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What do you look for in a keyboard? Should it have mechanical switches? RGB lighting? How about great media controls? Whatever you want, we’ve put together a list of the best keyboards in a variety of categories that will help you nail down the right keyboard for you. Whether you’re a gamer, a wireless enthusiast, or an artist who wants a little more control in Photoshop, these keyboards will see you right.
If you want more choice for a particular category, check out our guides to the best gaming keyboards and the best wireless keyboards.
At a glance
Keyboard
Category
Das Keyboard Prime 13
Best keyboard overall
Razer Blackwidow Chroma V2
Best gaming keyboard
Logitech K780
Best keyboard for mobile
DBPower Three Colors
Best budget keyboard
Logitech Craft
Best keyboard for creatives
Microsoft Surface keyboard
Best keyboard for business
Das Keyboard Prime 13
The best keyboard overall
Why you should buy it: Great for typing and gaming, the Das Keyboard Prime 13 ditches gamer aesthetic for a sold, all-round experience.
Who’s it for: Anyone who enjoys the benefits of a mechanical keyboard.
What we thought of the Das Keyboard Prime 13:
Das Keyboard might not a name you’re too familiar with, but it should be on any prospective keyboard buyer’s radar as it produces some fantastic keyboards that ditch a lot of the unnecessary and “gamer” features which have become all too commonplace on modern day mechanical keyboards. It comes equipped with Cherry MX Brown switches — one of our personal favorites — fantastic keycaps, simple but functional backlighting, and a USB passthru port. It doesn’t have RGB, or macro switches, or complicated software. It’s a pure, clean keyboard with a great feature set at a decent price.
Designed with a minimalist look and feel, you may feel like the Prime 13 is a little too uniform. A little too understated. But that could be just what you’re looking for if you don’t feel the need to pay through the nose for RGB lighting or extraneous plastic.
That doesn’t mean it lacks in features though. We love the Prime 13’s simple, white backlighting — especially the sidemounted media key indicators and its crisp, clean lines help it fit in well in a home or work office environment. There’s nothing to stop you gaming on it in the off hours either, as you’ll find few switches are as beloved as the tactile MX Brown switches it sports. They’re fast and quiet, so you won’t annoy your house or workmates either.
Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2
The best gaming keyboard
Why you should buy it: The Razer first-party switches are some of the fastest in the world, helping take your game to a new level.
Who’s it for: Gamers who want comfort, accurate commands, and macro switches.
What we thought of the Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2:
Razer makes some of the best gaming keyboards in the world, so the best of those keyboards is worth taking note of. The Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2 uses Razer’s own mechanical switches which many consider to be better than the classic Cherry MX alternatives. There’s a choice of Green, Orange, and Yellow, for tactile and clicky feedback, and RGB lighting that lets you customize the look and feel of the board to your taste.
Each BlackWidow Chroma V2 comes with its own spongy wrist rest and a USB Passthru port so you can connect headsets or other peripherals to your PC without taking up a front-panel connector. It also has its own selection of macro keys, letting you remap important abilities of shortcuts to extra keys without stepping on existing mappings for traditional keys.
Designed for extreme durability, this board is rated for as many as 80 million key presses — that’s more than 50 percent more than a standard Cherry MX mechanical switch. This board will help you game faster and last for years with the full backing of Razer’s Synapse software.
If you’re not certain on this board, we’re also huge fans of the Corsair K70 RGB Mk.2. That’s more than a worthy alternative.
Logitech K780
The best keyboard for mobile
William Harrel/Digital Trends
Why you should buy it: It works well with desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones and lasts for years on a pair of batteries.
Who’s it for: Multi-device users who don’t want to be tied down by a cable.
What we thought of the Logitech K780:
One of the biggest advantages of a wireless keyboard is its portability. Take it on the train, on a plane, or from the office to home. But that’s no good if your keyboard is tied down to a single device. Not so with the K780, which is compatible with phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop PCs. Just connect it over Bluetooth and you’re off and running. It even has a dongle it ships with so you can use it on systems without Bluetooth built in.
