Best gaming keypads in 2023

Razer is well known for producing high-quality gaming peripherals. Their mice and keyboards are always up at the top of any reviewers’ recommendations and with good reason. They are the best selling gaming peripheral manufacturer in the USA and aren’t looking to give up that mantel any time soon.

Their hero gaming keypad is the Tartarus Pro. A quick google of what Tartarus actually means shows us:

In Greek mythology, Tartarus (/ˈtɑːrtərəs/; Ancient Greek: Τάρταρος, Tártaros)[1] is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato’s Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. Tartarus is also considered to be a primordial force or deity alongside entities such as the Earth, Night and Time.

Thanks again Wikipedia! Although we don’t really get the connection either.

The Tartarus Pro comes in two colors, black and Mercury White – er mercury is actually silver, but, again, what do we know. Our favorite is actually the white model, but it will struggle to fit in with the majority of people’s black keyboard and mouse combos.

As with many white peripherals as well, they often seem to be more expensive than regular old black, and this is no exception. You can usually find good deals on the stock colors.

The Tartarus has pretty much everything you need when you add a peripheral like this to your set up. It can store macros of unlimited length, and you can then store all your sequences as profiles and easily recall them at will.

Optical switches are pressure sensitive similar to an analog joystick, and there is even a thumbpad for improved movement.

If your games room is fully RGB, then Razer also has its partnership with Philips Hue, and the individually backlit keys here support the full range of 16.8 million colors, which should keep you happy for a while.

The Tartarus is a great peripheral and a fine example of something you didn’t realize you needed until you got it. It will change the way you play games. Unless you play with a controller, in which case you are beyond help.

Straight into another great peripheral brand. Swiss company Logitech has been synonymous for many years with great PC products, and the G13 continues that tradition.

Featuring 25 programmable keys and including an add-on joystick, it’s novel feature is the LCD screen at the top that is useful for managing profiles, more of which in a minute, and will be familiar to anybody who has used one of their gaming series keyboards in the past.

Regarding profiles, it only has the ability to store five compared to Razer’s unlimited amount. Is that a deal-breaker? Probably not for most people, but if you are the kind of gamer that likes to tweak for all occasions, then it may be worth looking at some of the other options.

The G13 is a much more “serious” looking device. There is no RGB to be found anywhere here, but it is comfortable, and that’s the main thing. Logitech may not be the leader in the trendy PC peripheral stakes, but they know how to design and produce a good quality item.

This is one of them, and it deserves your attention – as well as its place on our best gaming keypads list.

This offering from Koolertron eschews all the “gaming” designs of the opposition in favor of a small rectangular block, which looks like a cut-down version of a regular QWERTY keyboard.

It’s certainly not exciting, but man, it means business. Underneath those serious keycaps hide top-drawer Cherry MX microswitches, which many will tell you are the best in the business.

If you have Cherry MX switches, you know you are not going to be let down. Their travel time is just 2mm, and the Koolertron has full anti-ghosting technology built-in so it will feel highly accurate in use.

It has 43 programmable keys and is pretty much the left-hand half of a regular keyboard. It only stores four profiles but excels in the little things, such as a detachable USB cable, meaning if you ruin the original, it can easily be swapped out, and the whole thing isn’t trash.

The Koolertron isn’t RGB, but it is backlit for those night-time gaming sessions. It might not look like what you imagined a gaming keypad to look like, but it certainly does the job – and if you are gaming on a laptop or something like that, it will fit in very nicely to your setup.

The boards we have looked at so far have all been in the higher price range, but to balance it out is this budget offering from Amazon favorite Cakce.

We’d never especially suggest scrimping on a gaming peripheral – you get what you pay for that is for sure, but if money is tight and budget comes into play, then this offering might well fit your bill coming in around a third of the price of the others.

In fact, it might well be the ideal introduction to the world of gaming keypads.

It comes with RGB which is nice – the angular look of the keypad is also a fun plus.

The switches are mechanical, but you can tell they aren’t quality like a Cherry. Nor could they be at this price point. Good switches cost a lot of money for manufacturers to include.

If it has something to let it down though it’s the software. The instructions are non-existent, and it might take a little trial and error before you get features like the macros to work in the way you might expect them too.

The keys are a little taller than some of the other models, too, and that makes things a little less comfortable on those long gaming sessions.

Overall though, it’s less than $30, and it lights up. There’s only so much you can complain about.