Breaking down Cooler Master’s new CK721 gaming keyboard

Over the past year of reviewing Cooler Master products, I’ve come to appreciate their peripherals as lesser-known but well-made alternatives to the likes of Logitech, CORSAIR and others. Up until now, I was still using the CK550 keyboard I received for review in October. Recently though, I received a surprise package at my door from Cooler Master containing yet another gaming keyboard.

I’ll start by saying that the CK721 is similar in size and functionality to the SK622 I reviewed in July, so a lot of the things I said in that review in terms of how the keyboard feels for typing and gaming will be the same.

The design

Design-wise, the CK721 uses white keys with a top aluminum frame and a plastic bottom and keycaps. It’s hefty enough to not feel cheap but not too heavy to the point where it can’t be portable. Mine is equipped with TTC Linear Red switches that aren’t as clicky as I prefer but still give a very good amount of tactile feedback when typing.

The keyboard can be used in either wired mode using a USB-C cable, 2.4 GHz mode or Bluetooth 5.1 with the provided dongle that can be conveniently stored in a small compartment on the left side of the keyboard, while the right side houses the switch that changes between the three modes. You can swap between three Bluetooth devices on the fly, allowing you to use this keyboard with a desktop, laptop and mobile device with the push of a button. It’s also compatible with Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android, further expanding its usability. Cooler Master advertises that the 2000mAh battery can juice the keyboard for up to 73 hours with the LEDs off.

Features and accessories

Photo credit: Gabriel Ionica

This keyboard is a 65% which gives it a little bit more room for its buttons. Normally a 60% keyboard wouldn’t include arrow keys, but the SK622 managed to squeeze them in there by chopping some of the keys, like the right Shift key. On the CK721, the Shift key is a little bigger and the arrow keys as well as the Delete, Page Up and Page Down keys have been separated and have more room to breathe.

Despite this, my complaints about being able to navigate to the beginning and end of a line using Home and End still hold true as those keys still need to be activated using the Cooler Master Function key and thus make my typing experience a bit inconvenient. The same can be said about the lack of dedicated function keys that can make games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Fortnite a bit of a hassle without some changes to the key binds due to them being often-used shortcuts for buying and building.

One of the stand-out features is the nice, clicky dial in the top right corner. By default, it is set to adjust the volume and mute when it’s pressed down but can be changed to other actions using the MasterPlus+ software. That software also is where you change the expected gaming accessory features like RGB lighting, profiles, macros and the like.

The package included a braided, coiled keyboard cable in the box with a 5-pin aviator cable. The coiled nature of the cable, much like the cables you’d see on landline phones of yore, keeps it from getting tangled on your desk among the other cables you might have running across it. The 5-pin aviator cable also makes it easy to switch this keyboard out with other coiled cable keyboards without ever having to reach for the USB cable that is probably plugged far away into the back of your desktop.

Photo credit: Gabriel Ionica

Cooler Master also included a low-friction cloth wrist rest that will always be welcome on my desk. These are some of the accessories that Cooler Master plans to sell for this keyboard, alongside PBT keycap sets and colored aluminum top plates to allow for a bit of customization.

I’m no keyboard enthusiast, so the fact that the switches are not hot-swappable makes no difference to me, but it’s an important point to note if you like the aesthetics of the CK721 but despise the switches. This keyboard is also strikingly similar to the GMMK Pro, right down to the optional coiled cable and key layout. That one retails for $170 but is a bare-bones keyboard that doesn’t come with any switches or keycaps. For the regular user who isn’t a keyboard enthusiast, paying $170 for a frame might not make much sense. That’s when a keyboard like the CK721 comes into play.

Conclusion

The Cooler Master CK721 releases on March 29 and will retail for $120 with the wrist rest included. If what you’re looking for is, as Cooler Master puts it, “a hassle-free, no-fuss” keyboard in a 65% format with a pleasing aesthetic and useful accessories, this could very well be it. The price puts it in the lower range of keyboards in this class and if you’re not after the enthusiast-grade features that it lacks, then it gets even more points in its favor.

Lead photo credit: Gabriel Ionica