QPAD Flux 65 Model 5 review

Ah, QPAD, my old friend. For those unaware of the brand, it isn't just your average third-party attempt to replicate mainstream offerings for cheap. QPAD has been around for a long time, and back in the day it was somewhat of a leader in gaming peripheral tech. In the early 2000s, I recall its mice and keyboards being recommended pretty often on various forums.

QPAD didn't give me my first ever mechanical keyboard—that honour goes to the original Razer BlackWidow—but it gave me my second, becoming one of my favourite upgrades I've had over all my years PC gaming. Back then, the QPAD MK-50 was one of a handful of great value mechanical gaming keyboards in what was then a pretty niche market. That keyboard lasted me years, and offered simple quality for a great price.

Then the company all but disappeared, (in the UK at least, where I'm based). But now it's back, with a new stack of products in the UK and hopefully elsewhere as QPAD looks to expand globally again. These products include the keyboard I'm happily typing away on right now, the Hall effect-boasting Flux 65 Model 5. I'm glad to see the company hasn't lost its knack for making quality, no-nonsense peripherals that go some way to bridging the gap between 'gamer' and 'enthusiast' products.

Now, admittedly, that gap isn't so wide anymore; in fact, it's pretty nonexistent considering the existence of brands like Keychron. But at least QPAD is landing on the right side of that divide, by offering a quality typing experience in addition to gaming features such as Hall effect switches and RGB lighting.

It's the former that immediately stuck out to me upon unboxing and using the keyboard for the first time. It's not the absolute heaviest keyboard at 1.59 lbs. It does have a plastic frame with no underside weight, but it's not exactly light, either, and it feels surprisingly sturdy and premium.

The same goes for the typing experience, which I've found to be phenomenal. I even prefer it to typing on my usual daily driver, the Keychron Q5 HE. The QPAD Flux 65 Model 5's switches, plate, dampening, shell, and keycaps all come together to make for a very sturdy, somewhat clacky typing experience.

It's not quite as deep a sound as you might get on some other premium, enthusiast keyboards. The space bar can sound a little hollow compared to some, but not in a bad way, though—it just happens to be the particular timbre of this keyboard, probably thanks to its aluminium switch plate, and I'm here for it. It's impossible to describe typing sound in a way that does it justice, though, so I've included a test, recorded with a condenser mic, that hopefully gives a better idea.

It really is a lovely-sounding keyboard that feels equally lush under the fingertips. One thing I'm particularly impressed with is the spacebar, Enter key, and Backspace stabilisers, although that's probably in part because my experience of the stabilisers on the Keychron Q5 HE has been so poor.

All the keys on this board feel very stable, which allows the smooth (presumably pre-lubed) linear Gateron Magnetic switches to take their rightful place in the limelight. Based on the white underside of these hot-swappable switches, these are likely GATERON KS-20 Whites, which are light, requiring just 30 g of initial force. They feel a lot like the Cherry MX Red switches I used to love, which have an average (not initial) force of about 45 g, but an initial force of about the same as these KS-20s.

It's a dinky little keyboard, of course; its 65% form factor means it lacks function keys and so on, but it does have arrow keys and a few Home row keys. So, QPAD hasn't gone full HHKB on us, which I'm grateful for because I don't think I'd enjoy a complete lack of arrow keys.

There are some things I miss with this form factor, though, namely a numpad for Alt-combos, such as Alt-0151 for an em-dash. I also think I'll miss the dedicated row of Function keys in some cases, such as if I return to StarCraft 2, for instance. In that game, I would use F1–F5 to swap between camera positions, and I don't think the Fn + 1–5 combo would really cut it.

Saying that, though, I'm surprised by how quickly I got used to using the Fn key commands for things such as volume-up and volume-down. I can even use Win + Fn + Del to do an auto-saving screenshot, as Fn + Del offers you PrintScreen functionality.

You can adjust the RGB lighting with Fn key combos, and there's a good smattering of effects and colours to choose from. I'm not usually one for RGB, but it really is better with it on here, and that's in part because the keycaps are shine-through. Without RGB on, the letters are quite muted in dark lighting, but, boring bloke that I am, I found the solid colour setting looks lovely, especially when set to white. The frame is designed to be slightly translucent, too, which looks great with the RGB lighting shining through .

The one caveat is that a couple of keys on my model aren't shining through fully. Specifically, the 'E' on the Enter key is a little muted, as is the 'C' on the CapsLk key. I'm not sure whether that's just because these are bigger keys and the backlight doesn't 'reach' as far to these letters, or whether the translucent part of the keycaps themselves are a little too opaque, but whatever the cause, it's noticeable enough to slightly annoy me (especially on that Enter key).

You can adjust the lighting in the software, though unfortunately it isn't web-based. I know web-based software isn't ubiquitous yet, but there are enough keyboards with browser software support—often Via-compatible, which is a bonus—that I think it's now a mark against a keyboard if you have to run the software locally.

Saying that, the software itself is fine. It's not the most refined, aesthetically, but it gets the job done and is plenty responsive. In addition to key bindings, macros, lighting, and so on, you can adjust all the Hall effect-related gubbins with quite some precision. You can minutely tweak individual key actuation and per-key rapid trigger, the latter of which permits you very granular control over both press and release sensitivity.

Given it's a 65% keyboard, the £120 price tag might be a little much for some—though I'd argue even for the typing experience plus RGB, it's not an outrageous price—but with Hall effect tech thrown in too, it's very competitively priced.

It's a little cheaper than the Keychron K2 HE, which is going for about £140 right now, but then it's one row of keys shy of that keyboard, too—so key-for-key, they're very similarly priced. It's also similarly priced to the NuPhy Air60 HE, which might be its closest competitor. For my money though, based purely on the typing tests I've seen and heard, I'd stick with the QPAD. I can see some preferring the NuPhy, which is more of a pro for both keyboards, rather than a negative point against either.

My experience with the QPAD's Hall effect gubbins has been stellar, too, which you'd expect from the Gateron switches, in combination with the (up to) 8,000 Hz polling. Playing Counter-Strike 2 with Rapid Trigger enabled, after setting actuation levels to my preferred height of 1.2 mm, felt much more responsive than without, and I'm told by numerous Hall effect-ers online that this should eventually lead to snappier counter-strafing and so on. That's a matter to be honed through practice and muscle memory, though; don't expect to be used to how responsive things are right away, some adjustment time is needed.

Even without Hall effect, I'd be singing the praises of this one. With Hall effect, I have no hesitation in recommending it, provided you're okay with some of this board's minor niggles. In particular, the poor shine-through on two of the keys is annoying, as is the lack of web-based software. The complete lack of Bluetooth connectivity is also a shame given the size of this keyboard would otherwise make it very portable.

However, for a re-entry into the mainstream gaming market, QPAD's certainly batting strong, and I'm excited to see where the company goes moving forwards. Watch out, Keychron.