SteelSeries have a track record of producing top-quality equipment for gamers, which the Apex 9 Mini doesn’t let down.
The Apex 9 Mini looks beautiful with its vibrant RGB lighting, tiny chassis and understated design, but it packs a real punch in terms of performance.
The Optipoint switches don’t feel as good as a traditional mechanical option, but if gaming is your main focus, which it likely is if you’re reading this, the 1mm actuation distance, zero debounce and 0.2ms response time give this keyboard an edge that very few keyboards can get close to.
Build quality is ok but it’s nothing to write home about, which given that SteelSeries make a big deal about it using combat jet aluminium, we expected more. It’s good enough for its intended use but we’ve seen how stiff SteelSeries keyboards can be, so why is this lacking?
Using the keyboard day to day isn’t too much of a nuisance, particularly if aesthetic and gaming performance are high up on your priority list, but the 60% layout with meta keybinds was just a bit too tiresome for my liking, the secondary functions were difficult to learn and didn’t ever feel natural after about two decades of using a standard keyboard layout. Perhaps your mileage will vary but it’s something to bear in mind when making a purchase decision.
Pricing is spot on for this model, with the likes of Razer and CORSAIR both offering 60% keyboards with optical switches for £129.99 in the UK, so pricing in the rest of the world is likely to be similar or identical. It isn’t cheap but it does come with some of the fastest switches a person can buy and some seriously good pedigree.
Overall, this keyboard ticks almost every box for what I’d want to find from a 60% gaming keyboard, it’s lovely to use, looks great, has removeable USB cable, excellent RGB backlighting, it’s almost the full package, if only SteelSeries offered an optional wrist rest and sold their OptiPoint switches somewhere.
If you want a quick, small, aesthetically pleasing keyboard from a reputable manufacturer, you could do a lot worse than this.
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The Apex 9 Mini looks beautiful with its vibrant RGB lighting, tiny chassis and understated design, but it packs a real punch in terms of performance.
The Optipoint switches don’t feel as good as a traditional mechanical option, but if gaming is your main focus, which it likely is if you’re reading this, the 1mm actuation distance, zero debounce and 0.2ms response time give this keyboard an edge that very few keyboards can get close to.
Build quality is ok but it’s nothing to write home about, which given that SteelSeries make a big deal about it using combat jet aluminium, we expected more. It’s good enough for its intended use but we’ve seen how stiff SteelSeries keyboards can be, so why is this lacking?
Using the keyboard day to day isn’t too much of a nuisance, particularly if aesthetic and gaming performance are high up on your priority list, but the 60% layout with meta keybinds was just a bit too tiresome for my liking, the secondary functions were difficult to learn and didn’t ever feel natural after about two decades of using a standard keyboard layout. Perhaps your mileage will vary but it’s something to bear in mind when making a purchase decision.
Pricing is spot on for this model, with the likes of Razer and CORSAIR both offering 60% keyboards with optical switches for £129.99 in the UK, so pricing in the rest of the world is likely to be similar or identical. It isn’t cheap but it does come with some of the fastest switches a person can buy and some seriously good pedigree.
Overall, this keyboard ticks almost every box for what I’d want to find from a 60% gaming keyboard, it’s lovely to use, looks great, has removeable USB cable, excellent RGB backlighting, it’s almost the full package, if only SteelSeries offered an optional wrist rest and sold their OptiPoint switches somewhere.
If you want a quick, small, aesthetically pleasing keyboard from a reputable manufacturer, you could do a lot worse than this.
Pros
+ Lovely RGB lighting
+ Easy to use software
+ Removeable USB cable
+ Competitively priced
+ OptiPoint switches are fantastic for gaming
+ Zero debounce
+ 0.2ms latency
Cons
- Build quality doesn’t quite match what we’ve seen from SteelSeries in the past
- No optional wrist rest
- No replacement switches despite claiming to offer them on their product page
- Meta functions are difficult to read in certain lighting
+ Lovely RGB lighting
+ Easy to use software
+ Removeable USB cable
+ Competitively priced
+ OptiPoint switches are fantastic for gaming
+ Zero debounce
+ 0.2ms latency
Cons
- Build quality doesn’t quite match what we’ve seen from SteelSeries in the past
- No optional wrist rest
- No replacement switches despite claiming to offer them on their product page
- Meta functions are difficult to read in certain lighting
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
Stay connected with the Vortez Social Media pages:
Join in with the discussions on Discord
