Turtle Beach - Command Series KB5 Full-Size Wired Mechanical Gaming Keyboard for PC - Black

Pros: - Works as Plug & Play. - Touchscreen works like a more flexible streamdeck. - Quiet, Tactile, and Smooth switches. Cons: - Palm rest included is a hard plastic and uncomfortable for long sessions of gaming. - Touch screen sensitivity is low. Out-of-the-Box: Turtle Beach included in the box the Command Series KB5 keyboard, snap-on Palm rest, USB-C to USB-A braided cable, and a key-pulling tool with 4 alternative keys. The 4 alternative keys can technically be used anywhere but are shaped to replace the WASD, to provide additional texture for the movement keys most games use. I was pleased to find that the Command Series KB5 was Plug-&-Play, meaning it didn’t require any software to be used immediately. Though, to use the touchscreen requires the Swarm II software, which Turtle Beach conveniently provided a link to download on the touchscreen when you first turn on the keyboard. Software: The Command Series KB5 uses the Swarm II app for updates, configuration and customization. I’m familiar with the Swarm II app from previous Turtle Beach devices, I find it to be easy and straightforward to use. I still think Swarm II best feature is having all the settings easily accessible from the device tab. I did have some issues getting Swarm II to launch, but after a restart that resolved itself. In Swarm II you can set the different applications that can be launched from the touchscreen, such as Steam or Discord, which is helpful if you don’t have a streamdeck or other controller for quick launching. Build & Feel: The Command Series KB5 is a full sized low profile keyboard, with only 27mm/~1in of height when flat on the table. A major part of this is the Low-Profile Mechanical switches, which have low key actuation and travel distance. The key caps remind me of a laptop keyboard, both in feel and typing. The front plate is made of brushed aluminum with the back of the keyboard being a hard smooth black plastic. Unfortunately, the palm rest is made of the same material as the back of the keyboard, a hard black plastic. I found it to be uncomfortable during long durations of use, like a late-night gaming session. It did raise my hands up to the right level to use the keyboard comfortably, but if you’re going to include a palm rest for a gaming focused keyboard, at least make it comfortable for long durations of use. I ended up removing it to use a foam palm rest instead as my palm started to get sore after a couple of days of using it. The key caps have a good smooth tactile feel, but for a gaming keyboard I would have preferred a bit of texture on the keys over a completely smooth key. The included alternative key caps would be nice, except that the texture on them doesn’t really provide any more grip compared to the default smooth keys. It’s a preference, but I like matte textured key caps with a bit of grip, especially for tactile focused keyboards. Gaming on it worked well, my biggest complaint was the palm rest comfortability. The low-latency is helpful in more competitive games, but for average gaming it is less important than say a stable internet connection. I’m always cautious about using features like ReacTap SOCD, because in competitive games it is seen as a macro input for directional movement enhancement, but for casual gaming it is a fun feature to help improve your movements. Just check the Terms of Service before enabling it in online PvP games. Touch Screen: The touchscreen is the focus of the Command Series KB5, which works like a more powerful stream deck providing quick control for media and apps, being customizable in the Swarm II app. I found the touchscreen sensitivity to be lower than I would have preferred, it responded like a screen with a slightly too thick screen protector on it. It took a while to get the required touch down paired with the right motions to navigate. I was underwhelmed by it. I found being able to customize the applications I could open on the quick panels was the best part, as it made quickly accessing websites or tools as easy as clicking on the task bar, but could do so from the keyboard with less clicks. Switches: The Low-Profile Mechanical switches are the main reason the KB5 is as low-profile as it is. With an actuation distance at 1.2mm and key travel distance of 3.1mm, this is on the low end for most keyboards, the typing can feel a bit too sensitive or shorted as the keys activate quickly and bottom out sooner than you might expect. The short travel distance does take a bit to get used to, it is more like typing on a laptop or membrane keyboard than a traditional mechanical keyboard, the feel is very similar to chicklet keyboard typing. The switches are very quiet and tactile, there is a noticeable muted click but it isn’t loud. That is thanks to the pre-lubed stabilized keys. Overall, the typing is smooth and responsive. Conclusion: The Command Series KB5 keyboard by Turtle Beach is a good take on a low-profile mechanical keyboard. The built-in touch screen is an added benefit, like having a more flexible stream deck built right into your keyboard. But the sensitivity of the touch screen does make it a little difficult to use accurately, which is unfortunate. The included palm rest should just not be included; it raises your wrist up to the right height but is not comfortable over long durations of use. Overall, I don’t dislike using the Command Series KB5, but it leaves a lot to be desired which makes it a maybe consider it for my recommendation.

