Of late, the mechanical keyboard market has been flush with excellent premium as well as budget models, so differentiation isn’t easy anymore. The Epomaker MS68, however, not only stands out from the crowd but also does it at a fantastic price. This keyboard is all about offering premium build quality and typing experience without asking a bomb for it.
This is the first 65% mechanical keyboard I’ve ever used, and I’m glad to report that I’m now much more open to this compact layout. The MS68 delivers a highly satisfying “creamy” typing experience, and its solid aluminum chassis is a joy to touch and behold. The customizable LCD is a nifty addition and there’s VIA support as well, albeit not without a few faults. However, in terms of features and functionality, the MS68 isn’t lacking at all.
About this review: Epomaker sent me the MS68 for the purpose of this review, but had no input in its contents.
A premium experience without premium pricing
Epomaker MS68
The Epomaker MS68 is a 65% aluminum keyboard with a gasket mount and LCD screen. Thanks to the premium build quality and creamy typing experience, it’s hands-down one of the best compact mechanical keyboards you can buy. Plus, the customizable display, VIA support, wireless connectivity, hot-swappable PCB, pre-lubed switches, and multi-OS support make it a well-rounded keyboard.Â
- Creamy & extremely satisfying typing
- Hefty, premium aluminum construction
- Compact and highly customizable
- Gasket mount and 5-layer sound-dampening
- Customizing LCD takes time & needs a cable
- VIA might not work for everyone
Pricing and availability
The Epomaker MS68 is available on Amazon in four different color options and three switch (all linear) options. Whichever combination you choose, the keyboard will set you back by around $130. There’s often a 20% coupon available on the product page that you can use to bring the price further down to just over $100.
Design and build quality
Understated luxury with a slice of fun
As soon as I took the Epomaker MS68 out of the box, I was pleasantly surprised by its weight. I expected it to be hefty, considering its solid aluminum case, but not this heavy. It quickly took the top spot among the heaviest keyboards I’ve ever used, and considering it’s a compact 65% layout, that says something about its premium construction.
The yellow variant that I reviewed looks more like a solid bar of gold, and… the anodized aluminum always feels cool to the touch.
At first, I definitely missed having some familiar keys on the board, such as the Function keys, End, Page Up, and Page Down. However, after learning the default shortcuts, and thanks to VIA customization (more on that later), I believe I could successfully use this keyboard as a daily-driver. For those wondering about the RGB lighting, it’s bright enough and can be customized easily from the keyboard itself.
The yellow variant that I reviewed looks more like a solid bar of gold, and the white-and-brown color scheme of the Cherry profile keycaps, plus the brown accents on the sides and back, perfectly complement it. I was genuinely scared of dropping this keyboard accidentally — even a few inches — lest I dent my desk and, more importantly, the keyboard. The anodized aluminum always felt cool to the touch, and was one of the highlights of my experience.
A few things could have been added to the keyboard to make it even better — an adjustable kickstand for changing the typing angle, shine-through keycaps, and an End key.
The prominent screen at the top-right is a 0.85-inch customizable LCD to which you can upload any image or GIF, using Epomaker’s “Image Custom Tool”, and boy did I go crazy with it (more on that below). The back of the keyboard gives you a USB-C port for the wired connection, a Win-Mac toggle (the middle one), and another toggle for switching between the Bluetooth, wired, and 2.4GHz modes. The toggles aren’t labeled, so it might take some time to get used to them.
The underside of the keyboard has four rubber feet and five screws which you can remove using the provided hex key in the box, in case you want to dabble in some keyboard mods. The PCB is hot-swappable, so you can experiment with switches of your own to customize the sound and feel. The box comes with a combo keycap and switch puller, along with three replacement switches. A keyboard cover would have been nice to have, but the MS68 doesn’t come with one.
The compact 65% layout with the LCD screen of the MS68 is great for people who already like 65% keyboards and want a cool LCD screen to play with.
A few things could have been added to the keyboard to make it even better — an adjustable kickstand for changing the typing angle, shine-through keycaps, and an End key just above the right arrow key. Aside from that, the MS68 is great for people who already like 65% keyboards and want a cool LCD screen to play with.
The typing experience
The creamiest keyboard I’ve ever used
I’ve always wanted to type on an aluminum keyboard, so when Epomaker decided to send the MS68 my way, I couldn’t wait to see how it would sound. The keyboard features a gasket mount with five layers of sound-dampening material — Poron foam, IXPE switch pad, PET film, PCB back foam, and Poron case foam. This meticulous construction is great at providing a smooth, creamy, and what they call “marbly” typing experience.
The focus is on providing satisfying tactile feedback and a pleasant-sounding board that keeps you hooked.
To be clear, this isn’t a silent keyboard, but rather one of the more silent linear keyboards you can find. You could go with the Sea Salt silent switch for a more silent experience, but don’t expect a whisper-silent time with it. The focus is on providing satisfying tactile feedback and a pleasant-sounding board that keeps you hooked, typing for hours on end without getting tired.
The unit that I have has Wisteria linear switches which come pre-lubed and are fairly fast and accurate to type on.