It has a decidedly retro, understated look which some may like and others won’t, but everyone loves the included stand/rest for tablets and mobile devices, turning any touchscreen system into a de facto laptop without the need for any complicated connectors or wires.
You may feel the lack of a NUM lock and Caps Lock key when you first start using it, but we got used to that relatively quickly in our time with the K780 and found it to be comfortable to use and type on over long periods. The rounded keys might not be to everyone’s tastes, but we found they didn’t affect typing accuracy at all.
The lack of backlighting is a shame for those who like to work in the dark, but for everyone else, you’ll struggle to find a better keyboard for mobile devices than the Logitech K780.
Read our full Logitech K780 review
DBPower Three Colors
The best budget keyboard
Why you should buy it: It’s as close to a mechanical keyboard as you can get without actually being one, for the same price as bargain basement alternatives.
Who’s it for: Anyone who wants the look and feel of a mechanical keyboard without paying the premium.
What we thought of the DBPower Three Colors:
The DBPower Three Colors keyboard is an anomaly. It looks every bit the part of a mechanical gaming keyboard, but it costs less than $30. That shouldn’t be possible, and yet somehow its manufacturers have managed to imbue it with much of what we love about truly high-end keyboards in an amazingly affordable package.
It isn’t actually a mechanical board, but somewhere in between, leveraging a clear-plastic plunger that drives into a membrane switch. You’ll need to bottom it out to make it actuate, but if that’s not too much of a concern for you, there is a lot to love about this board.
It comes with three lighting options and breathing effects while you work or play. You can press a function key to switch control between WASD and the arrow keys and there’s even a braided cable to add a quality look the overall design.
It’s not going to beat any of our favorite overall or gaming keyboards, but when it comes to bang for buck, there’s none that can match the DBPower Three Colors.
Logitech Craft
The best keyboard for creatives
Why you should buy it: The context-sensitive input dial gives you a unique input option, alongside a comfortable typing experience.
Who’s it for: Workers and creatives, especially those who move between platforms.
What we thought of the Logitech Craft:
The Logitech craft is not a cheap office keyboard, but if you want something truly special that will work with any desktop or laptop platform you choose, as well as providing a unique, efficiency-enhancing input option, there’s nothing quite like it. It’s a wireless keyboard that can pair with up to three devices at once, much like our favorite wireless keyboards, and its key caps feature both Windows and MacOS indicators to make use on both Apple and Microsoft platforms easy.
There’s a uniform backlighting throughout the board, making it easy to use in the dark and it’s deceptively sturdy. It does lack the usual angled feet, but the natural slope of the Craft is comfortable for most typists. Scissor switches aren’t quite up to the standard of mechanical keyboards, but they’re still decent to type on, providing nice tactile feedback without too heavy a “click” sound.
The real kicker with this board though, is the input dial. Located in the top-left, it gives you access to volume controls right out of the gate, but you can customize it using Logitech’s software to adjust whatever you like. Brush sizes in Adobe Photoshop, a right-click tap for MacOS, image resizing in Microsoft word — the world is your oyster. You can set up custom profiles for each application, allowing for a nuanced and contextually sensitive input mechanism that easily rivals standalone accessories like Microsoft’s Surface Dial.
Microsoft Surface Keyboard
The best keyboard for business
Dan Baker/Digital Trends
Why you should buy it: It’s light, comfortable, and looks the part — this is a perfect workstation accessory.
Who’s it for: Office workers — especially Microsoft Surface users.
What we thought of the Surface Keyboard:
Microsoft’s Surface keyboard can take some of the great tablets and 2-in-1s from that range and turns them into fantastic laptops with just a few strokes of its keys. It’s an incredibly capable wireless keyboard in its own right, whether you’re a Surface user or no, and its battery life can leave it running for up to 12 months on a single pair of AAA batteries. Its keys will last far longer too, with support for as many as 500,000 actuations per key. That’s not on par with high-end mechanical boards, but good luck finding one of those that are as lightweight and portable as this one.
You don’t have to just use it with Windows machines, though. Its Bluetooth 4.0 support means that it can be hooked up to any supporting devices, whether it’s MacOS, Android, or iOS. You can do it at a serious distance too, with support for up to 50ft of long-range typing.
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