ConnexionSony Inzone KBD-H75 Gaming Keyboard Review – Fantastic and Expensive
I was pretty skeptical of Sony entering the high-end keyboard space with the all-new Inzone KBD-H75, meant for enthusiasts and competitive gaming. Not because I didn't think it'd put out a quality product, but because the space is already crowded with tons of great gaming keyboards. After using the Inzone KBD-H75 for the past week, however, I'm a bit reluctant to go back to even my current favorites like the SteelSeries Apex Pro and Keychron K4 HE, which says a lot. That's to say the Sony KBD-H75 is some impressive state-of-the-art stuff, mainly because of its incredible Hall Effect magnetic switches that genuinely bring a typing and gaming experience few can deliver. But its hefty $300 price tag isn't doing it any favors, even at a time when the general cost of the latest gaming gear constantly causes me to wince.
Sony Inzone KBD-H75 – Design and Features
The KBD-H75 is part of Sony's lineup of new Inzone products that includes a mouse, headset, and earbuds that targets a premium tier. They all share a certain minimalist aesthetic, so this is a fairly unassuming keyboard, maintaining a modest, sleek look with its all-black color scheme and no frills design. It doesn't have any gaudy branding, which is mostly due to the compact 75% layout and minimal onboard features. The aluminum top plate and rounded edges are nice, and the prominent textured volume knob at the top right corner matches the understated yet effective look. Otherwise this is a straightforward keyboard that lets its performance do most of the talking.
That leaves the magnetic switches as the main reason why you'd consider the Inzone KBD-H75 over the many other great keyboards already on the market. These are Sony's proprietary purple switches and they feel absolutely fantastic. "Buttery" and "creamy" are somewhat overused descriptors when it comes to the feel of keystrokes, but it's as true as it's ever been when talking about the Inzone KBD-H75. These switches sport double-rail stabilizers to help make each keystroke tight and consistent and the board's foam and gasket mounts soften the feel when bottoming out – it's one of the least harsh experiences I've had from a keyboard.
Magnetic switches also provide the advantage of customizable actuation points, and they can be set anywhere between 0.3mm and 3.4mm in 0.1mm increments for individual keys. It's the kind of fine-tuning you just don't get out of a typical mechanical keyboard, which has been losing ground to Hall Effect keyboards in recent years. Setting a short actuation point for a shooter gives you an ever-so-slight advantage with quicker inputs, then swapping to a longer throw works well for the work day to limit errant inputs while typing. This also allows for features like Rapid Trigger, where the keyboard will recognize an adjustable reset point along a keystroke and register any movement downward as a new keystroke, letting you perform repeat inputs at a faster rate and more convenient fashion.
The Inzone KBD-H75 also has an 8000Hz polling rate, which seems great on paper, but doesn't make a meaningful impact in practice. This increase in frequency of the keyboard sending inputs to your PC technically means there's less of a delay between a keystroke and when the system registers it. However, when it comes to digital inputs like a keyboard, as opposed to the frequency and precision demanded by a mouse sensor, 8000Hz is more of a flex than it is a tangible advantage when compared to the standard 1000Hz on most other gaming-grade keyboards.
What's disappointing, though, is that this is a wired-only keyboard. While that doesn't affect how this keyboard performs, it's missing the kind of versatility you should expect from something in this price range – and it doesn't necessarily make up for that with other features. Yes, its switches and performance are incredible, but keyboards that are $100 cheaper still offer more with Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wireless connectivity at the very least.
Sony Inzone KBD-H75 – Software and Customization
Like Sony's other PC gaming peripherals, the KBD-H75 uses the Inzone Hub software suite. If there's anything I appreciate about it, it's that it's a no-nonsense app unlike many of the software suites you see from big-name peripheral manufacturers. Once it's downloaded and installed, it'll recognize any Inzone product connected to your system. With the KBD-H75 in particular, you can allocate two layers (the default mappings and the FN layer), tweak performance settings, and customize the RGB backlighting. Since there aren't any extra buttons on the keyboard, it's nice that you're able to set macros and unique actions (such as mouse controls) to any key you want, which also makes the FN layer that much more useful. I'm a bit disappointed you can't tweak the volume knob, however.
Performance settings are where you can adjust the actuation and reset points of each key, and the visual layout with the keys on screen and the sliders for each actuation/reset point makes it intuitive to make these tweaks. The RGB lighting is quite bright, shining nicely through each keycap and peaking out of the edges of the chassis, and presets such as the ripple effect or flowing wave pattern work well. Here, you can also set colors on a per-key basis and save two custom profiles to the keyboard.
Sony Inzone KBD-H75 – Gaming and Performance
The Inzone KBD-H75 was designed in collaboration with esports team Fnatic, so it's intended to be cut out for competitive gaming, and from my experience, it certainly is. As per usual with my keyboard reviews, I played several competitive rounds of Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant, and ran a few raids in Final Fantasy XIV to get a feel for how it handles various gaming environments.
Counter-Strike 2 was a great example of where this keyboard shines – using a 0.8mm actuation point kept my inputs swift, and having an extra-short Rapid Trigger reset point let me peek and quick-strafe around corners efficiently. Keep in mind that this is not simultaneous opposing cardinal directional (SOCD) input, so it's not a bannable offense like you see with features such as Snap Tap on Razer's newer keyboards. This extends to my experience with Valorant, being a similar style of competitive shooter where positioning, precise movements, and quickness really matter for success. After three ranked rounds in each game, I came away as satisfied with the KBD-H75's performance as the best keyboards I've tested in the past year.
Its keystrokes strike such a delicate balance between firm and easygoing thanks to the linear magnetic design, providing just enough resistance to let me confidently apply pressure to a key but soft enough to not wear out my fingers during long and intense raids in Final Fantasy XIV, for example. It may sound like a negligible thing; however, I've fumbled my attack rotation and key actions in heated moments from errant inputs enough times to where something like this matters. I've had technically impressive keyboards not work out so well due to things like the actuation force being too light or actuation points being too short – so while it's not necessarily those keyboards' faults, it just wasn't the best fit.
In a way, the KBD-H75 almost made me more productive by virtue of simply enjoying the typing experience on it. It's sort of a sensory thing where I just want to keep typing as if it's tapping into a part of my brain activated by a fidget toy. Sony absolutely nailed it here, which is testament to construction of its switches that give the keys stability and consistency, as well as the adjustability that accommodates different use cases and preferences.
