Reix Media

Redragon is a company known for making gaming peripherals catered toward the budget end of the market. This reputation has not stopped them from iterating and catering towards the taste of the market and has seen an improvement in quality and faster adoption of trends than the heavy hitters such as Logitech. The K617 Fizz Magnetic is yet another example of Redragon’s adoption of trends.

Hall effect keyboards are currently all the rage amongst gamers and everyone and their grandma and their grandma’s dog are busy trying to cram hall effect PCBs and hall effect keyboard switches into their latest offerings. For the average consumer, this begs the question: what on earth is a hall effect keyboard?

The hall effect is the production of a potential difference (p.d. or better known as voltage) upon the movement of a magnetic field. In this case a magnet in the stem of the keyboard switch moves up and down and a sensor detects this using the tiny voltage generated. One of the breakout success stories and arguably the progenitors of this trend is the company Wooting, a company based in the Netherlands. Wooting produces the community’s most beloved examples of this technology but does charge a hefty premium as most small businesses tend to do when economies of scale prevent them from pricing more competitively.

Enter Redragon. More specifically, enter the Redragon K617 Fizz Magnetic keyboard, which I am currently using to type this after just losing my fourth Valorant ranked game in a row. This 60% standard layout, tray mount keyboard has notable advertised features such as adjustable actuation and 8000Hz polling (in comparison with the gaming industry’s standard 1000Hz).

Upon unboxing one of the first things, one might notice is just how light the keyboard itself is and once plugged in with the RGB in full effect; another one might notice is the ping and hollowness of the sound profile of the keyboard. This brings me to one of my favourite things to do with a keyboard: acoustic modifications.

As a lover of music, sound is one of the things about a keyboard that really rounds out the user experience. I tried three single mods that really made this keyboard one of my alternating daily drivers. Firstly, the tape mod adds some acoustic adjustments to the keyboard by way of loosely adhesive mass to the bottom of the keyboard’s PCB. This paved the way for my second modification. Adding about 300g of purple plasticine which doesn’t dry nor corrode plastic was essential as it removed the hollow sound from the keyboard and was a qualitative change made. The final change was more of an optional modification and that was the burger mount tray mode, which involves o-rings being placed in the stems in which the top plate of the keyboard screws into. This helps soften slightly the typing experience as well as acts as some acoustic dampening. Of course the stems of the switches feature standard cherry stems allowing for an aftermarket keycap set to be used and changed to match the user’s preference.

The modding potential of the keyboard is one of it’s strong suits and this says nothing about it’s technical performance as of yet. Adjustable actuation is what makes this keyboard so special as it enables the use of a rapid trigger function. Previously gaming centric keyboard switches utilised short travel times and low actuation forces to achieve better latency. With the advent of hall effect keyboards, gamers were no longer limited to waiting for keyboard switches to return above the actuation point of the switch. Instead as soon as the finger lifts, the switch resets allowing it to be triggered again with a downward motion. This feature cause controversy in one of the most mechanically difficult games, Osu!, as the hall effect keyboards were shown to provide actual measurable advantages for them. I digress; the keyboard itself seems to include rapid trigger and adjustable actuation from 0.1mm actuation to 4mm actuation and from more technical reviews I’ve gathered Redragon’s offering is pretty accurate in its actuation and adjustment of trigger points.

Another feature advertised is 8000Hz polling, which while probably possible I have not been able to achieve as I believe my USB ports and it’s USB controller on my PC are saturated in terms of bandwidth. However, the K617 Fizz Magnetic still achieves a stable 1000Hz which is the industry standard for gaming keyboards and is respectable. There seems to be no issues in ghosting or N-key roll over in my testing which is a must for a keyboard to count as a gaming keyboard in my opinion.

At £42.50 as of writing, despite any acoustic shortcomings, this keyboard is one I can whole heartedly recommend as it provides strong gaming performance at an unbeaten price point bringing hall effect for even the most budget minded of gamers. The tray mount standard layout leave space for the user to make adjustments of their own as the keyboard community often does in terms of acoustics and aesthetics. This would be my baseline recommendation for fellow tactical FPS enjoyers as well as keyboard enthusiasts who enjoy modifying budget offerings to better than stock.