Turtle Beach Vulcan II Max – Optical-Mechanical PC Gaming Keyboard, Customizable RGB Illuminated Keys and Palm Rest, Smart Keys, Titan II Smooth Linear Switches, 200M Keystroke Durability – White

love the feel of the keys, dampened stroke, which is my preference. Lighting is great, very sturdy

After reading the weird mixture of reviews on Amazon I thought I would throw my hat into the ring and talk about the New Vulcan II TKL Pro. Its clear that Roccat/Turtlebeach are trying to jump on the wagon of the new lineup of analog "pro" keyboards like the huntsman V3 and 60HE/80HE, and apex Pro and etc.First Impressions:The keyboard honestly looked pretty nice out of the box. Chassis is fairly rigid thanks to the aluminum top plate. Most of its competitors feature a similar build so no complaints there. It's fairly light in comparison to the enthusiast keyboards like my Aula F75. Typing feel was ok. Main letdown was the keycaps. I didn't like the shape and they just felt odd/cheap. I ended up swapping them with Womier's Pudding keys that helped a lot and wasn't too pricy. The keyboard I believe has Gateron's KS20 hall effect switches. My example had inconsistent lube application resulting in some keys sounding/feeling better than others. The switches appear to be soldered like the older Vulcans. Gaming performance is solid and the rapid trigger mode works a treat. Was told by Turtle beach that a "SnapTap" mode was coming by the end of the year. The software is ok but could use further refinement. Its far better than the software of keyboards like my Aula F75 but compared to SteelSeries or razer it lacks polish and has weird quirks when apply macros or adjusting settings.Summary: I think at is current price point of around 120-130 dollars its honestly a pretty solid value for money. You will need to fork out another 10-20 bucks for keycaps but that still puts you below the price of its competitors that are running 160-230 dollars. The lacking software is a definite flaw but should improve with time. Personally I would give it a 4/5. Just a bit more refinement and this keyboard would really be up their with the best of them.

This keyboard is really a game changer. It sounds fantastic, every keystroke is a buttery smooth thock sound without any squeaking, rattling, or pinging. The key stabilization is very good and the spacebar sounds great. When I am playing games I set it to 1.2 MM actuation point with rapid trigger on WASD + CTRL + SPACE and it certainly gives a faster and more accurate input. It is truly a noticeable difference that gives a distinct competitive advantage. This keyboard is also great for typing. I can set a 3.0 MM actuation point for typing which eliminates unintended key presses and makes typing far more accurate and comfortable. The true advantage to this new analog switch technology is that you can customize the actuation point on the fly with different modes and never have to compromise one way or the other. Also, it has a high-quality tactile volume knob, and user friendly function keys spread out on the keyboard which make it so easy to use. I also used the controller emulator and it offers true analog input functionality. This keyboard comes in about $100-$150 less than competing options, and yet it provides one of the best gaming and typing experiences you can get.One thing to consider is that this device is not built like a custom keyboard. However, I have found no problem with the construction of the key switches, stabilizers, and top plate. The floating switch design certainly presents a unique look and experience. I am just surprised how satisfying it sounds despite the unique design. It is very minimalist, and well engineered.

High quality and long lasting. Does its job very well.

Its just fine. Keyswitches feel fine, and it works fine. I feel like it's a weird choice to go with low profile keycaps, but with full height switches. Also I just feel like it's quite expensive compared to some much better options at lower prices.

Awesome keyboard, no issues.

The RGB is spectacular on this Vulcan II Mini and what do you expect? The switches are exposed on 4 sides so the lighting is just some RGB glory.I would say the quality is good and it is packed full of options like the Titan II optical linear red switches. There are 30 Smart keys, it just means the secondary function keys available when using the FN key. The key caps are printed with these extra functions so they are easy to distinguish. According to the manual you can unlock other extra functions using Easy-Shift + so it seems to me that you can program your own extra functions you may need.The switches claim to fame is the 200 million life cycle! That’s impressive and the actuation is a mere 1.4mm with 45 grams force. The keyboard has a 1000 Hz polling rate, wired only and an aluminum top plate. The AIMO provides full RGB customization and it has per key RGB too so you can make every switch a different color.I really do not feel any weight even though the top plate is aluminum, this thing is super light and easy to toss it in a back pack and barely notice it is there.One of the things I like most is the ability to have 5 different profiles set up and the on board memory of 4 mb to store it.The typing angle can be changed for comfort with the flip out kick stands and it gives a bit of lift too.I think this is a great 65% keyboard with a minor issue and that is the sound profile itself. It says it’s a quiet keyboard but I find that it is not. The sound is more clack-clicky than quiet. The switches being red linear sound more like blue clicky switches and quite scratchy. The sad part is they are not hot swap and you can’t remove them to lube or replace. Unless you want to desolder every one of them.I’d recommend the Vulcan II Mini as long as you don’t mind it being a non hot swap board. If Turtle Beach decided to make this with a hot swap pcb I’d say 5 stars all the way.