Closer Examination

The foam sheet does a decent job of keeping dust away and protecting the keyboard from minor shipping issues. Remove it and we get our first good look at the keyboard. The Tt eSPORTS MEKA PRO has an entirely black ABS plastic case on a full-size keyboard. As we saw before, this sample has a modified ANSI layout with a dedicated macro record button, with its red keycap marked as "MK". This is not the heaviest or largest of keyboards - average sums it up well here. There is an internal steel plate to help provide some structural integrity on top of the two-piece plastic casing, which come together to make this a well-built keyboard with minimal flex even under heavy torque.

The bezels are smaller than average on all sides, which keeps the footprint lower than on a lot of other keyboards of this size, but again, this is not unique to the MEKA PRO as it is something the industry as a whole is moving towards now. Aside from the macro button, which is actually a two-position push button, there are also indicator LEDs in the top-right corner which have some Tt customization to them. There is also an indicator LED for MK to show that the keyboard's macro-recording mode is currently active since it is visually difficult to tell otherwise from just looking at the button. The Num Pad has not one, but two sets of secondary functions - the standard Windows OS when Num Lock is on/off and the second when used with the Fn key. This carries over to the rest of the keyboard as well, and Tt eSPORTS has added secondary functionality to a lot of keys.

The location of the primary legends is always up top, even if there are secondary legends next to one. On keys that have it, all secondary legends are generally right below the primary legends. With the LEDs above each switch, the MEKA PRO thus has its primary legends backlit uniformly. The typeface for the legends is fairly clean, and the size of the legends is ultimately more of a bottleneck to backlighting here than the font itself. Adding to the backlighting is the red steel plate underneath, as it nicely supplements the keyboard's red backlighting by peeking through the gaps between the switches and the case as seen above.


On the back, we see a label in the middle with the company logo, all certification stickers, and the unit's serial number. The keyboard has five rubber pads, one in each corner and the middle of the front, and there are two more courtesy of the two feet that each have a rubber pad as well. As it is, the keyboard is not going to budge at all on your average desk surface, which is nice. The two feet can be raised to elevate the keyboard if need be, and we see also here that their pads are very thick to prevent any scratches.


The keyboard's cable is non-detachable and comes out of a cutout in the middle at the top. There are no cable-routing options, though, which would have helped manage the 6' long cable in instances where you do not need all that length or have something in the middle blocking the cable's path. The cable is non-braided and terminates in a gold-plated standard male USB Type-A connector. USB 2.0 will suffice for power and functionality here given the MEKA PRO's single-color backlighting.


The keycaps follow an OEM profile we associate with Cherry MX and Cherry MX-type switch keyboards, and they are indeed sculpted with a concave top surface and are staggered, which makes it very easy to switch over to the MEKA PRO if you have used a similar keyboard before.

The keycaps are made out of ABS plastic (average wall thickness of 0.98 mm here as well), and the legends are laser etched or pad printed depending on the legend type, similar to the replacement keycaps we saw before. Backlighting favors the legends at the top as expected, which bodes well for the primary legends and the secondary legends next to them, but leaves the other secondary legends lit up less uniformly. In a keyboard with nothing but red backlighting, the lower brightness on the secondary legends can make them appear orange to the naked eye. We will examine this in more detail in due time. As it is now, the non-standard bottom row prevents the use of the vast majority of replacement keycaps and this, combined with the keyboard-specific legends on the stock keycaps, means you have to use them, which is a shame really since thin ABS keycaps with laser etched/pad printed legends will not last long.


The Tt eSPORTS MEKA PRO uses Cherry MX switches, and this sample has Cherry MX Blue switches. These are not of the RGB-switch variants and thus use the black, opaque housings. The LEDs are mounted separately and at the top, which we expected as well.


Here is a look at the replacement keycaps in action. As with most replacement keycaps, the stems of the switches go in tighter in these than the stock keycaps, so be careful when removing them. Use the keycap puller and wiggle them sideways when pulling out to lower the risk of breaking the switch assembly underneath. The red keycaps go well with the red backlighting as well as the red plate underneath; that is, if red is to your liking to begin with of course.