The Nixeus Moda Pro Review: A Professional Mechanical Keyboard for $55
by E. Fylladitakis on August 3, 2016 9:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Mechanical Keyboards
- Keyboard
- Nixeus
- macOS
- Kailh
Final Words & Conclusion
I always try to use every keyboard that we review as my personal keyboard for at least a week. My typical weekly usage includes a lot of typing (about 100-150 pages), a few hours of gaming and some casual usage, such as internet browsing and messaging. The Nixeus Moda Pro has spent nearly a month attached to my work system, as I found it to be an excellent product for the regular typing of documents and emails. The Brown switches are comfortable both in terms of acoustics and muscle fatigue, making them well suited for professional use. One factor that professionals should take into account though is that this keyboard is not programmable. Many professionals use the programming ability of advanced keyboards to quickly execute specific functions, such as the insertion of code, CAD commands and other keystroke combinations. Such functions are beyond the capabilities of the Moda Pro.
As for gaming, I am afraid that the Moda Pro did not last more than half an hour on my desktop. My favorite types of games are RPG and Strategy titles, so I normally use programmed macros for several in-game functions. Since the Moda Pro is not programmable, I skipped my couple of favorite games because I found the inability to quickly swap equipment/skills to be too inconvenient and tried my luck with a relatively simple FPS shooter, a game that I would not use complex keystroke combinations anyhow. After a relatively short gaming session that lasted about half an hour, I found myself forced to stop because the height of the keyboard and the lack of a palm rest were putting a significant amount of strain on my arm. A dedicated gamer will most likely find the use of a cushion or aftermarket palm rest to be necessary.
The elegant minimalistic design and white color probably are the primary selling points of the Moda Pro as a mechanical keyboard, which is strongly trying to become visually appealing for Mac users. There are very few white mechanical keyboards available, let alone models designed with Mac users in mind. Of course the keyboard would work with a Mac without swapping the keycaps, they are just an aesthetic and psychological improvement for Mac users, who now are not forced to be using a mechanical keyboard with Windows-specific keycaps on it. Its metallic body and design make it perfect for a system in a modern workspace when aesthetics are important.
Nixeus has a clear target group for the Moda Pro and that is professionals and casual home users who do not need programmable keys or other advanced functions. Such users would not easily justify the cost of an advanced mechanical keyboard, which may be up to ten times more expensive than a typical $10 electronic keyboard. The Moda Pro however combines excellent aesthetics with a very alluring retail price ($55 shipped at the time of this review) that can easily convince many users to try the experience of a mechanical keyboard, either as an upgrade over a mediocre membrane-based model or as a stepping stone towards a future upgrade to a more advanced model.
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guyr - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
I'm typing on a 20 year old IBM Model M right now; sticker on the bottom says Easy Options by IBM. These keyboards are for all intents indestructible. And of course, you can still buy them:http://www.pckeyboard.com/
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
I like the concept of a minimalist keyboard that does away with the LEDs, macro keys, and other functions I personally wouldn't find useful. The Nixeus' pricing is good even with the recent increase since the article was published. I think its biggest downside is the lack of an included wrist rest which I find useful when typing. Most of my time at a keyboard is dedicated to writing so the omission would be something I'd notice right away. The other thing I don't care for about it is its design. It looks a bit awkward without the keys being recessed into the surrounding board a bit. I'm sure it types just fine, but I have trouble wrapping my mind around the style.Mr Perfect - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
It looks odd, but it makes it significantly easier to clean without the recess. Silver linings and all that.Vorl - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
not to derail this, but it's amazing. We get more reviews about keyboards than we do about video cards.... which is amazing considering how mundane keyboards are.thesavvymage - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
Different people have different skillsets. I believe the author of this article does their peripheral/case reviews, which requires a totally different skillset and dedicated time requirement than that of videocard testingDanNeely - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
They take a lot less work to produce. Other than the photography and per key testing, all the data acquisition is done by just using the keyboard to do other work. Just by page count the 1070/1080 review was 8x longer than this one. In terms of material written it's an even larger disparity.BrokenCrayons - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I think the sticking point for a lot of readers who make comments about articles they're not seeing published yet are doing so because there were previous comments by the article writer that set expectations for say a week or two after they're made. Not delivering on those estimates can cause a loss of trust and credibility which stirs up peoples' ire. I don't necessarily agree with the idea of bringing up those concerns in an unrelated article, but there it's really a very clear way of expressing displeasure to the writers elsewhere.The other problem is that new GPUs are pushed out by the manufacturers on routine cycles amid months of hype and teasers so it isn't as if their release ought to catch anyone by surprise. It didn't for AT's readers and it certainly shouldn't for AT's writers who are probably more informed about what the industry is up to than we are. One would expect them to plan accordingly so they can publish content in a timely manner, but that doesn't appear to be the case. That also would warrant legitimate complaining.
However, in AT's defense is the fact that the writers go out of their way to conduct extensive tests using sound methods even though they're geographically separated from one another and budget-limited. The articles, when they are finally published, are excellent technical deep dives which differentiates Anandtech's work from other sites that benchmark something and paste in a few obvious observations about what a chart already makes clear to the reader. Reading things like, "Wow, that new Tseng Labs ET6000 with 4MB of MoSys Multibank DRAM is 10 FPS faster in FlightSim 5.0 than the old ET4000!!!" when there's a chart right above it that I just looked at showing that data is silly. Tom's Hardware Guide used to do that back in the early 2000's to my great annoyance. At least AT's articles include a lot of additional information about why the ET6000 cranks out those extra 10FPS.
Also in AT's defense, with new manufacturing processes, there's a lot more technical information to gather, ingest, fact check with vendors, and so forth prior to publication. That's not been the case as much in the 28nm doldrums we saw over the previous few years so these articles are probably more challenging to write this time around.
Clearly those factors don't weigh the same in the minds of each reader, but they are all worth considering while we (im)patiently wait for the next major review to come out.
JBVertexx - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
so the new titan x has dropped, the rx 470 has dropped, and Anandtech has yet to release anything on the 1060, which dropped almost 4 weeks ago.What is going on Anandtech. I don't care how much more elaborate your articles are. They aren't 4 weeks more elaborate. Completely Unsat.
10basetom - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
It looks like the price increased $15 since the publication of this article.gmbytes - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link
i own this.. and it zapps my hands and provides exquisite BSOD's when placed on hibernate... (*win7)