Closer Examination

As we saw before, the Velocifire TKL02WS keyboard comes in a foam wrap to keep it pristine and free of dust out of the box. Removing it, we get our first good look at the keyboard, and it is on the heavier side of average as far as TKL keyboards go, especially those with plastic cases. Indeed, a lot of this comes from the built-in battery to power the keyboard's wireless operation, but that was not the first thing that caught my eye. Notice how the logo placement is different here compared to the product image on their website and elsewhere. The Velocifire logo is now in a more subtle place, on the front facing the end user, and takes up less real estate as well. In many ways, this just reinforces the comparisons to the Cooler Master Rapidfire TKL, which underwent a similar change with its plastic case. The more I handle it, the more that comparison gets strengthened to where I would not be surprised if the base design is the same.

The keyboard as a whole is very clean and minimalist thus, with an all-black color scheme and no other logos anywhere to be seen. Bezels are average in size, and there are indicator LEDs above the Insert-Page Down key cluster in a similar manner to how they would be on a full-size keyboard. There is no Numpad, of course, and all keyboard-secondary legends are below the primary ones with the general secondary legends located alongside the primary ones. Single legend placement is top and center, which also hints towards where the LEDs are placed underneath the keycaps. The legend typeface is also fairly clean even when accounting for the seams in looped legends via the standard doubleshot-injection process, and the keyboard as a whole will fit into a variety of environments well provided that front logo is not a bother.


Flipping the keyboard around, we see the usual certification sticker in the middle, as well as a QC certification sticker above. There are four rubber pads on the corners in the back to keep the keyboard from sliding around on the desk, and two feet at the top open up sideways to optionally elevate the keyboard, with these feet also having rubber pads to ensure they don't get scratched easily. Finally, there is a cutout in the case at the back to allow for the ON/OFF switch to poke out, with markings alongside to let people know which way to move the switch.


As suspected based on the removable cable we saw before, the keyboard has a USB Type-C port in the center, on the opposite side as the logo, which would ideally be a prime location to have the cable go to the PC. Indeed, the cable allows charging of the battery inside, but also bypasses wireless operation if you want to use the TKL02WS as a wired keyboard over USB. The cable needs an available Type-A USB port on your motherboard, and USB 2.0 will suffice here. In fact, if all you mean to use a USB connection for is to charge the battery, then you can skip the PC entirely and just use a wall socket adapter.


The keycaps have an OEM profile, and the various rows are thus sculpted accordingly. The two-piece case design here means that the keycaps do not have the increasingly popular "floating" implementation, which makes it harder to remove the keycaps easily, but also means there will be less light bleed. In this case with a single color backlighting option, however, that is not a concern regardless. The stock keycaps are made out of ABS plastic, with all general legends (those not specific to this keyboard) doubleshot injected for longevity. There are some legends specific to this keyboard that appear pad printed and the product page says are laser etched, which means these will not last as long regardless and are also opaque. The ABS plastic is thicker than average at ~1.1 mm for the walls, but will still develop a shine due to finger oils, and I would say this is just about average as far as stock keycaps go.


Now we get to what irked me the most about the keyboard, and that is false advertisement, intentional or not. I could excuse the different placement of the logo, especially as Velocifire says this change came about from user feedback, but advertising Outemu Brown switches on the website and in the product manual (which has since been corrected after my feedback), and then having these so-called CONTENT switches was not cool at all. Indeed, talking further to contacts at Input Club makes me believe these are the switches in use, which are also made by Gaote, the makers of Outemu switches, but are not rated as well. These are tactile switches with a brown stem and translucent housing to help diffuse the light from the LEDs we see associated with each switch. The larger keycaps use Cherry-style stabilizers, with the wire being very well lubed, perhaps to a point of overkill, as seen in these images.