Arctic Cooling K381 Pro Reviews

It's cheap, but the clicky keyboard can be irritating

The chiclet keys make for easy use and good typing, even under multiplayer-deathmatch pressure. This is backed up by the minimal design that takes up as little space as possible on your desk or in your LAN-party bag. It's a full keyboard, which is always handy, though part of us would like to see just a basic keyboard without the numeric pad. The build quality is the biggest disappointment or more likely worry. It flexes easily when twisted and the lack of any additional height adjustment could be a real and literal pain for some people.

The Arctic Cooling K381 presents a relatively fine mix of features at a lowish price. At $24.95 the K381 is only a little more than your standard run of the mill keyboard. The design is more attractive than the very cheapest stuff on the market, but it comes at a price both monetary and performance wise. The keys are of dubious quality and the quality of the construction is below that of most $20 keyboards. The K381s does have a few things going for it, for one the keyboard is slim line with a big emphasis on slim and it has quite a few extra function keys as well. One of the biggest pros with this keyboard is its size. It packs a full numeric pad and has a lot of extra keys without taking up an excessive amount of desk space. Compared to my Logitech keyboard the Arctic Cooling is 5 cm (~2 inches) shorter and 5 cm narrower.