Surefire KINGPIN M2 Keyboard
3. Conclusion
The keyboard is very well done, it's heavy and feels very good around the desk. There is wrist support, which we feel it should, be since typing needs to get used and sure we advise you to get a low-profile wrist gel support product to enjoy this keyboard. The included wired cable has 1.80m and should be enough for most users. It has a fabric coating and feels high quality. Note that the included cable is not detachable, so if you damage it out of warranty...then this product won't be usable, some users may not like this.
The stock keys are easy to use and are ergonomically very well done. The included Jixian Red switches do make noise, compared with other Red Switches, so this product feels like having much more noise than it should have (metallic sound when typing). If you don't like that sound, maybe skip this product you won't like it. Alternatively, you could swap the stock switches for cherry switches (around 30 cents a switch), so that's also a possibility.
There are several functions available besides the stock one, press the Fn Key and the desired key together.
- Fn + F1 - Open Standard
- Fn + F2 - Volume decrease
- Fn + F3 - Volume increase
- Fn + F4 - Mute
- Fn + F5 - Stop Media
- Fn + F6 - Previous Track
- Fn + F7 - Play/Pause
- Fn + F8 - Next Track
- Fn + F9 - Open Standard Web Application
- Fn + F10 - Open Standard Mail Application
- Fn + F11 - Lock Keyboard, 3rd LED indicator will turn on which indicates all keys are locked, press it once again to cancel lock, then indicator will turn off.
- Fn + F12 - Open Standard Calculator Application
The front panel is made our aluminum and each key has RGB lighting. All color settings can be set via the PC software (no MAC love here). You may customize the backlight for each key via the PC software from the presets. You can also adjust the RGB lighting from the keyboard function, press the Fn Key and the required key together:
- Fn + Delete or Insert - Adjust the backlight flashing level (5 levels, default level 3)
- Fn + End - Select different backlight effects: 6 modes (5 RGB modes + 1 customisable mode)
Flowing (default); Colourful breathing; One click; Ripple; Single colour breathing (press Fn + Space to adjust the colour, 8 colours + light off); Customised - Fn + Home - Switch backlight on/off
- Fn + PgDn or PgUp - Adjust brightness level (5 levels, default level 5)
- Fn + Windows - Lock the Win Key, press again to cancel lock
The included PDF manual will help you further understand the above keyboard shortcuts.
The SureFire Kingpin M2 gaming keyboard is a full-size mechanical keyboard with red switches that promises to be your next buddy for those long gaming sessions. The build quality is great, this keyboard weighs around 1.025kg, and it's very sturdy and solid. The build quality is metal at the top and ABS plastic at the bottom. The used mechanical red linear switches have a 1ms response time and over 50 million key presses lifespan. All keys have RGB and can be changed individually, which makes this keyboard very configurable. There is a fixed 1.80m braided USB cable with good quality and to get the most out of this keyboard you need to install its software (Windows only) to setup it up the way you want. There are also 12 multimedia function keys (that also can be used to control other functions with the Fn button) and Surefire promises that all keys are 100% anti-ghosting (no keystrokes are "lost" when hard gaming)
The overall usability of this keyboard is high, we did have several long gaming sessions without issues. The keys are nice to work with, even though they tend to have a much higher metallic sound than we are used to, so this may be an issue for some users. The product comes with 2 years of warranty and the retail price is great ~40 Euro. If we had to nag about something that would be the lack of any wrist support, so if you buy this product, we highly suggest buying one from another vendor. Overall we feel that this is a very good product and gamers will enjoy its performance and overall build quality.