- Marketing sucks.
Whether it's the wonderful weight loss benefits
of cigarettes, vitamins that prevent cancer,
or a free Harrier jet if you collect 7 million Pepsi points,
those mad men blow so much smoke our way,
you'd think the studio was on...
Fire!
Wait, that's not the studio.
It's the HP 550 gaming keyboard
that we bought off eBay for 50 British pounds.
Why did we do such a thing?
Because someone's brother on our subreddit bought this thing
that says, "Red mechanical switches,"
which is a weird feature to call out
on a keyboard that is not, in fact, mechanical.
Was HP hoping no one would notice?
Is this thing any good?
Are the switches even colored red?
Yes, they are.
Have I wasted my money?
I know the answer to one of these questions at least.
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- Let's kick things off with the blind tests.
We've got our HP 550
and a similarly priced real mechanical keyboard
with linear switches.
Each test subject will get to feel each board
then see if they can tell them apart
and let us know which one they prefer.
(keys clacking)
- Untrimmed, unlubed.
- It seems pretty cheap, I'd say.
- Is there a clicky?
Feels like a Red switch type beat, yeah?
- There's, like, more satisfying click to it.
- I like the feel of this more than I like the feel of this.
- [Sammy] Okay, I can already tell this is kinda (beep).
Oh, sorry.
(space bar rattling)
- [Tester] Those stabs suck.
(keys clacking)
- Those are weird. (chuckles)
- [Tester] It feels like a chore almost.
- [Sven] This one feels, like, super mushy
when you bottom out.
- I don't like this one.
- [Plouffe] (laughing) Which one do you like more?
- Neither. They both suck.
- [Plouffe] (laughs) The HP 550 up there-
- Yeah.
- [Plouffe] It's membrane.
- It's membrane. (laughing)
That makes sense why it feels like garbage then. (laughing)
- Oh, it has a num pad. Ay!
Okay, no, that changes everything.
- Can I take 'em off?
- [Plouffe] Yeah.
- Huh. (Angus laughing)
- [Plouffe] Would you buy either of them?
- No. (chuckles)
Okay, meme price, I would pay like $5 for it. (laughs)
- Were you one of those ones, like,
when you buy, like, a PC, it comes with it?
But if I were to guess, like $70,
just because of, like, the brand price.
- Probably a little more, like 150, 200 US.
- [Plouffe] The HAVIT's like 50 bucks, isn't it?
- Yep. - [Plouffe] Yeah.
The HP is about $50 as well.
- Okay.
- I'm not even a keyboard guy, and I could tell.
- [Plouffe] Yeah. - Yeah. Wow.
Yeah, no, this feels so much better.
- Naturally, their reactions are no surprise,
particularly the enthusiasts in the crowd.
Most of our subjects either actively disliked the HP 550
or at least preferred the other option.
Even though both of them claim to use mechanical switches,
our keystroke force graphs here reveal a clear difference
in the feel between the two.
As you press down on a linear mechanical key switch,
you should see a consistent, that is, linear,
increase in the required pressure as the spring compresses.
Switching over to the HP,
as a Canadian, I might not know much about much.
But I can sure as shoot recognize a hockey stick
when I see one. (laughing)
And if we tear this keyboard down, the reason is obvious.
Under our key cap is what appears to be a switch.
And in fairness to HP, it is in fact made of red plastic.
However, if we remove one and open it up
with our handy-dandy switch puller and opener,
we can see that it is in fact an imposter!
Then, looking closelier,
we have most of the traditional switch components,
top and bottom housing, stem, spring.
But what's missing is the contact pins on the bottom
and the leaves that they're attached to.
Now, when you press down on a real mechanical switch,
the stem moving allows the leaves to make contact
and send a signal down through the pins
into the keyboard's PCB and then on to your computer.
What we're doing here, though,
is just jabbing the stem down.
So how does a signal get generated
from the rubber dome that is below it?
Rubber domes work by buckling under the force
of your finger, mashing a conductive material
onto a contact pad.
And the reason membrane keyboards often feel mushy
is because rubber itself is kind of mushy,
and that's what you're actually pressing down on
to make the connection happen.
One of the advantages of rubber membrane switches
is that they are cheaper.
But a major disadvantage to this approach
is that if a key stops working for whatever reason,
chances are that it will be a real pain to fix it,
if it's possible at all.
Outside of removing the rubber,
cleaning up the contacts, and then praying to Tech Jesus,
there's just not much that you can do,
whereas with a mechanical keyboard,
you should be able to simply replace the faulty switch
and go about your day.
It is a little harder on some keyboards
than it is on others, but it's pretty much always an option.
Our major problem with the HP 550, though,
isn't that it uses membrane switches.
In fact, they're not even the first to make a mem-chanical
or hybrid mechanical switch like this one.
Our problem is with the marketing.
The box says, "Red mechanical switch,"
when the switch component of a switch is the contact point.
There is a mechanical component to it, the stem and spring,
but it presses down on a dome that presses down on a switch.
