Much like a gaming mouse, a gaming keyboard is something altogether different in many ways from a standard one. The biggest difference is most tend to be mechanical, leaving them more responsive and “clickier” than traditional membrane switches. This lets you execute keystrokes faster than usually possible, enabling quick reactions and repeated movements (like wiggling quickly between lean positions in Rainbow Six: Siege). Here is a selection of just some of the great models available:
Best Small Gaming Keyboards in 2019
HYPERX ALLOY ELITE RGB
This is a beautiful, compact, but ergonomic mechanical keyboard. It’s compatible with pretty much every type of switch you’d care to put in it, it has onboard memory for saving macros and other profiles so you can quickly set up your preferences, and tasteful and understated RGB lighting, at a reasonable price.
Razer Black Widow X Tournament Edition Chroma
Can a keyboard be both small and bulky? Because Razer managed it. While the keyboard itself is shrunk by being a Tenkeyless (TKL; lacks the Numpad to the right) model, it’s also got some very thick keys to go with it, making it a bit less easy to toss in a bag and go.
Still, it’s got great performance if you like a clicky keyboard (it uses Razer’s equivalent for Cherry MX Blue), and its price isn’t too unreasonable. As long as you don’t get tired of your friends making jokes about you flaming someone online every single time you type something while you’re in a Discord chat with them, it’s perfect.
Logitech G Pro
If you want a reliable, inexpensive, and high-performance piece of hardware, it’s difficult to go wrong with Logitech. This keyboard is a lot quieter than many other models, aiming for speed over feedback (it uses a custom switch similar to the MX Speed Silver switch), and is built durably of a combination of metal and plastic, lightening its weight a bit for travel.
Plus, it looks nice. I’m not a sucker for RGBs, but the way only the Key Caps light up on this one is nice.
Cooler Master Masterkeys Pro S RGB
Dumb name, great product. It has a nice concave design that appeals to me. While it lacks a wrist rest, it’s comfortable to use due to that, putting the more commonly used keys (WASD, SHIFT, CTRL, SPACE) prominently raised while lowering the less frequently used ones out of the way. While this puts a damper on my playstyle a bit (I remap the F key to crouch in every game instead of the standard CTRL), anybody who’s not a weirdo like me will have an optimal keyboard setup.
REDRAGON K552-RGB
This keyboard is a bit of an odd duck. All plastic design and a dirt-cheap price might make you tilt your head, but for gaming on a budget, it’s a great option. It looks bulky, but it’s lightweight and compact where it counts, with Cherry Green equivalent switches for great performance and a minimum of clickiness.
Steelseries Apex M750
In many ways, this keyboard is pretty standard. It’s ergonomic, mechanical (with quiet keys), compact, and well manufactured, for a reasonable price.
The only rub is some of its specialized features. It lights up in response to in-game events and boasts Discord integration, doing the same thing for incoming messages. I find this to be immensely distracting but could see how somebody could like this feature, so it gets a spot even with that small mark against it.
E-Element Z-88 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
This keyboard is slim, to put it mildly. It’s about six inches shorter than a standard keyboard; it is Tenkeyless, and to save even more space, some lesser-used keys like PrtScrn have been conglomerated into alternate functions of existing keys.
This is a great portable keyboard, though a bit cramped for my preference.
Redragon K561 VISNU Mechanical Keyboard
One more from Redragon. An up and comer in affordable but well designed mechanical keyboards. It’s compact without being cramped like the E-Element model above and looks quite nice. While it doesn’t provide the same level of material quality as a top of the line brand, it also costs half or less what those top of the line models do, and should last you a fair amount of time, if not as long as a metal keyboard will.