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
The Nixeus Moda Pro Mechanical Keyboard
A simple glance on the Moda Pro reveals that Nixeus invested a significant portion of their efforts on the aesthetic value of the keyboard. The Moda Pro has a minimalistic design, and is based on a simple rectangular metallic chassis with white keycaps floating above it. It is interesting to note that the entire body of the keyboard, including the top, the bottom and the sides, is made out of metal - with the exception of the four white plastic rounded edges. Apparently Nixeus figured that metallic edges would be too sharp for a keyboard, or they were disproportionately expensive to manufacture.
The Nixeus Moda Pro is a standard 104-key keyboard that adheres to the ANSI layout. The bottom row of the keyboard has a 6.25× Spacebar, two 1.25× ALT, two 1.25× CTRL and three 1.25× WIN/Menu/Fn bottom row keys. The standard ANSI layout has a 6.25× Spacebar and seven 1.25× bottom row keys. The white keycaps are made from ABS plastic and have relatively small, sharp characters printed on them.
There are no extra keys or volume control wheels/buttons on the Nixeus Moda Pro. The few extra media functions can be accessed by holding the Fn Key and then pressing one of the F1 to F8 keys. F1 to F4 keys offer basic media controls, F5 mutes the volume, F6 and F7 adjust the volume and F8 locks the Windows keys for gamers. Finally, the combination of Fn + Delete key activates or deactivates the N-key rollover mode. There is virtually no reason to deactivate the N-key rollover mode assuming that the hardware supports N-key rollover via USB, but this option ensures compatibility with older hardware and certain systems.
There are no USB ports or any extra features at the back of the keyboard either. A grey braided cable exits from the middle and is firmly held in place with a rubber grommet. The keyboard has two rear legs that provide a reasonable tilt.
We found Kailh Brown switches beneath the keycaps. Nixeus clearly mentions Kailh to be the provider of their switches, so their presence was not a surprise. The use of Cherry cross stabilizers however was a surprise, as we have only seen bar stabilizers on keyboards with Kailh switches up to this date. Cross stabilizers offer a more uniform force distribution and tend to last longer without the need of any maintenance, which is most likely why Nixeus decided to install them on a product aimed to professionals. The Moda Pro is available with either Blue or Brown tactile switches, which are mechnical key types that are usually favored by professionals.
The disassembly of the metallic body reveals a simple, clean PCB that is permanently joined with the metallic top of the keyboard, forming a very strong and inflexible arrangement. There were no soldering or other assembly-related imperfections that we could notice.
Holtek supplies the processor of the Nixeus Moda Pro. The HT68FB560 processor is a RISC-based 8-bit solution, with an internal clock of just 12 MHz and only 16K of memory. It may sound leagues apart from the processors that we usually see in high-end models but the HT68FB560 is more than enough for a keyboard that lacks lighting or any form of programming.
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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)