The Turtle Beach KB5 keyboard is a great keyboard for those gaming and also doing a little more, while purchasing on a budget. The main star of this keyboard for me is the built in touch display. While being a full size keyboard this might not be the best choice for those just gaming, but its perfect for people like myself who want the number pad and the ins/del keys. Pros - Built in Display - Short actuation distance - Pleasant softer mechanical switches Cons - Turtle Beach Software - Missing features of higher end keyboards The build quality of this keyboard felt pretty nice. Solid plastic body, light enough weight but not too light. The keys all felt really responsive and springy, while having a satisfying press. Not clunky like other mechanical boards, but didn't feel like a membrane keyboard. The included cable was of nice length and material. The included detachable wrist pad is very comfortable. The volume bar being clickable was a nice addition as well as satisfying to use. As far as features go, this is a pretty straight forward device. The touchscreen has built in controls for numerous things like playing music and such. Its also setup so that you can create your own macros for whenever you're using certain programs. I didn't get too heavy into using it yet, but I could see it being quite handy. Outside of that, its your typical keyboard. Its lacking features like Rapid Triger, hall effect, adjustable actuation. But it also comes in much cheaper than most keyboards that do that don't include a touchscreen. The only real problem I had with this keyboard was the software. Swarm II just feels like it has a long way to go to compete with other peripheral software. It simply lacks a lot of features that you'd find elsewhere. On the other hand, its very simplistic, its very straightforward with what it offers. If it weren't for the touchscreen I wouldn't have installed it at all. The biggest issue with the software though was its inability to install firmware updates on the keyboard. No matter what I tried, with support or in my own troubleshooting, could I get the keyboards firmware update to install. The keyboard is working fine so far, so its not a big issue, but still something to be concerned with.

I'm a hardcore gamer and PC builder. I have built at least 50 PCs for myself and others in my life, all of which have been high end gaming machines or personally for other uses such as a home server. In that time I've used a significant number of different keyboards, from the very cheap to the very expensive Packaging: To start, it's packaged like every other keyboard out there, nothing really special here, it has the keyboard, cable and some literature. Use: Here's the interesting piece. It is a gaming keyboard, there's no denying that, it runs in conjunction with the Turtle Beach SWARM II application which also controls my mouse. In general it's decent, I've not had any glaring issues with it. You can set up your macros and manage lighting and effects. It's decent but doesn't do anything groundbreaking. The keyboard itself uses the thin chiclet style keys rather than full size keys which are not my favorite. In use the travel is smooth without any clickyness, and it is responsive, for the most part. Here's where the issue lies though. This keyboard has "boot up time" you can see it happening when your computer powers on, and strangely even after the screen lights up it is not always ready to accept input, this is important because I was using this to troubleshoot a new PC build and frequently it was not ready to accept input before the DEL to enter the BIOS was gone from the screen and would require me to reboot it again (and since power was not lost to the keyboard on reboot, it would not go through the reboot cycle and it would take the DEL in time). In addition if you reboot your PC repeatedly sometimes the keyboard, while appearing to be on and operational, wont let you input any commands. In that case I've had to pull the cable and put it back in to get it to work. I thought this was just an issue with a single one of my PCs but it happened on multiple PCs (I tested this because it was a strange behavior). In gaming and normal use it works great without any instability or issues, it just seems to be repeated reboots that causes the problem. Overall: Good keyboard, fun to use if you understand the minor issues it has for repeated reboots, hopefully a firmware update comes out to address this.

