IG INSTAGO 96 Keys Mechanical Keyboard, RGB Backlit USB Wired Gaming Keyboard, Ergonomic KB with Planet War Theme, Perfect for PC/Mac Gamer (Gateron Brown Switch)

This is my first "real" mechanical keyboard with swappable switches, so I held off on writing this until I had spent some time with it. Coming from a Logitech G613 before this, a competent wireless mechanical keyboard with proprietary Romer G switches, I had wanted something smaller that didn't sacrifice the num pad. 96% sized mechanical keyboards are a bit of a rarity so I thought I'd throw down for this one. From what I understand this is just a rebranded kit keyboard going off of the reviews of the company's other products on Amazon.The good: The included Gateron optical brown switches are nice and clacky without being too loud. There's a nice tactile sensation when keys are pressed and the actuation force required to type is a nice balance between stiff and sensitive, meaning it's hard to unintentionally press keys. The compact size is greatly appreciated if you have a smaller desk like I do; the G613's built-in palm rest and dedicated column of macro keys made it enormous.I know brown switches are often targeted more toward typing rather than gaming, but because this is a wired keyboard, response time seems very fast and I haven't had an issue when playing online competitively with this keyboard so far. The LED effects are bright without being distracting and pretty subtle in a well-lit room on account of the opaque key caps. Having a backlight indicate where the caps or num etc locks are engaged is a nice feature.The bad: The key caps that come with this suck, in my opinion. They're kind of low and the full graphic on the spacebar just wasn't doing it for me, but thankfully it was super easy to pry them off and replace with standard MX key caps as the pictures show.My biggest problem with this keyboard is the layout; coming from a full-sized board to this compact one, I'm still adjusting to having everything squished in one continuous layout that you can't differentiate by touch. I had to swap the scroll lock and delete keys using SharpKeys, which helped somewhat. Lastly, there's no dedicated media buttons so I had to get something for my desk to compensate. Still, these are minor complaints and this is a good, flexible board in a form factor that seems difficult to find. Because this is a hot swap board, you could easily replace the switches with any other optical type and be fine.

I picked this keyboard up to test alongside various other keyboards as I use keyboards for many hours every day. I enjoy testing keyboards and seeing their changes so I try to pick a variety and use them as my daily keyboards to see how I feel about them.This keyboard surprised me with how good it was to type on; only a year ago the "alternative" keyboards such as this one weren't nearly as good as this keyboard actually is. I enjoyed using this keyboard so much that I left it on my workstation for a few weeks (which backed up me testing other keyboards) because this was so natural to use. This 96 key design I feel is kind of the "best of both worlds" without going full TKL and without going full sized.The design here might look "cramped" but it actually isn't. After a day or two of use I had gotten used to the key layout and really loved it. I use the numpad quite a bit and while I test tons of TKL keyboards these days, I still keep my main "full size" keyboard (see top keyboard) as my main keyboard. That keyboard hasn't been replaced simply because it still remains the best combination for me. However a smaller keyboard like this actually gets close to my "main keyboard" with the biggest detriments here being things like the volume wheel and media keys not being available on this 96 Key keyboard.Otherwise the keys have great stability, quite uniform weight and travel (another thing that was lacking on many "alternative" keyboards even last year) with bright & customizable back lighting.All in all I think this keyboard is beyond great and makes me excited to see what the near future of keyboards brings as more keyboards come out with similar designs to this one!

Size:96 key layout is very interesting. It's thinner than a tenless keyboard because there are no gaps between the F-row and the the rest of the keyboard. Length wise it's only slightly longer than a tenless but significantly shorter than a full size keyboard. It has the added benefit of still having a numpad. I think the layout looks better than a tenless but it looks more compact. I think 75% is still my preferred layout, but if you need the numpad or looking something slightly more compact than a full size keyboard.The theme is cool. I do like the red, white and black color scheme. The white keys look really good in contract with the red and black keys. The space key has an image depicting a space battle. All that being said, it's unfortunate that the keycaps aren't the best quality. The white keys look good, but the red keys are a little shiny and the black keys are very shiny. The red keys and the spacebar material is too thin. The keyboard's LEDs shine through the red keys and space bar, ruining the theme. The LEDs are cool if you are into that. Lots of colors and lighting schemes.Typing on the keyboard is nice. The Gateron brown switches feel good. There's a slight tactical feedback you expect from brown switches. Relatively quiet, but the spacebar has a hollow rattle sound, which can probably be modded. The fact that it's much more compact than the full size is nice, but getting used to the shorter right shift and the location of the arrow keys might take getting used to.It comes with a decent braided USB-C cable, keycap and switch puller. Also came with some additional brown switches.I've been using with my Mac Book Pro with no issues.I think if the keycaps were nicer, and you explicitly wanted this theme and liked the 96 key layout, it could warrant the price. However, if the keycaps bother you, you'll end up spending to replace them.