KiiBOOM Phantom 98 Keyboard Review: Blindingly Beautiful
Disclaimer: KiiBOOM sent us a unit of the Phantom 98 free of charge to review, but all thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are our own and were not discussed with the company prior to publishing.
Getting a new keyboard is always fun, but I have to admit that I was especially excited to receive the KiiBOOM Phantom 98. Why? First of all, it looked gorgeous in the photos on the website. More importantly, it had all of the features I’d been looking for in my perfect keyboard – it’s slightly compact but still keeps the number pad and F keys, it has a volume wheel, it has RGB lights, and it can function as both a wired or wireless keyboard. My expectations for this keyboard were pretty high, especially when I saw the price! Let’s find out if my excitement was well-founded.
Retail Price: $219.99
Two Faces
This keyboard is definitely gorgeous and sounds lovely when typed on, but there are some glaring flaws with the overall design.
design
I like to talk about the design, looks, feeling, and typing experience on keyboards because I think all of these factors are important to buyers (at least, they’re important to me). This keyboard is definitely gorgeous and sounds lovely when typed on, but there are some glaring flaws with the overall design.
The biggest issue is that the key legends are printed onto the tops of the keys in white. This looks pretty while the RGB lights are off, but when you turn the RGB lights on, the legends become illegible. Even with the lights at their dimmest, it is incredibly hard to read the key legends. If you leave the RGB lights off, the legends are much easier to see but become illegible once again if you turn the lights off in your room or have trouble seeing in dim lighting. In my opinion, KiiBOOM should’ve frosted the tops of the keycaps and then had each legend carved in so that the lights would show through the legend, illuminating each letter, which is what you see on most RGB keyboards.
You might be thinking, “I can type without even looking at the keyboard, so that’s not a problem for me.” Well, so can I, but I have found it is still an issue when gaming. I realized that I know very well where the majority of the letter keys are, but sometimes I need to double-check that I am, in fact, pressing 7 and not 8, or F10 instead of F9. In those instances, especially when in the middle of a fight in a game, it’s super annoying to have to toggle the lights off to make sure I’m pressing the proper hotkey.
Another issue with the keys being clear is that if you ever get any crumbs or pet hair underneath them (the latter of which is completely unavoidable), you will see it, especially under the spacebar, and it is not cute.
Because the keys are clear, they’re made completely of smooth plastic. There is absolutely no texture or rubberiness to these keycaps. I do think this is something you can get used to, but if you have sweaty hands, I doubt you’ll like this very much.
rgb
Now that we’ve talked about some of the design flaws, I’d like to briefly discuss this keyboard's RGB capabilities. There are a number of preset options which you can access via hotkeys on the keyboard. Aside from that, you can download software that allows you to customize the lights.
However, for a $220 keyboard, the customization isn’t very impressive. Preset effects aside, you basically just get to choose static lighting for each individual key. It isn’t like Razer or Corsair where you can make layers of animated effects. You’re not really able to customize effects at all beyond choosing a custom color for the presets.
As for the quality of these RGB lights, they are at least true to color. If I choose hot pink, I get hot pink, and it’s the same hot pink from the color picker rather than something that leans more purple or red. I will say the board struggles with pastel colors. A lot of them come off white, but if you put different pastels next to each other, like orange and blue, you can absolutely tell the difference. You could say the pastel colors come across more as tints than true pastels. However, with the keycaps on this model being a clear pink, it may also affect the way the pastels present themselves. Even among more expensive boards, it’s not uncommon to see this sort of issue with pastels – however, many of those boards use opaque keycaps, so the juxtaposition of a solid color helps the pastels come across more true.
Wireless Capabilities
A really nice feature of this keyboard is that it can be used wired or wirelessly. It comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable (that annoyingly is white instead of pink; I wish it matched the board!) or you can choose to connect it to your PC via Bluetooth or wifi. I’ve connected mine via Bluetooth and so far I’ve been pretty impressed with how responsive it is as well as how long the battery life has lasted.
The keyboard automatically turns the lights off after you’ve been idle for two minutes. Using the software, you can change this setting to be shorter or longer. Whenever I go to type again, the keys fire immediately, even if the lights on the board have turned off. After 28 minutes, the board goes to sleep. There is a bit of a delay for the keyboard to wake up, but that’s to be expected. You can also change the settings for how long you want the keyboard to wait before going to sleep.
So far, the 8000mAh battery has lasted me 10 days and it is at 30% according to Windows. I regularly use my PC for over 8 hours a day. However, I have not been using the RGB lights underneath the keycaps since they make it impossible to see the key legends. I have only had the baseboard lights on. Still, 10 days is pretty impressive!
Wireless keyboards are convenient because you can move around your space or even travel with them. However, this keyboard is so heavy that I can’t see anyone wanting to bring this on a plane much less shove it in their backpack. I weighed it, and it is just under four pounds. I know that may not sound like a lot, but trust me, it’s clunky.
Does it Game?
This keyboard is pretty standard when it comes to gaming. It is hot-swappable and claims you can swap in any 3/5-pin mechanical switches. The switches that come with it are made by the KiiBOOM brand, and they describe them as “smooth,” “slightly flexible,” “soft,” and “cushioned,” which sounds pretty accurate. They have enough resistance that they don't press straight into the base with the lightest of presses, but not enough that you can actually feel it. If you like more tactile feedback for gaming, these might not be the best option as they definitely are a softer experience.
As is the case with the majority of mechanical keyboards, this board does have anti-ghosting technology. Within the downloadable software, you can map the keys to your liking and create and assign macros. You can make up to three different profiles within the software, but they are referred to as “layers” rather than profiles which was a bit confusing for me at first. I can only assume it was awkwardly translated into English.
As for my own gaming experience, I’ve not had any lag or misfires. I don’t love the smooth texture of the keys, personally, but I don’t think it negatively affects my gaming experience, either. The biggest issue I have while gaming has nothing to do with the keyboard’s actual technology – instead it’s that I struggle to see the key legends sometimes. Overall, this keyboard will work just fine for gaming. There’s nothing particularly special about it, but it does do its job.
final thoughts
Is this keyboard everything I was hoping it would be? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Even though it has the features I was looking for, I personally don’t favor how smooth the keycaps are and I hate that it’s so hard to see the key legends. I love having a volume wheel, but this one doesn't seem sensitive enough – I feel like I have to twist it too much to get the volume where I want it. However, it is by no means a bad keyboard. Everything functions as it should. I do think it is a bit overpriced for what it is, but I’m wondering if that has to do with the materials used. The keyboard weighs nearly four pounds and the base of it is quite thick acrylic, so perhaps that’s driving up the price. After spending about a month with this board, I have to admit that I think there are better options out there for $220, so it isn’t something that I would buy for myself. However, if you love the look of the crystal keys and you don’t mind the key legends being illegible, then I don’t think you’d be unhappy with this since it does function and has some useful features like wireless capabilities.
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Seri
A writer by day and gamer by night, Seri’s most prized possession is her computer. In fact, she built her desktop PC herself and repaired her college laptop with nothing but Google, Reddit, and determination to guide her. This do-it-yourself attitude was born from frugalness, so if you see Seri raving about something, it’s probably worth the price.