The most notable thing about the keyboard is its build quality. Despite being distributed on various deal sites for cheap prices, this keyboard is very durable. The K727 has a stainless steel backplate that gives it a very sturdy build quality. No matter how hard I tried, I could barely get this keyboard to flex or bend. Additionally, E-Blue boasts that this keyboard is waterproof. While that may be true for the keycaps and the shell, I was fairly skeptical of the of the resistance of the actual switches and the PCB. Upon further research, it appears that the Kailh switches are actually not waterproof, which means water could definitely kill your keyboard. Finally, the keyboard connects to the computer via a very nice 1.8m braided USB 2.0 cable.
Instead of using the more popular Cherry MX switches, E-Blue uses the alternative Kailh switches. The switches have similar specs to the Cherry MXs and are even compatible with MX keycaps. Kailh also has a similar range of switches determined by colors, with the K727 being available with red, brown, black or blue switches. While I have only used Cherry switches briefly, the Kailh switches are a bit lower quality. The biggest flaw is an inconsistency among the different keys. For example, the left shift has a noticeably different feel compared to the right. Luckily, when rapidly typing or gaming, this issue is practically unnoticeable.
The functionality of the keyboard is fairly standard. It looks like most other tenkeyless keyboard, but it also has a FN key that gives some keys extra functionality. This key can be used to activate multimedia and communication shortcuts, but it also is used to change the lighting settings on the keyboard. E-Blue says they officially support Windows on the box, but there are also logos for RedHat Linux and OS X. Unfortunately, I found out that some things, such as the illumination of the scroll lock key, do not function properly while in Linux Mint. This isn’t a major issue and I didn’t expect everything to work with Linux, but I just found this particular issue to be a bit strange.
The biggest selling point of the keyboard is its aesthetic. The K727 has very colorful LEDs to illuminate the keys and blue LEDs to illuminate the bottom. The individual LEDs aren’t actually RGB, but each row of keys has a different color. Unfortunately, the color of the lights cannot be changed at all, so if you don’t want it to be rainbow, you’re out of luck. There are also multiple different modes of lighting the keyboard can be set to: pulsating, marquee, ripple, turn on keys when pressed, and custom layouts. All of these modes can also be further customized via settings such as brightness and speed. Additionally, there are three different reaction rates for the different effects: 2ms, 4ms, and 8ms.
All the keys that are togglable (Windows/lock key, caps lock, and scroll lock) are not lighted by default and turn on when they are toggled on. Out of the insert, home, and page up keys, only one of them is lit up at a time. This is because these are the keys that are used to toggle between the different reaction rates. Personally, I would prefer if there was a way to permanently enable the lighting on all of these keys (especially since the scroll lock and Windows key don’t work properly while using Linux Mint). However, this is really just a nitpick and I’m sure it won’t bother most other people.
The last piece that adds to the keyboards unique look is the keycaps. The font used by E-Blue is very unique, and I actually thought it looked pretty awful in the product pictures. In person, they actually look a lot better. While it certainly isn’t my favorite font, it doesn’t look horrible. Of course, there is also always the option of buying new keycaps.
The E-Blue K727 is something that really caught me by surprise. I went into this review rather skeptical of the specific product and mechanical keyboards as a whole. After spending some time with it, my views have really changed and I am certainly switching to the K727 as my daily keyboard.
The K727 was sent to us by GearBest. If you’re interested in purchasing the K727, you can get it on their store here for $70 USD. GearBest also has a wide variety of technology and other products that can be found for great prices.
Update: Since people seem to not like the white keyboard as much as I do, the exact same keyboard can be purchased with black keycaps and a darker steel backplate.
