KiiBoom isn’t exactly a name that rolls off the tongue. The company’s Phantom 81 is what their name is not: smooth, with glossy acrylic keys and custom lubricated switches.
The Phantom 81 has shown staying power, with several tweaks appearing over time to its basic design. The company behind it has, likewise, shown resilience often not present in uniquely monikered purveyors of computer accessories. KiiBoom has kept supporting the Phantom and rolled out new offerings just like its largest competitors.
I can say that a bit more than I usually can with a new company to cross into our labs due to an oversight on my part. The company provided a Phantom to us for testing a couple of years ago, but it arrived when we were tied up with other editorial projects. Amidst a significant health situation and then further commitments, KiiBoom’s board slipped to the side, collecting dust on its unopened box.
That’s not how I like to handle things, but it does give me a unique opportunity to note at the front that the company has endured and, notably, continues to manufacture and offer software support for this board. In a world where even larger companies come and go, KiiBoom is enduring and — this isn’t a given — continues to release software updates for its existing models.
This is a part of the continuing series of TestyTim.com reviews on mechanical keyboards. You can read more, including a summary of what makes mechanical keyboards notable in general, in the review series overview.
For the most part, we tend to review keyboards for how they function, not how they look. After all, many of us spend our lives typing and how a typing device types is what really matters.
We will get to how the Phantom 81 types in a moment, but clearly, you can’t really discuss this board and ignore the aesthetics. A translucent board makes a strong statement, needless to say. The board is reminiscent of another one we reviewed that was released nearly at the same time, the Epomaker FirstBlood B67. Here’s what I wrote on that keyboard:
It’s very bold with an all-translucent design that shows off its color-changing lighting — and emphasis on color changing: the different light modes all involve effects, not just a steady color.
Thankfully, it still doesn’t adopt a traditional gaming aesthetic, intentionally ugly design monstrosities that attempt to ape the look of a bad sci-fi weapon. This is bold not for its ugliness, but its late-90s-style chic translucence. This would look at home with an original generation iMac.
The same can be said about the Phantom 81 with a key difference to its benefit. While the B67’s lighting effects are fixed on color changing, the Phantom 81 can be customized by several key combinations, or the aforementioned software, to provide a more mild mannered lighting choice suitable for the workplace or quiet home office. The board has both backlighting for keys and side lighting and both aspects can be adjusted.
The software has a large number of color combinations built in, along with a way to download other users’ themes. The combinations are pretty varied since each key can be colored independently if you so desire.
With the color changing under control, the keyboard really can live up to that classic, pleasing iMac aesthetic. No one needs a keyboard that looks like it is carved out of ice, but it is a conversation piece design without being over-the-top. The clear design lets the board be a chameleon, changing colors to accent decor or season.
The Phantom 81 is a very rigidly constructed, solid board. The ice sculpture appearance is formed out of thick, acrylic case. While not made of metal, the keyboard feels firmer than even some metal encased boards.
Inside, the board is a high-end, gasket mounted design that uses foam to provide a typing experience muted both physically and audibly. The arrangement keeps the board from vibrating and also makes it surprisingly quiet for a mechanical keyboard.
This would run chills down the spine of my friend and colleague Dennis E. Powell, who may never have met a keyboard that was loud enough. I typically concur with him that louder boards are better, with both the tactile and audible aspects improving my typing speed.
That said, I have run into circumstances where a quiet keyboard would be useful. For example, reducing the volume is perfect in a full office, in a live event setup or when avoiding waking sleeping family at home. The Phantom brings the pleasantness of a mechanical board into those and other quiet places.
KiiBoom uses proprietary switches that play a part in this smooth, quiet experience. The “Crystal Switches” remind me a great deal of Cherry MX Red switches. Like the Reds, the Crystal Switches are linear, in other words, lacking the aforementioned tactile or auditory response to registering a key press. How much of the feel is related to these ad hoc mechanisms and how much is the rest of the construction is hard to say, but the sum total is oddly soothing.
(While the board comes with these proprietary switches, it is a hot-swappable board, which is nice to see. Though I don’t spend my time changing switches on my keyboards, being able to replace a switch if one fails is nice for longevity.)
For typing accuracy, the Phantom adopts my favorite sort of TKL layout. Some compact designs basically slice the numpad off the right side, but keep everything else as is with the layout dating back to the Model M. Others go crazy, jamming the arrow keys right up against the primary QWERTY keys or — worst of all — drop the arrow keys entirely.
The Phantom follows a particularly smart, modern trend of arrow keys just slightly separated from the rest of the layout. It’s a helpful design that avoids accidental keypresses while keeping the size of the board as compact as possible.
