The keyboard has two sets of keycaps that feel wonderful to type on and seem to be very well-made. However, the lack of shine-through legends on these keycaps makes them difficult to read in dimly lit spaces. Additionally, the keyboard has merely passable ergonomics. Additionally, even though it has two incline levels, it doesn’t come with a wrist rest, making it less pleasant to use for prolonged periods of time.
Design
The Ducky One 3 is one of the most attractive gaming keyboards we’ve ever used. It has a variety of colors to choose from, and there are plenty of variations available if you don’t like the yellows and blues of the Daybreak model we received.
The vibrant yellows, deep blues, and almost-purple greys of my test unit certainly impressed me, and it’s wonderful to see a deck that doesn’t adhere to the traditional black look of a gaming keyboard. These vibrant hues have a high-quality feel to them, and as a result, the plastic yellow stripe avoids feeling cheap (a trap it could have very easily fallen into). ..
The chassis and top plate of this deck are both exquisitely crafted, with color-matched legends and a cable runner underneath. This meticulous attention to detail gives the deck a top-of-the-line feel. ..
If you’re looking for a unique and stylish way to personalize your keyboard, Ducky has you covered. We offer a variety of different keycaps to choose from, as well as the traditional blue and grey color scheme. However, we really loved the Escape key - it had a pop of color that really stood out. So we often turned it off to keep things simple.
Ducky One 3 review: Keys
You don’t have to stick with the colorway you chose for your Ducky One 3 when you made the purchase. The ability to customize Ducky’s keyboards is what makes them so appealing. They typically come with a set of keycaps that you can swap out to customize your keyboard. In addition, it’s easy to get appropriate keycaps if you want to design something special. Keycap replacement is really simple. Push a new keycap into position after using the provided tool to remove the old one.
Customizable keyboards are a great way to customize your typing experience. You can swap out the keys on your keyboard to get a different feel or type faster. This eliminates the need to purchase an entirely new keyboard.
Ducky One 3 review: RGB lighting
This RGB LED lighting is fully programmable to any color and can be adjusted to a variety of settings, including constant, moving, or reactive lighting in response to keystrokes. Even while some of them seem wonderful, sensitive old men like me can quickly feel overwhelmed by settings like the Aurora. The keystroke-reactive variants, which can produce flashes, ripples, or fleeting trails of your most recent keystrokes, are much more fascinating and amusing (and possibly even useful to your typing accuracy). Additionally, you can change the color of any of those with a few straightforward key instructions (the most common ones are given here on the side).
Software
This keyboard is designed to give you the best gaming experience possible. It has fast speeds that can keep up with the newest games, and it also comes with RGB and macro effects. Plus, it’s a budget-friendly option that still offers great features. Learn more about the Ducky One 3 keyboard in our article. ..
The One 3’s lack of official software means that you’ll need to find user manuals to get the function commands you need to configure them manually on the deck. This is a disclaimer, but it’s the only significant issue we could uncover with Ducky’s most recent keyboard. You can design your own macros, but it’s rather challenging to do so. The process would go much more smoothly with a dedicated UI, and it can be confusing for anyone purchasing their first gaming keyboard.
The software is easy to set up and use, but it can be difficult to get the most out of it. If you’re not a macro power user, the sacrifice may be worth making.
Performance
The Ducky One 3’s impressively low latency in regular play caught us off guard. When adding a beautiful mechanical typing experience to the mix, we are used to giving up some of the faster response times often seen with Razer keyboards, but there was little to hold us back during more intense gameplay moments here. We continued to react quickly to events and dodge with the best response times we could muster while simultaneously enjoying the superb typing feel.
The One 3’s Ducky keyboard is a joy to type on and play games on. The keys are stable with very little wobble, and each key press has a soft landing. We could only ever detect a very little twang from the backspace and enter keys, and only when specifically listening for it, thanks to that sound-dampening foam in the chassis.
Ducky One 3 review: Price
The Ducky One 3 is a full-size keyboard that sells for roughly £170 in the UK. It is a significant expenditure, and is effectively out of the market for casual users. Although the makers claim excellent longevity, it can still be justified as an worthwhile investment for the more serious-minded gamers and streamers because of the included spares and hotswapping tools.
Conclusion
The Ducky One 3 is a great gaming keyboard that has an incredibly low latency and feels extremely well-built. The Cherry MX Brown switches have a slight tactile bump to get used to but otherwise feel light and responsive. The keyboard is hot-swappable, though, so you may use the switches of your choosing without soldering. It is also available with a variety of additional Cherry MX switches.
The keyboard has complete RGB backlighting and keycaps without shine-through legends, which may make it difficult to read in dimly lit spaces. It has the ability to be assigned macros, but because there is no specific software for this, all macro assignments and settings changes must be done on the keyboard itself. ..
