The Cooler Master Master Keys Pro L White Mechanical Keyboard Review
by E. Fylladitakis on October 21, 2016 8:00 AM EST
Cooler Master is a very familiar brand name amongst enthusiasts, with a virtually endless lineup of products. The company started off as a manufacturer of PC cooling solutions and quickly diversified towards other segments of the market, such as cases and power supply units, to which they owe much of their current reputation. If you are a PC techie, chances are that you owned at least one of their products in the past.
Aside from power and cooling solutions, Cooler Master also diversified towards the peripherals market. Their entrance was cautious at first, but the great success of their first gaming peripherals quickly turned that caution into aggression, with the company filling the market with new products during the past few years. Among numerous other input and audio peripherals, Cooler Master today markets more than a dozen mechanical keyboards.
In today's review we are taking a look at one of Cooler Master’s latest and most popular keyboards, the Master Keys Pro L White. The Master Keys series currently consists of four keyboards that are the company’s main mechanical keyboards, with the “L” and “S” designations denoting a full-size keyboard and a tenkeyless keyboard respectively. They exist in either RGB or white LED variants. The Master Keys Pro L White that we are reviewing today therefore is the full-sized version with the white LEDs.
Packaging & Bundle
We received the Master Keys Pro L White keyboard in a sturdy cardboard box, providing ample protection during shipping. The aesthetic theme on the box is consistent with the austere, “professional” name of the keyboard, being minimalistic and virtually entirely focused on a picture of the keyboard itself.
Inside the box we found the keyboard’s detachable USB cable, a wire keycaps puller, and a very simple but useful quick start guide. The cable is braided and has gold-plated connectors. This is the first time that we found a wire keycaps puller supplied with a keyboard. Wire keycap pullers are much more effective at grabbing and removing a keycap than plastic ring pullers, especially larger keycaps.
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versesuvius - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Cooler Master products are always mediocre devices with the highest possible prices. The quality of their products is just about average and for the asking prices there is invariably a better product in the market. So, just look at the price and start looking for something better at that price. There is a 100% chance that you will find the ideal product at that price or even lower. The same is true about Logitech as well.Inteli - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
The Quickfire Rapids were always the best deals on mechanical keyboards, and were available for very reasonable prices. From the looks of it, the Pro S with white LEDs runs $100 on Amazon, which is still very reasonable. Maybe their MSRP is unreasonable, but market prices are generally very good. That also goes for Logitech (or at least the only Logitech products I care about)b4bblefish - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Well.. MSRP is always a joke, but the CM keyboards are great on sale. I got a TKL quickfire for $60 and a logitech G303 for $24.99. Definitely not complainingJoeyJoJo123 - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Both are good buys, and it's nice you got a flawless sensor above anything else here. Too many people fall for the "gaming mouse" advertising but don't investigate as to whether the mouse sensor is flawless from acceleration, angle-snapping and other such things.Omega215D - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Yeah it's a shame but it sells. The good thing is that Razer, CM and Logitech use good sensors in their mice (well now they do thanks to more enthusiasts especially those at Overclock.net) and Logitech heard the feedback and took it to heart this time around.3ogdy - Sunday, October 23, 2016 - link
I was going to agree with your comment...until I read your last sentence. That's where I completely disagree. I've owned a lot of Logitech products in my life from mice to keyboards, speakers, remotes, adapters, webcams, headsets...and what not. The quality of their products is top-notch. Full stop. If that's your opinion on Logitech, you're probably wrong about Cooler Master as well.hughlle - Tuesday, October 25, 2016 - link
So you never came across any stories of the abysmal failure rates of mice like the G5 or G7 (regarding the mouse buttons executing a double click for a single click due to poorly designed mechanisms within), or perhaps the dodgy mouse cables that fray and fail, or perhaps their "flasgship" keyboard, the dinovo edge, costing well over £100 which can't even hold a bluetooth connection for 5 minutes without requiring you to unplug and re-plug the dongle?Logitech certainly make some good products, and have certainly improved, but they have a far from top-notch track record. And it is not like we're talking about budget peripherals, we're talking about their top of the line models.
Silma - Wednesday, October 26, 2016 - link
I beg to differ.I've been using -daily and for the entire day - a Quickfire Pro for a few years, and it's a fantastic keyboard, whose sole inconvenient is that not all keys are backlighted.
At the time of the purchase, it was by far the best price for a mechanical keyboard in my region
Wwhat - Sunday, October 30, 2016 - link
Logitech prices are always twice as high as cooler master though.Grimmm - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
Wow, the design is extremely reminiscent of my CODE keyboard (which in turn is based on a WASD keyboards design). Seems like they took the minimalist design of the CODE, dropped the backplate, swapped the Cherry clears for browns, and added some basic macro functionality. All in all it seems like a decent drop in price for folks not interested in the $150 range CODE/Ducky/Das models.