This Turtle Beach KB5 is a great looking and seemingly endlessly customizable mechanical keyboard. Anyone who likes mechanical keyboards will love this one. Starting with the physical keyboard it's low profile and lightweight, being just over 1" thick including keycaps and weighing just under 2 pounds. The switch plate is brushed aluminum screwed onto a plastic case/chassis. The case has six rubber non-slip pads on the bottom and a pair of adjustable kickstands. The switches are Turtle Beach's Titan low-profile pre-lubed linear mechanical switches. They're smooth and quiet (except for the clack) and have a solid feel to them. The keycaps are premium double-shot PBT. The keyboard has a 2.4 inch 3-page touchscreen display. Each page can be changed (using Turtle Beach's Swarm II app) to one of 23 different preset templates ranging from computer controls to various app and various game controls or you can create your own customized templates. Use the Swarm II app to customize key functions and create macros for use in any of the four keyboard modes available - Primary (standard keyboard functions), FN mode, Game Mode, or Easy Shift mode. Easy Shift mode is an additional layer of functions accessible when in Game Mode. The Swarm II app itself doesn't have much how-to help and can be overwhelming. I recommend going online to the Turtle Beach site downloads and downloading the Command Series KB5 Quick Start Guide. It fully explains keyboard functionality, touchscreen information and short-cut keys for accessing/switching keyboard modes. There's a long list of preset gaming macros for specific games in the Swarm II app. It's easy to just pick out the macro you want to use for a particular game and assign a key. If the function or game isn't listed, then you can create your own. It's a twostep process - first create the macro, then go to keyboard assignments to assign the trigger key. There's a pressable roller on the top left of the keyboard that they label as a Volume Barrel which is its default. Roll it forward to increase volume or back to decrease and press to mute. However, like everything else it can be customized to do other media commands like roll forward or back for next song/previous song and press to pause/play. Or mouse actions can be assigned to it. Finally, compared to everything else, the RGB customizing using Swarm II is simple and straightforward. Do lighting by preset grouping like main keys, WASD keys, number keys, arrow keys, FN keys or individual keys or groups you choose. The RGB lighting is beautiful - the key switches are translucent, and the keycaps have short skirts so the RBG lighting glows not only through the keycap legends but all around the keys themselves and reflects off the aluminum switch plate. See my photo! The keyboard comes with braided USB cable, attachable wrist rest, keycap puller and textured WASD keycaps. It took me quite a while working with the app and keyboard to understand all the possibilities and how to enable and use them. Only then did I come to appreciate everything this keyboard has to offer and is capable of. This keyboard is awesome! I give it two thumbs up!

While not perfect, I do love the Turtle Beach KB5 full size wired mechanical gaming keyboard. It’s spacious, has the type of switches I prefer, lots of keyboard customization, all at a great price. My qualms are small with one being able to be fixed in future software updates. This screen could be a game changer and while it does add some handy features (especially if you’re a streamer) there is a lot of functionality that could be added to push this across the finish line. Let’s start with what this keyboard’s main use is. Being a keyboard, which it excels at doing. It’s a full size keyboard and I do mean FULL size. It took a little bit to get used to because it's so spacious but boy do I love it. They are linear switches (soft, no click) which I like but might not be everyone's choice of key switch. It is surprising they don’t offer other switch types for folks who don’t like linear. Now onto the software. Swarm II is solid software for customizing the keyboard and makes it relatively easy for getting the display up and running. RGB customizations, macro keys, etc are all really easy to adjust on the fly! I’m a fan of the software. Where it does fall flat is how much I can customize the display. I was really hoping the Discord integration would allow me to map custom sounds to buttons and other features of Discord Nitro, but it is actually quite limited in its integration. You can have one click channel join, and audio controls but that’s it. I know other gamer displays have that functionality so hopefully it’s something that Turtle Beach will add in the future. Other weird things about the display are, it has a timer button but it can’t go above 10 minutes so I can’t use it as a pomodoro timer for work. It can do 10 minutes so I’m not sure why it can do all double digit times. The built-in game specific macros are all for old games (It has Mass Effect 2 but not 1 or 3?) so that’s not super handy and you will find yourself having to add your own macros which is fine. This is a very impressive keyboard on the hardware side and the software side has a great starting point with a lot more room to grow. I’m excited to see future updates add more features so I can truly make this display a part of my routine and less of an occasional use feature. Pros: Excellent spacious keyboard Easy setup Great keyboard customization Great price Sturdy build quality Cons: Only Linear smooth switches available Lack of customization with display