Uk Matias Wired Rgb Backlit Aluminum Keyboard For Mac
I’ve long looked for an Apple-specific desktop keyboard with backlighting. There are a couple of mechanical options out there, but they are almost all compromised some way. Some aren’t true Mac keyboard layouts, just Windows layouts with the command row re-labelled. And if you’re after small and sleek, that rules mechanical out anyway. For all their glorious comfort, they are all big, chunky and, well, mechanical devices.
- Beautiful aluminum + RGB backlight. It's the keyboard many have wanted, but Apple never made - a wired RGB backlit keyboard, in beautiful aluminum.
- Jan 10, 2018 - Officially named the Matias RGB Backlit Wired Aluminum Keyboard for Mac, this handy accessory comes in either silver or space gray colors.
What I really wanted was a Space Gray Apple keyboard with backlighting. Eventually Apple themselves did a Space Gray, if I wanted to fork over $6,000+ CAD for an iMac Pro, and it still doesn’t have backlighting. For anyone with more modest budgets, we were left out in the cold. That is until Matias announced at CES 2018 that they were stepping in to fill the gap with their RGB Backlit Wired Aluminum Keyboard for Mac. In fairness, this isn’t their first Mac-specific, Space Gray, backlit keyboard.
Matias Backlit Wireless Aluminum Bluetooth Keyboard for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, PC - Long. Matias Wired Aluminum Keyboard for iMacs (Apple OS X).
Last year they launched a wireless version, which I also tried. Unfortunately, what was a decent design was hamstrung by the problems associated with Bluetooth. I’ve never had great experiences with wireless keyboards, and the flaky Bluetooth on the Late 2013 Mac Pro made it especially unliveable. The combination of Matias wireless keyboard and Mac Pro meant dropped keystrokes, and this odd buffering where your keystrokes would stop being registered for the Mac, but stored in the keyboard, then dumped to the Mac all at once.
This ranged from mildly annoying (while typing a document) to incredibly frustrating (when playing a game). I’m happy to report that switching to a wired interface has eliminated all of those problems.
Uk Matias Wired Rgb Backlit Aluminum Keyboard For Mac Review
I was expecting the keyboard to look and feel identical to last year’s wireless keyboard, just with a USB cable to plug in, but it isn’t. Matias has taken the opportunity to make a couple of subtle changes for the better.
First, they changed the keystroke. Every keyboard has a signature keystroke which is the biggest factor in making or breaking a keyboard. The wireless keyboard was very flat, much like the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros with their re-designed butterfly switches. The wired keyboard takes a different approach. The keystrokes are surprisingly deep, deeper even than the original Apple wired keyboard. The stroke is firm, but not unpleasantly so, and I adapted to it in just a couple of minutes. Second, the entire keyboard is thicker than the Apple wired keyboard and feels thicker even, than the Matias wireless keyboard.
It adds a nice level of substance to the experience. Though there’s no adjustable feet, the keyboard is solidly planted with no rattles or wobbling of any kind. I’d adopted some lazy habits with the thinner Apple keyboard, which were immediately a problem with the Matias. I tend to drop my wrists to rest on the table, which works with the super low Apple keyboard, but not so much with the thicker Matias. With only a little tweaking, I was able to find a better position, and all was well. The keys are placed exactly where they are on the Apple wired keyboard and there was zero learning curve when it came to key placement. The only difference I could find was that the eject key on the Apple keyboard has been replaced by a backlight key.
And when’s the last time anyone ever used the eject key? The keyboard also includes a USB 2.0 port so you can plug in a mouse or flash drive. The big feature here, aside from being able to get the Space Gray colour without spending a fortune at Apple, is the backlighting, which I’m happy to report is nice and clear. It’s well managed, with only a little bleed from under the function key row. Brightness is easily controlled by pressing, and holding, the backlight key while pressing + or – to increase or decrease the glow.
You can also press and told the backlight button, and then tap the number keys on the top row to jump to a specific brightness. To change the colour, Matias has included a thumbwheel along the back of the keyboard, next to the USB cable. In theory and execution, the colour wheel is a super-simple way to cycle through the available colours. The colour is uniform across the keyboard, and there are no multi-colour patterns like you would find on some gaming keyboards. Personally, I only found such patterns useful when gaming, and this isn’t that kind of keyboard, so I actually appreciate that Matias has gone for simplicity here, in a very Apple kind of way. Overall my only issues are minor quibbles that shouldn’t deter anyone from buying one of these keyboards.
Matias has delivered a delightfully simple implementation that avoids all the quirks of Bluetooth. To me, this is the keyboard that Apple should have made, rather than pushing towards ever flatter keys and insisting on wireless. The Matias keyboard looks good, feels good, and will never run out of battery. The Matias RGB Backlit Wired Aluminum Keyboard for Mac is available in Space Gray or Silver directly from Matias at and will set you back $99 USD which seems very reasonable, given the quality.
Disclosure – I did not receive any consideration for this review. I purchased the keyboard myself, out of my own funds. The opinions are my own.
The 'Matias RGB Backlit Wired Aluminum Keyboard for Mac - Space Gray' is an enhanced USB keyboard. It has the reliable and traditional USB 2.0 connection, with a 1 port USB 2.0 hub, numeric keypad, classic aluminum frame, and all the special Mac functionality you expect on the function keys. However, it also has RGB backlighting; this means you can turn on backlighting for times where you want more light, and use the convenient color control dial to choose any color you want for the backlighting. Perhaps you would like your white backlighting to have reduced blue in it, to avoid disrupting your sleep, or perhaps you want your backlighting to be red, green, blue, yellow, magenta, or any other color to express your individuality. You just rotate the color control dial on the Matias keyboard to change the color. No software is needed.
Note: Ordering product from this site gives you the U.S. Version of the keyboard, and we will ship it to USA or Canada. If you are in another country, please buy the keyboard from one of our international resellers.
Share this Product.