Hello,
I Couldn't Find any reviews for this board, so I'm here to do my first review of My first mechanical Keyboard The Monoprice "Pro Backlit Macro Gaming Keyboard" Or model; MP-GBL4.
WARNING potahto pics;
I Purchased this through Monoprice's website during a sale that was posted on r/buildapcsales. I believe i paid $83 after shipping.
First impressions were pretty great, I mean a backlit keyboard in an aluminum body for under $90 that is a great deal. The board comes with Cherry MX Red switches which as advertised have a 45g actuation force and are rated for over 50 million key presses which should be expected. The Aluminum body does give it a decent amount of weight, however it does still feel a little cheap as compared to something like the TEX aluminum case, but that is expected with the price.
As you can see the switches sit on top of the case. I personally like that about the case, however I do wish the switches had the LEDs on the top as opposed to the bottom of the switch. The LEDs are said to be red on the website, however mine are very much orange, not sure if that is normal or not, most of the time i don't even use the backlights though so I am ok with that, I'm not a big fan of Red LEDs anyway. The Board has a nice braided USB cable that it came with and the plug is on the back of the case, rather than some sort of Wire Channel. That was a big plus for me as well. Also it comes with a magnetic wrist rest which is extremely nice and comfortable.
The Volume wheel is very nice as well and can actually be programmed for other tasks as well, such as switching in between LED modes. It also lights up in a cool Blue color.
Now for my Gripe List;
The Key caps feel very flimsy and after only a week my space-bar had a scratch on the side that allows the light to shine through.
When the Board first arrived the LEDs were in a "pulse" mode. The Board DOES NOT COME WITH THE DRIVER!!!!!
This Is a huge issue if you want to change the LEDs or the Macros. After some hunting I Found The appropriate Driver (
http://bit.ly/1ilacfr) < for any other poor soul With this Board. Once the driver was installed however there is a lot you can do with this keyboard. There are different modes for the LEDs and you can assign the Macros as you would wish. one other downside is that the layer key must be assigned to a windows key, and I have not been able to change that yet. Also in retrospect I am not really a fan of the macro keys, they are spaced out a little bit which is nice. however I just do not use them at all.
Overall i would still recommend this as a decent gaming budget board, however I am sure there are a lot better out there in this Price range.
