Akko MOD007-HE PC Keyboard Review

The Akko MOD007-HE PC has a fairly standard 75% layout. While it lacks a numpad, this layout provides you with a dedicated function row, arrow keys, and several navigation cluster keys while leaving more room for mouse movement.

The Akko MOD007-HE PC has impressive build quality. Its case is made of thick polycarbonate plastic, and it has a metal plate, giving the board a sturdy overall feel with minimal deck flex.

The gasket mount lends a softer quality to the typing experience, and there aren't any rattling sounds or ticking if you shake the keyboard. The keycaps are made of high-quality PBT with dye-sublimated legends, and the stabilizers do a good job of keeping larger keys stable while typing. Unfortunately, both the stabilizers and switches feel somewhat underlubed.

On the underside, there are rubberized feet in each corner that do a good job of keeping the board in place and feel quite securely held in. A pair of plastic flip-out feet provide incline angles and feature rubberized caps so they don't slide around on your desk.

It's a minor detail, but there are three small slots machined through the plate down to the internal foam layers (two near the Caps Lock and Tab keys and one more between the F4 and F8 keys). These gaps can be slightly visible, especially with backlighting on. It's not clear what purpose these slots serve, and they don't impact usability, though they may collect dust and debris and may be irritating if you prefer a cleaner appearance.

This keyboard has a fairly standard profile. There are plastic flip-out feet on the underside that provide two additional typing angles.

It's comfortable to type on without straining your wrists too far to reach the keys, but most people would benefit from using a wrist rest, especially for longer typing sessions.

This keyboard's hot-swappable PCB is compatible with magnetic switches as well as 3-pin mechanical switches. (5-pin mechanical switches are also compatible, but you'll have to trim off the two stabilizer legs with nail clippers or a similar tool.)

This keyboard doesn't have very granular adjustment possibilities for the backlighting brightness, and the minimum brightness setting (third image above) is still fairly bright.

The keycaps don't have shine-through legends, and the LEDs are south-facing on the PCB, so it's difficult to read keycaps in darker conditions.

When set to white-only backlighting, most of the keyboard has a slightly pink hue except for keys with blue keycaps which have a corresponding, slightly blueish hue.

For additional reference, we took a photo with several stock keycaps replaced with standard shine-through keycaps. These shine-through keycaps are designed for north-facing backlighting, and as you can see, the visibility remains poor.

The included coiled cable has a smooth silicone rubber coating. It only retains some minor kinks from its packaging.

By default, turning the control knob in the top right corner adjusts the volume. If you press the knob in, it changes the function to adjust the backlighting brightness. You can remap these controls in software.

An additional quirk we noticed during testing is that the LED indicator lights don't turn on and off with static backlighting unless 'dazzle' RGB mode is enabled.

For a list of supported hotkeys and other information, you can reference a PDF version of the included user guide from Akko's website.

• USB-A to USB-C silicone-coated coiled cable.
• Keycap puller
• Switch puller
• User documentation

This keyboard has fairly good typing quality overall. Its gasket mount design produces a slightly softer typing experience compared to more conventional tray-mounted keyboards. However, it's still on the stiffer side compared to some gasket-mounted keyboards. That said, it's worth noting this is likely intentional as too much gasket flexibility can negatively impact the actuation accuracy of magnetic switches.

The switches feel a bit scratchy and, like the stabilizers on larger keys, feel somewhat underlubed. Key stability is okay, but there's a bit of noticeable vertical wobble. The switches also have a slightly heavier bottom-out force compared to many linear switches on similar gaming keyboards. Some people may appreciate the heavier keystroke, but this also may be tiring if you prefer lighter switches. This element is ultimately a matter of preference.

This keyboard is reasonably quiet with the stock Akko Cream Yellow Magnetic switches. The typing noise is unlikely to bother those around you, unless you're in a very noise-sensitive environment.