How does this all come out where it matters? Quite well. I was surprised to find my typing speed on the Phantom wasn’t that far off of what I can achieve with my favorite clicky boards. While I still find they have a slight edge in speed and accuracy, this one is more than competent for a touch typist.
Linear switches and smooth keycaps seem counterintuitive to typing speed. Perhaps, but those keycaps are also highly sculpted with a sloped face on each one that helps fingers home in quickly and accurately.
This board isn’t going to beat the sheer typing speed of, say, the Model M, but that’s not really its target. What the Phantom brings is a satisfying typing experience packaged with a wealth of features I’m about to get into.
The Phantom 81 checks off the features we expect in modern boards. While many of my reviews outline those “expected features” that go missing, this one pretty much hits them all.
For example, our model sports a 4000mAh battery, which is the sort of large capacity battery premium keyboards usually feature for long-term usage between charges. The newest update of the Phantom ups that to 8000mAh. The new size is incredibly impressive, besting all the boards that have passed through OFB Labs so far.
The board includes a finely textured volume control wheel, another recent must-have on premium boards. If you find yourself fiddling a lot with audio, where you might need to change the volume frequently, it’s really nice to have.
The board is a tri-mode model supporting Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz dongle and USB Type-C (for wired usage). Each has its own benefits, depending on what you want to accomplish. Bluetooth is useful for leaving a computer with limited USB ports free to use those ports for other reasons. My favorite use of the dongle is for when I use a wireless board with a KVM switch or when I’m rapidly swapping out systems for repair.
The Bluetooth status indicator is rather clever. Like most Bluetooth mechanical boards, the Phantom can switch between multiple Bluetooth devices. While many boards will light up a particular key to indicate which one it is connected to, the Phantom has a light over by the arrow keys that changes color. If you do switch between, say, a tablet and computer, this glanceable arrangement is handy.
Speaking of different systems, the Phantom has a Win/Mac switch to set the board to reflect the appropriate keyboard layout between the PC and Apple worlds. For further customization, the software KiiBoom offers can arbitrarily assign the value of any key to any single keystroke or a macro of key presses.
The legends may serve as the first caveat worth pointing out. While the Phantom is Mac-friendly, it does not include “Command” or blank keycaps to do away with the Windows keys when using it with a Mac, but the legends aren’t particularly bold, so it’s easy enough to ignore.
Speaking of those legends, as a touch typist, I really don’t mind that the labels on the keycaps are hard to read with certain lighting arrangements on the board. However, when I wanted to use less common keys my fingers can’t seek on their own, translucent keys with opaque labels are definitely not as legible as the reverse. Those who need to see the legends to type will definitely want to opt for calm lighting choices.
The typing experience on this board is really nice. I return to it in this section only because there is something to be said of the advantages of clicky keyboards. As I noted, there are reasons to favor a quiet board, just be aware that it is a different experience and make sure that’s what you want.
My only other critique of note is the software. In an era where QMK has become the predominant (and open) tool for customizing keyboards, I would love to see this board feature QMK instead of a proprietary system.
As I began with, KiiBoom deserves praise for providing continuing software updates for its products over the course of years. The latest software driver was released this month. Nonetheless, the open approach feels like a better guarantee for longtime support.
Some bugs in using the software only validated this concern. I was unable to get the Windows version of the tool to install at all on the Windows 11 PC I had available for testing. The Mac version installed OK, albeit with confusing prompts that seemed to indicate it could connect wirelessly to the board but always showing itself as disconnected until I hooked the board up with a USB Type-C cable and switched to “USB-C” on the Phantom’s mode switch.
Thankfully, the keyboard software (confusingly called a “driver” while being more of a configurator) is not required to preserve changes once they are saved to the board. I would tweak the board to one’s liking and then remove it.
The Phantom has been priced to play with the upper-middle range of the keyboard market that its specs suggest it belongs to. Those specs don’t lie — it is a very nice board. The v2 revision is on sale for $164 on Amazon, down from its original $199. Do yourself a favor, though, and buy the latest v3 revision direct for the manufacturer, where the smokey, translucent black variant drops to just $128.
Many of the fine models we test sell near the two c-note threshold the Phantom 81 originally hovered around. I intended to say KiiBoom had made a worthy contender, pleasant to type on and fun to look at, at its original price. Just how good this board is when it sells for $128 is another matter entirely.
Assuming nothing we’ve outlined above has been diminished in the v3 board — and the changes appear to be just a set of subtle improvements over the model we tested — the latest Phantom may be the nicest board ever to come through at its price. If you want a mid-range mechanical keyboard that is quiet and smooth, order this one. Full stop. (KiiBoom, $128 https://www.KiiBoom.com/). 
Timothy R. Butler is Editor-in-Chief of Open for Business. He also serves as a pastor at Little Hills Church and FaithTree Christian Fellowship.
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