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Magicforce 49 Review: A Budget 40% Mechanical Keyboard
Earlier this year I reviewed the Vortex Core keyboard, a tiny keyboard that is surprisingly nice to type on. While that keyboard has got a lot of things right, the price is on the steep side. Qisan hopes to bring a more budget friendly option with the Magicforce 49. How does it hold up as a small keyboard and as a cheaper alternative to the Core? Over the past few weeks I have been using only the Magicforce 49 as my keyboard and here are my thoughts.
Layout: Not Small Enough
The Magicforce 49 has a rather unique layout, even for a 40% keyboard. It seems like Qisan was trying to make a layout that is more approachable than other small keyboards, but they ultimately made it harder. For starter, the awkward position of the right shift key makes my typing experience much worse from the start as I use both shift keys when typing. Split space bar has been picking up popularity and it seems like this keyboard has adopted that feature, however it really hasn’t. The right shift key is just a right shift key, there is no programming like on the Vortex Core or other 40% keyboard. I could have forgiven Qisan for leaving this out for the price but the layout is just… weird. The two functions key both access the same function layer whereas on other keyboard usually they serve different functions.
It’s not all bad however. This is one of the few small keyboards with a dedicated arrow cluster, something that even 60% keyboards usually don’t have. Many of the keys are standard size, but not enough of them are to be able to cover the keyboard in a standard keycap set. If you want to swap out the cheap, thin, laser-etched ABS keycaps, you will want to go with a uni-profile keycap set like DSA or XDA. I couldn’t stand typing on the included keycap because of how fast they picked up fingerprint and oil. Overall the keyboard is only slightly shorter than a standard 60% keyboard.
