The keyboard space has been a bit lukewarm of late. We had previously gotten a flood of Hall effect keyboards, knobs and displays became more mainstream, and more popular keyboards now come with pre-installed foam and pre-lubed switches. After that, however, no major trend forward seems to have materialized. What is more concerning to me, though, is how big-name, established brands are cutting corners and launching arguably inferior keyboards compared to budget and upcoming brands.

It's often understood by consumers that when they are paying for a brand name, they have to accept compromises on certain fronts. However, the pace of progress shown by more affordable brands has thrown into question whether these compromises are acceptable anymore. Consequently, I want to shed light on five areas where the heavyweights of the keyboard industry need to do better to compete with budget brands. They might not need to do this, but they should if they want to stay relevant.

5 Premium build quality and longevity

What are we paying for?

Build quality is something you take for granted when investing hundreds of dollars on an expensive keyboard. Most big-brand keyboards happen to ship with premium materials, robust construction, and above-average longevity. This is not universal, however, across their product stack. The more affordable offerings from these established brands often sacrifice build quality, especially in keyboards priced at $150 and lower.

While this might be necessary to get the product to market at a digestible price, it's not acceptable when newer manufacturers manage to offer considerably more premium keyboards at the same or even lower prices. If you take the example of brands like Akko, Epomaker, Chilkey, and other such budget manufacturers, you will find their $100 mechanical keyboards feel much more premium and well-built compared to the ones from brands like Corsair, Asus, Razer, and Logitech.

You might be investing more in an established brand for a greater degree of trust and better warranty support, but many budget brands also offer long-lasting keyboards as well as great customer support. When you take everything into consideration, it's hard to shake the feeling that the bigger brands are still banking on their name to sell affordable (comparatively) keyboards instead of actually offering products that can go toe-to-toe with many of today's upcoming brands.

4 A clean software experience

Heavy and cluttered software is a drag

This one is a recurring complaint consumers mostly have with the bigger brands. It's not just related to keyboards either, but when someone buys a keyboard or a peripheral, they are less inclined to deal with additional software than when purchasing a CPU, GPU, or SSD. In my experience, programs like Asus' Armory Crate, Corsair's iCUE, and Razer's Synapse are almost always needlessly more complicated than they need to be.

Compared to some of the accompanying software on budget keyboards, where you only deal with the features and options found on your keyboard, the software by the major brands is riddled with bloatware and tons of sections that have no connection to the keyboard. Sure, having a single overarching program for all the brand's products will have multiple sections, but there is always an option to have a simple web app tailored only to the keyboard at hand.

This web app route is what many budget and mid-range brands have taken. Brands like Keychron, Chilkey, and Epomaker have successfully made life simpler for keyboard owners with their web apps that are easy to use and have everything people need to remap keys, customize RGB lighting, program macros, or tweak other settings.

3 Comprehensive feature set and customizability

Are the bigger brands stuck in the past?

One of the biggest misses that I still see on big-brand keyboards is a great feature set. Their expensive keyboards might be stacked with cutting-edge and quality-of-life features, but when you consider their products that compete with budget and mid-range offerings from smaller brands, they often fall short. We've seen Hall effect keyboards with crazy high polling rates from almost every big-name brand, but what about the other facets of a keyboard?

Even some features that have become basic on budget keyboards aren't found on the affordable options from the bigger brands. I'm talking about hot-swappable switches, VIA support, gasket mounts, and multiple switch options. Consequently, expecting customizable displays, multifunction control knobs, and aluminum cases is laughable at best.

They shouldn't just make the argument that people who want more customizability will only go for boutique and lesser-known brands instead of the bigger names. The mechanical keyboard community has grown by leaps and bounds, and users expect every brand to offer the best features possible. In such a market, established brands need to level up their game and launch products that are more in tune with today's users.

2 Great typing sound and feel

After all, what's more important?

I can't count the number of times I have been let down by the typing experience on supposedly superior keyboards from brands like Razer, Logitech, Corsair, and Asus. How your keyboard sounds and feels while typing is a major component of your perceived experience. If my expensive keyboard feels hollow, rattly, or just plain cheap, it negates all the good stuff about the keyboard.

Despite shipping keyboards with sound-dampening material and pre-lubed switches and stabilizers, big-name brands often fail to convert that into a pleasing typing experience on their affordable keyboards. If a budget brand is able to do it at a much lower price, what is stopping the bigger names of the industry from focusing on something that should be the number one priority?

Combined with the restrictive modding capability of these big brand keyboards, this inferior typing sound and feel becomes a challenge that is hard to get rid of. You can't just open up your keyboard to install your own foam, tape mods, or switches when the brand hasn't left you the option to do so. At this point, you're left frustrated with an inferior product you don't enjoy typing on, but you can't afford to buy another because you paid more than you should for it.

1 Competitive value for money

Customers feel shortchanged by overpriced keyboards

All of these issues plaguing big brand keyboards condense into the overarching problem that these established brands are facing when competing with the budget brands — poor value for money. When an upcoming brand is providing a superior typing experience, set of features, and customizability at the same or lower price, why would a consumer still opt for something from the bigger brands?

The keyboard heavyweights should, in my opinion, pivot from doubling down on fancy marketing and unnecessary features to offering keyboards that excel on parameters that actually delight their customers. Instead of limiting a premium experience to their overpriced keyboards, they should try to, gradually at least, trickle it down to their sub-$150 products.

This isn't possible to do overnight, but when people can buy even sub-$100 mechanical keyboards and get a premium overall experience, it's high time the bigger brands treated this as an emergency. They should start by prioritizing the sound and feel of their keyboards, followed by a greater focus on the build quality and longevity. Making the keyboards more customizable should come next on the list.

Major keyboard brands need a reality check

The bigger keyboard brands might not be interested in offering great value at lower price points, but this ends up hurting their reputation when customers are dissatisfied with their purchases. Someone who has only $100 to spend on a keyboard is likely to pick an established brand over others, but banking on this assumption isn't a viable long-term strategy.

If big-name brands want loyal customers who represent greater lifetime value, then they need to wow their first-time customers with excellent products at all price points. Keyboard shoppers today have unlimited options when choosing quality mechanical keyboards, and it isn't long before buyers will start to avoid established brands altogether if they don't step up their game.