The Cooler Master Master Keys Pro L White Mechanical Keyboard Review
by E. Fylladitakis on October 21, 2016 8:00 AM EST
Cooler Master is a very familiar brand name amongst enthusiasts, with a virtually endless lineup of products. The company started off as a manufacturer of PC cooling solutions and quickly diversified towards other segments of the market, such as cases and power supply units, to which they owe much of their current reputation. If you are a PC techie, chances are that you owned at least one of their products in the past.
Aside from power and cooling solutions, Cooler Master also diversified towards the peripherals market. Their entrance was cautious at first, but the great success of their first gaming peripherals quickly turned that caution into aggression, with the company filling the market with new products during the past few years. Among numerous other input and audio peripherals, Cooler Master today markets more than a dozen mechanical keyboards.
In today's review we are taking a look at one of Cooler Master’s latest and most popular keyboards, the Master Keys Pro L White. The Master Keys series currently consists of four keyboards that are the company’s main mechanical keyboards, with the “L” and “S” designations denoting a full-size keyboard and a tenkeyless keyboard respectively. They exist in either RGB or white LED variants. The Master Keys Pro L White that we are reviewing today therefore is the full-sized version with the white LEDs.
Packaging & Bundle
We received the Master Keys Pro L White keyboard in a sturdy cardboard box, providing ample protection during shipping. The aesthetic theme on the box is consistent with the austere, “professional” name of the keyboard, being minimalistic and virtually entirely focused on a picture of the keyboard itself.
Inside the box we found the keyboard’s detachable USB cable, a wire keycaps puller, and a very simple but useful quick start guide. The cable is braided and has gold-plated connectors. This is the first time that we found a wire keycaps puller supplied with a keyboard. Wire keycap pullers are much more effective at grabbing and removing a keycap than plastic ring pullers, especially larger keycaps.
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JoeyJoJo123 - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
CODE keyboards are sold with Brown and Green switches also, at least on Massdrop. I got a CODE tenkeyless with browns there for ~$133.74 after shipping not too long ago.I would've gotten a Cooler Master Master keys if it was available in tenkeyless form factor when I was looking for a somewhat portable 2nd mechanical keyboard to put in my LAN PC peripherals backpack. The full 104-keys is a bit too tall to comfortably zip up on my backpack, and I don't think I quite need the numpad when I'd likely just use the WASD keys 90% of the time.
pierrot - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Definitely reminds me of the CODE, and its cheaper too. There might be cheaper options out there but they dont have the minimal style. I wish this was out back when I was shopping for a kbl8gravely - Wednesday, October 26, 2016 - link
I've got two CODE keyboards, so I was interested in seeing this review, but I feel it left of some important details.1. Can I re-program the damn caps lock to be a Control key in hardware? I *never* need to use CAPSLOCK in my life, so putting the Control key back on the home row for this die hard emacs user is a key (sorry for the pun!) feature.
How durable will the key caps be? My CODEs are already showing wear on the keys, to the point that the A key isn't much more than a blob of white surrounded by black.
I do like the cheaper price and I might think about getting one of these down the line.
It is nice seeing that people are starting to realize that good keyboards are well worth the investment, esp for those who use them day in and day out.
MrSpadge - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Dear E. Fylladitakis, I'd appreciate your keyboard reviews even if more you had some spec sheet on the first page, like in other reviews. Switch type and price should be in this list (plus whatever you think is relevant). With that I could take a quick look an judge whether it's worth reading the review.MrSpadge - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Sorry: "even if more you" -> "even more if you"mobutu - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Finally, a simple solid product without big bullshit logos and stupid colours and rgb lighting. Just simple discrete aspect with white light. Excellent.DanaGoyette - Sunday, October 23, 2016 - link
Keyboard replaces the context-menu key with FN, while leaving two Windows keys... fail!When I bought my most recent keyboard, "doesn't throw away the context-menu key" was one of my criteria.
I'll admit that I don't use that key as often as I did in the past, but I still consider the key rather important.
asfletch - Sunday, October 23, 2016 - link
A counterpoint to the conclusion - there is no way in a million years I would have the 'Cougar Attack X3' on my office desk, whereas the CoolerMaster is close to the ideal candidate. As such, I don't see the Cougar as a direct competitor. If anything, this is up against Code, Ducky et al IMHO, and is accordingly priced just fine.BrokenCrayons - Monday, October 24, 2016 - link
I don't care much for mechanical keyboards. The IBM Model M was a good board, but modern mechanical switches are pretty horrible for typing comfort compared to pretty much any decent membrane board. The price premium is pretty much unjustifiable and espoused durability is a checkbox feature rather than representative of reality. In 30 years of computing, I've only seen two keyboards die...the Model M and one cheap Gateway branded membrane board so saying they last longer is, in my opinion, delusional fantasy presented by manufacturers to help justify higher margins in conjunction with clueless computer users looking for a way to make themselves feel better about being willingly taken in by the features list.However, if I had to use a mechanical keyboard, the Cooler Master in this review is one of the very few AT has looked at that I'd consider putting on my desk because this particular version doesn't waste its time with a lot of no-value-added macros and rainbow lighting. Still, I'd firstly stick with the keyboard built into my laptop before resorting to something like one of these. It'd be an absolute last resort.
nikon133 - Monday, October 24, 2016 - link
I have found my perfect keyboard in Logitech Orion 610 with Brown switches. I'm leftie, so macro keys usually don't mean much to me. On the other hand, I prefer small footstep keyboards but full-size layout with volume and basic media keys included.This looks quite a bit like Orion 610, only without media keys.