We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. Not everybody wants a keyboard with every possible feature packed into it. Many of the keyboards we consider the best options for gamers are very large: They take up a ton of space on your desk and you aren't going to pack them up when you leave your setup for vacation or a work trip. There are plenty of reasons to want something that's high-quality, but more compact. If you agree, then Cooler Master's tenkeyless keyboard, the SK630 ($139.99), is a solid option. This lightweight keyboard feels wonderful to type on and has a look you aren't going to find in many other gaming devices. It doesn't have the bells and whistles we tend to expect in a high-end peripheral, but it presents a strong argument for setting different priorities. Keep A Low Profile, But Make an Impression Since we don't review many of them, let's start by talking about low-profile keyboards. The defining characteristic of a low-profile keyboard is that it uses a switch with a quicker actuation point and less overall travel, so your finger doesn't press as far down to actuate a key. If you've used a laptop, then technically you've used one. Low-profile mechanical keyboards aren't especially common, but they're becoming more popular among smaller manufacturers and users who like to customize their keyboards. Though the SK630 is a low-profile board, the keys feel comfortable to type on, with good travel. There are a couple of factors that make it a great typing experience. First, the difference between the actuation of the SK600 series and standard gaming keyboards is not that great: The Cooler Masters use Cherry MX Red Low-Profile switches, which reduce the "pre-travel," or the distance needed to actuate a key, from 2mm to 1.2mm and the distance of a full press from 4mm to 3.2mm. Crucially, the Red Low-Profile switches require the same amount of force to press as the original, so if you've used a keyboard with linear switches before, you'll feel right at home. The SK600 keyboards also use flat chiclet keycaps, with only the smallest circular indentations in the center of each square key. The distinctive shape helps make the keys feel a little taller, as if you're pushing down further. Based on the feel, you might even think the travel is longer instead of shorter than average. The square keys also contribute to the SK630's dense look. The keys are packed tightly together; at first glance, I thought the board looked pretty crowded. That feeling is not entirely unfounded—even with 6-key rollover protection, clumsy typists like myself will find themselves pressing multiple keys the first time they use the board. Still, it doesn't take long to get a feel for things and adjust to the fact that there aren't gaps between edges of the keycaps. All of this shifting and condensing allows the SK630 keyboard to be very compact. It measures 353.5 by 125.5 by 29.8 millimeters (13.9 by 4.9 by 1.2 inches), which is tight even for a tenkeyless board. Its keys sit flat on a brushed aluminum base, with the switches exposed. The look, especially with white keys, reminds me of Apple's Magic Keyboard—just a bunch of keys floating on silver. It's really nice if you want a minimalist workspace (or a gaming keyboard that doesn't look like a gaming keyboard). Since the switches aren't covered by the keys, the board's RGB lighting can get remarkably intense. Light shoots up through the text and around the edges of every key, reflecting off the aluminum edges of the board. As a result, the colors look deeper and more saturated than those of most gaming keyboards. Depending on the color and/or pattern, I found the more intense palette could be either beautiful or overpowering. In particular, the rainbow swirling pattern that many keyboards use as a default is quite distracting because there's so much constantly changing color. Luckily, if the lighting ever gets to be too much for you, it's incredibly easy to change it on the fly, even without launching the keyboard's configuration software. The SK600 series' critical feature is a secondary function key, bearing the Cooler Master logo, which gives you a range of extra options including the ability to customize your RGB lighting and create macros. Creating custom lighting and hotkeys on the fly is easy if you know the hotkeys, but there are a lot of them so it can take some time. (I strongly recommend keeping the manual handy as it has a list of the commands.) You have a surprising amount of control. For the lighting, you have the ability to cycle through presets; adjust the color by adding more red, green, or blue; and record separate foreground and background effects. When making macros, you can record them, assign them, and set them to play out a single time, repeat, or play on a loop. I personally felt I had more nuanced control using Cooler Master's configuration software—for example, it's much easier to decide between shades of a single color that way—but if you aren't too picky you can get a lot done. The function key also adds a number of other useful hotkeys by default, including media keys and the ability to swap between the keyboard's four onboard profiles. While these don't add anything you can't get using hotkeys on another board, having such a large number of preset functions, complete with icons on the keys to let you know where they are, makes the SK630 feel very versatile. Lastly, I think it's really useful that the SK600 keyboards, particularly the smaller SK630, have detachable USB-C cables. Making the cord removable emphasizes how portable the board is. There are a growing number of players, including esports competitors and people who bring gear to game conventions, who would benefit from having a keyboard that's easy to throw in a bag without worrying about a snagged cable. Given its form factor and the fact that it weighs just 1.22 pounds, I can't think of a better option for those players. Peering Through Portal Though you can configure the lighting and record macros using secondary function commands, the SK600 series keyboards are compatible with a version of Portal, Cooler Master's configuration software. While it gets the job done for the most part, Portal is rather barebones compared with other manufacturers' programs. The software looks and feels flat. Some of the text is low-resolution, making it hard to scan. The menus are easy to navigate, though it sometimes feels as if there should be more to them. Technically the only thing you can't do without Portal is remapping keys. That sounds like a big achievement until you look at Portal and realize there wasn't that much to change in the first place. One place Portal actually falters with the SK630 is profile management. The keyboard can store up to four onboard profiles; at this point five onboard profiles is an unofficial standard so this is a little low, but certainly in the ballpark. The bigger issue is that Portal can't store additional profiles on your PC. Technically, you can export profiles you've created as .PRF files, then reinstall them, but you can't easily switch between onboard and stored profiles on the fly or reconfigure backup profiles. It makes using profiles for individual games, beyond a core one or two, a larger pain than it needs to be. Still, Portal gets the basics right: You can quickly find the settings you'll most likely want to change, and make those changes without issue. And while you can adjust your RGB lighting, switch profiles, and record macros without it, I still found it easier to fine-tune everything with a settings menu and a visual guide. It's just a shame because Portal feels like a flimsy support structure for what is generally a very polished piece of kit. Low-Profile Doesn't Mean Lower-Priced While the SK630 is by no means a unique proposition, it's different enough from the average gaming keyboard that it's hard to judge its value relative to other devices we cover. That said, at $139.99, Cooler Master is effectively arguing that it's worth as much as our favorite midrange to high-end keyboards. While the core typing experience feels just as polished as that of a HyperX Alloy Elite or a Corsair K70 RGB MK.2, it doesn't have USB pass-through, macro keys, or any of the other features that collectively make us willing to shell out so much. (Given that, it's worth noting that at the time of publication, Amazon was selling the SK630 for $90.65, which is a more appropriate price.) That isn't a knock against the quality of the SK630. It's a pleasure to type on and deviates from what we've come to expect from gaming keyboards in a refreshing way. Can we dare to hope that Cooler Master and other vendors will continue to expand and refine the low-profile mechanical keyboard category? We're keeping our fingers crossed. Cooler Master SK630 Gaming Keyboard Bottom Line: Cooler Master's light, compact SK630 gives us good reason to start thinking more about a low-profile mechanical keyboard.

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