KiiBOOM have very kindly sent me one of their Jade 75 keyboards to try out, and it’s a beauty.
The Jade 75 is an 80-key / 75% Keyboard with an ANSI layout. It is Win/Mac/Linux compatible and connects via Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless, and USB-C (with a three-way switch at the back of the board to select the mode). It has a 3750mAh on-board battery.
The Jade 75 comes in two colourways: White and Clear. I got the White, which is actually more like a lovely milky pearl kind of colour. The shine-through (semi-transparent) keycaps have an MDA profile, with a lovely sculpted, ergonomic shape. Black characters throughout, sticking with the very clean and to-the-point aesthetic of the board. One thing I noticed is that, on the KiiBOOM website, the Jade 75 is sometimes shown with its characters on the front of the keys rather than the top. I can’t quite work out if this is a difference between the White and the Clear colourways or something else. The board I received has its characters on top of the keys, and I have to say that I much prefer that, anyway.
The Jade 75 features south-facing RGB lighting with all the usual on-board effects and adjustments you’d expect from a KiiBOOM board. The translucent base of the Jade 75 also has its own set of side-lights which can be adjusted separately. The board is also fully QMK and VIA compatible, so users can customise and adjust to their hearts’ content.
The body of the Jade 75 is made from CNC+UV moulded Resin. It’s this translucent body which really gives the Jade 75 its beautiful, sculpted look and feel. It is a pretty heavy board for its size, weighing in at 1.4 kg. It’s lovely and stable on the desktop, but it’s probably too weighty for most people to carry around with them. I’m pretty sure it weighs more than my laptop.
The hot-swappable switches on the Jade 75 are KiiBOOM’s own shine-through Crystal Switches, featuring durable clear polycarbonate housings that are perfect for showcasing RGB lighting. They’re linear switches, so they’re not noisy, but the size and design of the keycaps gives them a pleasing chonk.
The Jade 75 utilises a reinforced tray-mounted structure with damping components including sandwich foam, switch pads, PET acoustic film, switch socket foam, and bottom foam. In all honesty, there is no noise transference between the board and the desktop whatsoever.
As I always seem to say with KiiBOOM keyboards, you can really feel the quality of the Jade 75. Everything about it feels deluxe and high-end.
The Jade 75 is a keyboard that really comes to life with its backlights. These do not have to be frantic flashes or rainbow ripples of colour though. If you want a green keyboard, an orange keyboard, a blue or pink keyboard (you get the idea) then it’s very easy to adjust the Jade 75 to suit your exact preference.
The Jade 75 keyboard is available to order directly from KiiBOOM for $199 USD