“This keyboard could kill someone.” That’s the first thing I thought when I pulled the more-than-four pound aluminum-cased Lemokey L5 HE 8K out of its box. The first thing I thought after typing on it was: this feels amazing and I don’t want to stop using it.
The L5 HE 8K is pitched as a hyper-precise, cutting-edge gaming keyboard. It’s called that because it has a polling rate of 8,000. That’s how many times a second it’s sending inputs to your gaming rig, giving you every miniscule time advantage possible when firing off an ultimate in Overwatch 2 or toggling items in Dota 2. This is, in my experience, complete overkill, but the rest of the mechanical keyboard is so good it doesn’t really matter.
I’ve been typing and gaming on the “Dark Master” L5 HE 8K test model Lemokey sent me for review (it’s black with a red escape key) and I still get a little dopamine hit every time my fingers punch the keys. They’re firm but plucky. The strokes are surprisingly smooth yet satisfyingly responsive. They sound like fat raindrops hitting a metal warehouse roof and feel like running your hand through a barrel of rich, darkly roasted coffee beans. Not bad for a $200 gaming keyboard that boasts top-shelf build quality and some impressive bells and whistles.
That’s the starting price for pre-orders of the L5 HE 8K on Kickstarter. The final versions will be more expensive when they join the rest of Lemokey’s lineup, the gaming brand from mechanical keyboard maker Keychron. It’s a pricey package that has the specs and looks to back it up. In addition to the 8K polling rate and 32K Hz scan rate, the key selling point is magnetic Hall Effect switches and 0.01mm actuation sensitivity. Lemokey’s browser software (online only) can be used to then customize the precise distance each key needs to travel to register input, as well as assign hotkey combinations and other shortcuts.
The result is effectively a keyboard limited only by the speed of your own fingers and the grey matter controlling them. The other way of putting this is: it won’t matter for most people. Did I play better on the L5 HE 8K? Score more goals in Rocket League? Get more kills in Marvel Rivals? Not really. But I certainly enjoyed doing all of those things more than on my current default, the no-frills Ducky Zero 6108. And the ultra-sensitive snappiness of actuation points calibrated just so does add a new layer of control.
The 75 percent formfactor means there’s no number pad and keys like Print Screen have also been jettisoned. It’s a compact layout that’s just shy of feeling cramped, though I wouldn’t have minded more room. A small, gumdrop-sized dial at the top right doesn’t feel as good as the rest of the keyboard, but gets the job done. The L5 HE 8K is wired only, and the RGB backlighting is great but can’t be adjusted on a key-by-key basis. A strip of light running across the back of the keyboard is a nice Tron-like accent.
A more obvious potential drawback is the lack of adjustable feet. There’s no adjusting the angle of the keyboard, which could be a deal breaker for those with palms that don’t perfectly align. Mine adjusted just fine, even if I could feel the longer sessions building up tension in my knuckles. The double-shot PBT keycaps do feel rich and durable and are hot-swappable (and were surprisingly hard to get off the switches when I pulled them off).
One silver lining to the L5 HE 8K’s lack of wireless portability is that it sits on my desk like a long black paper weight in the best way possible. The 4.2 lbs. CNC metal case offers complete stability, like you’re typing into a mini-gravity well. It’s sleek and minimalist looking, but conveys the same premium pleasure of pulling out a heavy metal credit card at the hotel bar (and without the terrible compounding interest rates). Gasket mounting helps cushion the metal too, with the option to top mount instead.
The luxurious button feel, cool design sense, and overall quality of the package are the L5 HE 8K’s main selling points, in my opinion. The rapid input, zero-latency gaming and precise actuation customization are just the cherries on top. There are lots of magnetic Hall Effect switch options out there, including Keychron’s own Q3 Max, but the L5 HE 8K holds its own in terms of both performance, customization, and more intangibles like the underlying build-feel. The off-white option with cream keys looks especially nice.
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