For this test, we produced measurements using the default settings:

• Actuation: 2.0 mm
• Release: 2.0 mm
• Deadzone: 3.7 mm

The Akko MOD007-HE PC has passable input granularity. While the keyboard can detect fairly small step depth, it suffers from a lackluster overall detection ratio and somewhat large deadzones. In particular, the lowest, most sensitive actuation settings, which are typically most important for competitive gaming, are closer to 0.5 mm.

Additionally, there's no true analog support, and while this isn't a significant limitation for most gaming scenarios, it does mean that you can't emulate gradual gamepad- or joystick-style inputs, useful or playing platformers, racing games, or flight sims.

We conducted this test using the following optimized settings:

• Continuous Rapid Trigger: Off
• Deadzone: Off

The Akko MOD007-HE PC has good overall latency performance and is suitable for playing games in any genre. However, the latency is markedly inconsistent and somewhat higher compared to many competing products. While this inconsistency is likely too small to be noticeable in-game, it may affect your performance if you play at a particularly high competitive level.

Before conducting our performance tests, we updated this keyboard to the latest firmware and calibrated the switches using the software's manual calibration feature.

We conducted this test using the following settings:

• Actuation: 0.1 mm
• Rapid Trigger: 0.1 mm release
• Deadzone: Off
• Continuous Rapid Trigger: Off

The Akko MOD007-HE PC has satisfactory multi-key latency performance, but its overall latency is higher and significantly less consistent than most wired gaming keyboards we've tested recently.

Even with optimal settings, release latency in multi-key scenarios is especially high. This can noticeably delay follow-up inputs and may affect gameplay, particularly in rhythm or fighting games where precise frame timing matters. It's also a potential drawback for movement techniques like tap-strafing in Apex Legends or counter-strafing in CS:2 and Valorant, where fast directional transitions are crucial.

While suitable for general gaming, this keyboard's overall multi-key latency performance and sluggish release latency in particular can impact your experience if you play at a high competitive level.

Before conducting our performance tests, we updated this keyboard to the latest firmware and calibrated the switches using the software's manual calibration feature.

We conducted this test using the following settings:

• Actuation: 0.1 mm
• Rapid Trigger: 0.1 mm release
• Deadzone: Off
• Continuous Rapid Trigger: Off

You can use this keyboard's software as a web-based or downloadable client, available on Akko's download page.

While the software is reasonably well-organized, it's fairly complex and may be somewhat confusing for beginners at first. There's also some discrepancy in feature parity between the web-based and downloadable client, with some features, such as a 'simulation' feature which shows a real-time representation of keypresses on the Main tab, only available in the downloadable client version.

The main tab also has a manual calibration feature to properly calibrate the full travel distance of the magnetic switches. Akko recommends you run a full calibration when you first unbox your keyboard (and after resets or updates). You need to slowly press and bottom out each key on the keyboard during this process. Unfortunately, there isn't any visual feedback during the calibration process to confirm each keypress is properly calibrated.

In addition to the adjustable actuation point settings common on most Hall effect gaming keyboards, this keyboard also supports more advanced features, detailed below:

Rapid Trigger: This setting can dynamically adjust your switches' actuation and reset points based on distance rather than being fixed at a specific point along the keystroke. This allows for faster follow-up inputs, which can be especially beneficial in scenarios like counter-strafing in FPS games.

SOCD: Allows you to monitor a pair of keys to activate based on custom trigger parameters. The default mode only registers input from the latest activated key, but there are additional parameters below:

DKS (dynamic keystroke): Allows you to map up to four different actions to a single key based on actuation distance.

Mod Tap: Allows you to map two actions to a single key based on actuation distance: a held key for the first action and a tap for the second.

Toggle Key (TGL): Allows you to set a key to act as a toggle switch to register either a continuous input or repeated inputs at high frequency (much like a turbo button with some gamepads).

Disclaimer: Some settings, such as SOCD and TGL, may not be allowed in some competitive games.

For Linux users, you'll need to adjust your udev permissions to use the web-based configuration software. You can find basic instructions from this Reddit thread.