You might find the keys to be scratchy sometimes — around 10% of the time in my experience — but that doesn’t take away from the excellent sound and feel of the keyboard. You might not even notice it if you haven’t used a lot of different keyboards. Epomaker provides three switch options (all pre-lubed), and while all of them are linear, they feature different actuation forces and travel distances.
I’m using the Wisteria linear switches that come pre-lubed and are fairly fast and accurate to type on. I didn’t find myself making too many typos — well, not any more than usual. I cannot find any faults with this board’s typing experience, except that it might not be the best choice in an office setting where you’re working near colleagues who are sensitive to sound. For those working from home, however, this is a heavenly board to type on.
Make it your own with a customizable LCD
I had tons of fun uploading countless GIFs
Once I was done marveling at the premium typing experience, I turned my attention to the LCD screen. Using Fn + X, you can toggle the display on or off, and with Fn + Shift, you can switch between the screen options, including a date/time/battery screen, and two customizable screens for uploading images or GIFs.
The date/time screen shows you the battery level of the keyboard (with a 3000mAh battery, it lasts a long time), connectivity mode (2.4GHz/Bluetooth/wired), OS mode (Win/Mac), and symbols for Caps Lock and Win Lock (locking the Windows key). This display is quite useful, but I was more interested in checking out the customizable screens, so I downloaded the Image Custom Tool and began playing around with it, uploading more GIFs than I can remember.
The tool’s UI could have been better, and there’s nothing to guide you through the various modifications and modes, but with a few tries, you’ll be on your way to having fun with our favorite cat GIFs and tiny wallpapers. The keyboard already comes with two pre-programmed GIFs, but I finalized two of my own: one showing an Attack on Titan scene, and one with a cat typing aggressively on a laptop.
I had to wait around 90 seconds to 2 minutes for a single GIF to get uploaded to the display.
There are a few downsides to customizing the LCD screen. First, you have to use the provided USB-C cable every time you need to add a new image or GIF. Second, uploading a GIF takes too long, even one that has only around 30–40 frames. I had to wait around 90 seconds to 2 minutes for a single GIF to get uploaded to the display.
Software and customization
VIA support exists… but I couldn’t get it to work
This is the first keyboard I’m using that supports customization using VIA, but strangely, I couldn’t get the program to work, no matter what I tried. First, I did what the MS68 manual told me to — download the VIA tool for Windows from the provided link, download the 2.4GHz and USB JSON files from the Epomaker website, then upload them into the tool after enabling the Design tab from the tool’s settings.
This didn’t seem to work. After uploading the USB or 2.4GHz JSON files (I tried both modes), VIA showed the “draft definitions”, but the Configure tab was still stuck on Searching for devices. I confirmed that I was on the latest firmware for the keyboard and the Use V2 definitions (deprecated) option was disabled (as instructed), but the issue still remained.
Next, I tried the VIA web app after launching a browser window using the Run as administrator option. This time, uploading the JSON file in the Design tab triggered an option to Connect the keyboard to VIA, but that didn’t do anything either. I looked online for solutions from people who had similar issues, but they mentioned the things I had already tried. Some users reported that VIA randomly started working a few days later, so I have my fingers crossed. I contacted Epomaker as well, but they couldn’t help me solve the issue.
I sorely missed the default shortcuts for media control in Windows mode.
If you face the same issue and have to make do without VIA, the pre-programmed keyboard shortcuts might be enough, as they were for me. The Fn + L combo for End was the one I used the most, followed by Fn + Home and Fn + Del for Page Up and Page Down respectively. You’ll find all the shortcuts in the manual, and if you’re using the keyboard in Mac mode, the shortcuts will be different. I sorely missed the default shortcuts for media control in Windows mode.
Should you buy the Epomaker MS68?
The Epomaker MS68 has a lot going for it. It’s one of the smoothest keyboards I’ve ever typed on, and sounds no less than amazing. It comes in a beautiful anodized aluminum case, with the yellow (more like gold) variant feeling absolutely premium. You get wireless connectivity, hot-swappability, tons of foam, and a customizable LCD screen that you can use to stare at your favorite GIFs.
I’ll not say that I’ve found my perfect keyboard yet. I miss having kickstands, shine-through keycaps, and a dedicated End key. Plus, my failure to make VIA work with the keyboard brings into question the remappability of the keys. The default keyboard shortcuts come in handy, but they’re missing some of the usual combos, such as turning the volume up and down.
You should buy the Epomaker MS68 if:
- You want a compact and feature-rich mechanical keyboard
- You value premium sound, feel, and build quality
- You have the patience to learn the ways of a 65% keyboard
You should not buy the Epomaker MS68 if:
- You want fool-proof software support
- You want a whisper-silent keyboard
- You want a numpad or can’t go smaller than a 75% layout
Epomaker MS68
The Epomaker MS68 is a 65% aluminum keyboard with a gasket mount and LCD screen. Thanks to the premium build quality and creamy typing experience, it’s hands-down one of the best compact mechanical keyboards you can buy. Plus, the customizable display, VIA support, wireless connectivity, hot-swappable PCB, pre-lubed switches, and multi-OS support make it a well-rounded keyboard.Â