaps being non-floating owing to the use of the two-piece case. They are made of thick PBT plastic (average wall thickness 1.31 mm) with doubleshot-injected legends on the top for durability and longevity alike. These are opaque and thus the LEDs present on the keyboard will be for accent lighting only.


The TK75HE is a Hall effect keyboard using magnetic switches, so naturally there are far fewer switch options here than usual for GamaKay. We saw before how it comes with either the GamaKay Mercury or Phoenix magnetic switches, both of which are linear switches with the latter being a silent switch. Seen above are the GamaKay Mercury switches placed in a south-facing configuration for increased keycap compatibility, even if that does mean the wording on the top now faces the other way. The larger keycaps use plate mounted stabilizers which seem barely lubed out of the box, and there is no sheet between the switches and the plate.


The switch remover tool is handy to remove the hot-swappable switches off the PCB where we see the use of, well, nothing but an SMD RGB LED firing upwards. This is because the Hall effect sensor used is on the other side of the PCB. The switches can be easily removed thus, but of course you can't use standard mechanical switches here. Removing a switch also gives a closer look at the GamaKay Mercury magnetic switch by itself, which is again different from usual in not having any pins for support. The top housing is translucent orange, the bottom housing is light blue, and it uses a dark blue cross-point stem that also has columns around it for added dust and spill resistance.