We have a new keyboard to review! Wooting is a Dutch company that popularized hall-effect keyboards. The Wooting 80HE was released 2 months ago and is now available for delivery. Wooting has put “revolutionary features” in this keyboard and hundreds of professionals use it. In this article, we will take a look at the Wooting 80HE and decide if it is good for professionals only or if casual gamers can also take advantage of it.
Review
The Wooting 80HE is available in two models, a cheaper model that has a plastic case, and a more expensive one that has a case made from zinc alloy. You can also get it barebones, for $164.98. If you choose it with the plastic case, it will cost you a not-so-cheap $199.99. If you choose it with the zinc alloy case, you will have to pay $289.99. I chose the zinc alloy case. If you choose the more expensive zinc alloy case, the Wooting 80HE will come in a nice carrying case. In the box, you get a braided USB-C cable, adjustable feet, and a nice Wooting postcard.
The design of the Wooting 80HE is very nice, and the case comes in two finishes, Black and a translucent Grey ( Wooting calls this color “Ghost”). The zinc alloy version is about twice the weight of a normal Aluminum keyboard, which means that the Wooting 80HE is very hefty. Now, you might be wondering if the build quality of this keyboard would be amazing, but after holding the keyboard in my hands, I have some doubts. The case feels off, like Wooting made some efforts to make it extra heavy so it would look premium, but the case felt like it was made of cheap metal and it didn’t feel durable at all. The adjustable feet silicon felt very weird on the keyboard and it was hard to understand what was the right way to put them in. One thing I like about the Wooting 80HE is the RGB. It looks great, and there is an LED strip on the right side.
A feature that is found in most keyboards nowadays, even budget keyboards, is gasket mounting. Gasket mounting makes your typing experience soft and bouncy, but i don’t feel any of that with the Wooting 80HE. The zinc alloy case is also incredibly prone to scratching, the first keycap I took out caused scratches on the case. This makes you imagine what this keyboard will look like with one year of average use.
With the Wooting 80HE, you get double-shot backlit PBT keycaps. These are the standard keycaps that you get in most keyboards, and there isn’t anything to complain about them. This keyboard uses the Lekker V2 switches. They are hall-effect switches, which means they are magnetic. The keyboard is hot-swappable but it is only compatible with other magnetic switches.
The Lekker V2 comes in two switch options, there is the Lekker L45 which is lighter, and then there is the Lekker L60 which is heavier. These switches are not good, they don’t sound great, and they don’t feel great. And the fact that they are hall-effect switches doesn’t give them any credit, as in my opinion, mechanical switches are miles better than magnetic ones.
Let’s talk about hall-effect or rapid trigger. We saw this a while ago in the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro, and it means that your input is going from mechanical to analog, and you can control when your input actuates ( when your keypress registers). You can set different actuation timings for every single switch, and this saves a few milliseconds of response time. This gives advantages in games like Valorant, where you can stop your movement quicker. A lot of people have been calling this feature cheating, but the truth is, if you have rapid trigger, you won’t automatically become good at the game. You can get the same results with a regular keyboard, rapid trigger just saves you a few milliseconds of response time. I have to give credit to Wooting here, as they haven’t overadvertised this feature.
As always, Wooting still has the best software. It can customize almost every feature of your keyboard, and you are guaranteed four years of software support.
Verdict
If you are considering getting the Wooting 80HE, then I recommend getting it barebones and then customizing every single thing yourself. It is an average keyboard, but the prices are too high for a product of this quality. You can find a better keyboard for $100, with more features and better-quality materials.