It's kind of like saying, "I'm driving an electric car
because I have an electric shoe
that presses down on my gas pedal."
Words are not just words.
They actually mean things,
and I don't think it's a stretch to say
that for someone who doesn't know any better,
maybe a relative doing some gift shopping
or a first-time keyboard buyer,
they could easily see that on the box
and assume that this is a fully mechanical keyboard,
especially given that it's priced like one.
And it gets better.
Another feature they've listed here is 10KRO,
or 10-key rollover.
This means that our keyboard should be able
to register up to 10 different keys pressed simultaneously.
It's a feature that's so common
that many new keyboards actually come with NKRO,
or any key rollover, by default,
with the majority doing six at the minimum.
This is more important than you might think.
Even in a typical first-person shooter,
you're often holding down at least one or two keys.
For our example, let's go with W and Shift
to sprint forward.
Now let's say you wanna strafe a bit and go at an angle,
so you add D.
And then there's a jump coming,
for a total of four keys potentially pressed at once
just to move around.
Unfortunately, this board, while it boasts 10-key rollover,
often can barely handle four, so another outright lie.
The worst part is, it's not even consistent.
Depending on the zones occupied by our keys,
we can get significantly higher scores of seven
or even eight-key rollover before it becomes unresponsive,
which would get them some extra points
especially if it's at its best in the gaming zone,
except that that's still well short of their claims.
But I can practically hear some of you saying-
- But Linus, I only have four fingers
and a thumb on one hand.
I don't need a 10KRO.
- And for the majority of people, you're actually right.
Six-key rollover is perfectly adequate.
But we aren't even getting six consistently.
And if you play any kind of keyboard-based rhythm game,
or if you play classic two-player games
where both people are using the same keyboard,
or if you're the kind of sadist who plays "Devil May Cry"
with a mouse and keyboard,
chances are that an input won't be registered
during a critical moment, giving you a valid reason
to blame your peripheral for your failure
and giving us a valid reason to be mad at HP
for their bullspit.
Now, to be clear, I'm not trashing on anyone
who purchased this product and loves it.
The thing about keyboards, particularly mechanical ones,
is it's all about preference.
And if you prefer the tight feel and sound of this board,
there is nothing wrong with that.
But if you're still shopping, there are some other options
that I would like to point out for you.
Redragon, for instance, recently moved away from PCBs
meant for smaller OUTEMU switches
and now offer a much more versatile board
with their K530 Pro Draconic.
It's currently just $55 on Amazon,
wireless over Bluetooth or 2.4 gigahertz,
comes with switches and keycaps,
and is hot swappable with most three or five-pin switches.
Want something a little more custom?
The CIY GAS67 doesn't come with switches or keycaps,
and you will need to build it yourself.
But Tim from the lab snagged one of these online
for just 46 Canadian rubles.
They have gone up a bit lately due to scarcity,
but still, that's almost the same price
as a super comfy mystery-colored waffle long sleeve
from lttstore.com.
If you don't like either of these options
because you prefer something a bit more name branded,
well, hey, there's always the Logitech G413 SE.
It's not our enthusiast top pick,
but it's still a real mechanical keyboard
for about 60 US dollars at the time of writing.
Don't get me wrong.
None of these are gonna beat the sound and feel
of a much more premium board,
but they're gonna get you a lot of the way there
at a fraction of the price, and they don't cost much more
or even more at all than the HP 550.
As for this thing, it just kind of sucks.
It's got a green LED backlight, one-stage flip-up feet,
and a permanently attached USB-A cable
all in a very typical plastic housing.
We tested it for latency, and while it isn't terrible,
measuring an average of 15 milliseconds,
that's not gonna matter
if the key you pressed never even registers.
For reference,
our HAVIT keyboard registered about 13 milliseconds.
And our Apex 3, which is another membrane keyboard,
was also at about 15.
If, for some reason, you want a hybrid mechanical keyboard,
there are many newer options like the SteelSeries Apex 5
that doesn't feel anywhere near as bad as this thing does.
So the next time you're out there shopping around,
trying to decide what keyboard to buy next,
do yourself a favor and don't fall for the marketing BS.
Many mechanical keyboards, if they're actually mechanical,
we'll show the PCB or at least the socket
so that you can confirm these details for yourself.
Now, to HP's credit, their website has been updated
to read, "Hybrid mechanical-membrane keyboard."
But I'm still not gonna go too easy on them here
because they are still claiming that their terrible 10KRO
is gonna ensure that no matter how fast and furious
you make your next move, your key presses will be detected.
So it's junk,
and you should get yourself quite literally anything else.
You know, I heard Tommy Hilfiger has a good gaming set,
just like I heard this is a pretty good segue
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- If you enjoyed this video,
make sure to check out the last time we talked
about mem-chanical boards a few years ago.
It was deceptive crap marketing
on Cooler Master's part back then, and thankfully,
they're doing better about that these days.
I think HP could probably learn a thing or two.