Overall and Final Verdict
With keyboards being one of my many interests I get excited about most when they come in. The Hero 84 though caught my interest more than a lot of the others because from a distance at least it seemed to be the perfect mix of a 60% keyboard with a TenKeyLess. With a few big lans already booked including ours and a few smaller LANs that I plan on getting in before summer is up I really wanted to find a balance between the two form factors. Typically I run a TKL but having messed around with the 60% keyboards this year I really enjoyed the additional space that they provided. The only problem was that I really missed my direction pad. The Hero 84 filled that gap perfectly.
The all white design with high quality PBT keycaps really pops, especially with the backlighting on. Speaking of the backlighting, it was at a bit of a disadvantage with the keycaps not having translucent legends on them but they gave more than enough lighting options to get the backlighting just right, with a few being extremely bright.
Really the only downside to the Hero 84 to me was not having dedicated keys for the volume and mute, but I could never expect that given the form factor. Typing performance was on point, even with the off brand switches. With a price of around $110 the Keycool Hero 84 is priced in line with the smaller 60% keyboards, especially when we remember it has full backlighting available as well. I have a feeling that my Poker 2 is going to see a lot less use with me having the Hero 84 around the house. I might even order some orange or white LEDs to swap into it to give it a little more LanOC style.
Live Pricing: HERE
