Roccat recently sent two RGB gaming keyboards along our way: Pyro and Magma. While Pyro is a high-end keyboard aimed at pro-gamers who wish to upgrade to something fancy, Magma is an economical, entry-level device for beginners. At just $59, it’s obviously not as hardcore as Pyro but it’s definitely worth its low price. More importantly, it even hits some marks that Pyro didn’t manage to hit.
Much Quieter and Lighter
For someone like me who values silence over everything, loud keyboards are a huge no. I am also always hyper-conscious of how much sound my typing makes and of potentially annoying my roommates. While I wrote off Pyro in terms of loudness, Magma is significantly quieter. Since the former was a mechanical keyboard and the latter a membrane keyboard, I already expected Magma to be much quieter. And it came through. The loudest key on the board, the space bar, still isn’t very loud.
Weighing 1100g, Pyro was way too bulky. Magma weighs just 870g, and while it’s also not a tenkeyless keyboard like Pyro, it takes up the same amount of real estate on your gaming desk, but carries less bulk. The keyboard is designed much more strategically. Its keys aren’t coated in aluminum which reduces a lot of the bulk Pyro’s aluminum-coated keys carry. One might think the difference in material will make Magma look flimsy. However, and this is where Roccat’s strategic designing comes in, Magma looks as brilliant and sophisticated as its more expensive counterpart.
Its material is sturdy and full-bodied. It has plastic rims on all four sides, adorned in ridges to enhance aesthetic and grip. The absence of a volume wheel (as we saw on the Pyro) on the board leaves some negative space on it which I actually dig. It makes the keyboard look less clustered. Not every inch of the device has to feature something.
Very Bright Lighting
Magma’s lighting may be too bright for you. It was for me. The keyboard has a transparent front plate through which its lighting passes right through. The RGB lighting includes five light zones of company-branded AIMO lights with two LEDs in each zone. The lighting is quite interesting. Unlike the rainbow lighting on Pyro, Magma features single-colored lighting which constantly transforms colors. Fully illuminated in 16.8 million RGB colors, the keyboard is vibrant, striking and bright. But it can be too bright. It exhausted my eyes after a few hours of usage. The transparent plate should’ve ideally had a filter or a shield to make the lighting less overbearing. Not only does it look a little too domineering, it may also come off as tacky to some.
Great Key Roll Over
Magma features exceptionally smooth 26 key roll over. It also supports anti-ghosting which means it enables you to press more than six keys simultaneously. I can personally vouch for both of these facts. During an intense game of Asphalt, I was slamming on as many keys as I thought could save me in that moment – and the keyboard didn’t give me any issues. However, actuation on Magma isn’t ideal, or at least as compared to Pyro. The keys are slightly hard and you have to apply significant amount of force to register your keystroke on it.
Accompanied with a detachable palm rest, Magma promises comfort. What particularly surprised and impressed me was that the palm rest on this keyboard was considerably tighter and more robust than the one on Pyro. Since both the boards were a part of the same series released one after another, I didn’t expect their palm rests to be very different. I appreciated how tightly it attached to Magma’s body and didn’t come out despite me slightly jerking it.
In terms of compatibility, Magma is very easy to work with. It comes with a 1.8m USB cable that has a keyboard print stamped on the side that is supposed to face up when you insert it. This means you won’t go through the mandatory process of plugging each side in to realize what the right side is. The USB cable goes with any port USB 2.0 or higher. As soon as you plug the cable in, there’s a pop-up and in around 12 seconds, the board is ready to be used. The connectivity time was slightly longer, three seconds to be exact, compared to Pyro’s, but that’s negligible difference.
Final Word
Magma is a brilliant keyboard for just $59. It comes with a two-year warranty. It is a solid device with great roll over, silent keystrokes and brilliant lighting. If you avoid extremely bright lights, look elsewhere.
Is It Hardcore?
Hell yes.
Roccat’s Magma RGB Gaming Keyboard could have benefitted from slightly subtler lighting and better actuation. However, its silent keystrokes, ideal weight and a firmly-affixed palm rest makes it worth its very reasonable price.
