NuPhy Air75 HE Keyboard Review

The NuPhy Air75 HE has a compact (75%) form factor. It lacks a Numpad found on typical full-size keyboards, but it takes up less space on your desk, and the arrow keys and navigational cluster hug close to the alphanumeric keys.

There's an even smaller compact (60%) version of this keyboard called the NuPhy Air60 HE. It lacks the function row, dedicated arrow keys, and several navigation keys found on the Air75 HE.

The NuPhy Air75 HE has excellent build quality. While its top case is aluminium, the bottom chassis is plastic, so you can slightly flex the deck if you press hard enough. Despite that, the overall construction feels very sturdy with a tight fit and finish.

Both the stabilizers and switches come pre-lubricated from the factory. The stabilizers operate smoothly without noticeable rattle, and the switches feel very stable in their housing with minimal wobble.

Most of the keycaps are made of doubleshot PBT with a pleasant, slightly textured finish, but the keyboard also comes with nine transparent polycarbonate keycaps pre-installed. These let the backlighting shine through, but they feel a bit cheaper and slightly slippery. If you prefer, the box includes PBT replacements for all nine.

Layers of dampening material inside the case help round out the sound profile and slightly soften the typing feel. Small silicone dampeners under the spacebar also reduce the hollow sound and feel that some other keyboards suffer from.

On the underside, rounded rubber strips keep the keyboard firmly in place while typing, and rubber-capped flip-out feet provide two additional incline options with good stability.

The NuPhy Air75 HE has a low-profile design with flip-out feet on the underside that provide two additional incline angles.

It's comfortable to type on without a wrist rest, but if you prefer the steepest incline, you may want to consider NuPhy's wrist rest, which is available on their website.

This keyboard offers decent hardware customizability. The switches aren't soldered, so you can easily replace them. However, at the time of writing, there aren't any other low-profile magnetic switches compatible with this keyboard beyond the two options available at purchase.

The NuPhy Air75 HE has fully addressable RGB backlighting. You can customize it using onboard hotkeys or the web-based configuration software.

This keyboard's backlighting is poor, as the stock keycaps don't have shine-through legends. When set to white only, the backlighting also has a slightly blue tint.

For reference, see a photo we took with several stock keycaps replaced with standard shine-through keycaps from another low-profile keyboard in our inventory.

NuPhy also sells sets of 'Canopus' shine-through keycaps for this keyboard, which are specifically designed for better legend visibility with its south-facing LEDs.

This keyboard comes with nine transparent polycarbonate keycaps installed on the right side that let a considerable amount of light shine through. If you don't like the effect, the box includes solid PBT replacements for each of these keys.

The included rubber cable features gray and purple accents that match the keyboard's colorway. Unfortunately, it retains some kinks from its packaging.

The keyboard's back edge has a switch that lets you toggle between compatibility modes: M1: Gaming Mode, M2: Windows Mode, and M3: Mac Mode. These compatibility modes change between keyboard layouts for each OS. Gaming Mode locks the Windows key by default, though this behavior is also configurable in software.

This keyboard also features what NuPhy refers to as 'sidelights', which are RGB indicators that display your active profile and Caps Lock status using color cues. One is positioned to the left of the Escape key, and the other sits just to the right of the Backspace key.

For more information on the color codes and a full list of supported shortcuts for media controls, backlighting, and other functions, you can consult the online version of the user manual.

• USB-A to USB-C cable
• Keycap/switch puller
• 14x extra PBT keycaps (including alternate Mac-specific modifiers)
• User documentation

The NuPhy Air75 HE delivers excellent overall typing quality. Both the switches and stabilizers come pre-lubed from the factory and feel smooth, with no noticeable scratchiness or rattle. The spacebar is also fitted with silicone dampeners that help ensure it doesn't sound or feel hollow.

The low-profile switches, combined with the flat nSA profile keycaps, contribute to an extremely stable typing experience. This setup feels especially secure compared to some Hall effect switches, which can be more susceptible to stem wobble.

This keyboard uses a tray mount design with layers of PCB and plate foam, along with a silicone sheet lining the bottom of the case. While the typing feel is a bit firmer than what you'd get from a gasket mount, the dampening materials help smooth out the sound profile, softening typing somewhat.

Both Gateron Low-Profile Magnetic switch options available at purchase also have a fairly generous total travel distance, so typing feels a bit less abrupt than on some low-profile gaming keyboards, which often have noticeably shorter total travel distance.

Typing noise on this keyboard is very quiet, making it unlikely to disturb others, even in quieter or more noise-sensitive settings. We expect the noise level to be roughly the same for both available switch options.

We bought this keyboard with Gateron Low-Profile Magnetic Jade Pro switches.

You can also buy this keyboard with standard Gateron Low-Profile Magnetic Jade switches. NuPhy has an image on its product page that compares these two switch options.

Both switch options have a customizable actuation range between 0.1 mm and 3.3 mm, but the Pro switches are slightly heavier and have a POM upper and lower housing, which produces a slightly smoother keystroke feel.

For this test, we produced measurements using an actuation point setting of 0.1 mm with a Rapid Trigger release setting of 0.1 mm.

We measured several additional actual point settings below:

• Setting 0.1 mm: Actual:  0.35 mm
• Setting 0.5 mm: Actual:  0.53 mm
• Setting 1.2 mm: Actual:  1.32 mm
• Setting 1.5 mm: Actual:  1.61 mm
• Setting 1.8 mm: Actual:  2.05 mm
• Setting 2.0 mm: Actual:  2.26 mm
• Setting 2.5 mm: Actual:  2.72 mm
• Setting 3.0 mm: Actual:  3.11 mm
• Setting 3.3 mm: Actual:  3.21 mm

Accuracy is generally within 0.2 mm of the target actuation point, though we noted slightly more deviation at the 2.0 mm setting. Overall, the actuation settings are highly accurate and hold up well against other adjustable-actuation keyboards on the market.

The NuPhy Air75 HE maintains exceptionally low single-key latency and delivers an extremely responsive and consistent in-game experience.

We conducted this test using the following settings:

• Polling rate: 8000Hz
• Actuation: 0.1 mm
• Rapid Trigger: 0.2 mm press, 0.2 mm release
• Gaming Optimization: On
• Stabilization: Low
• Continuous Rapid Trigger: Off
• Deadzones: Off

We've used a marginally higher 0.2 mm press and 0.2 mm release setting at this time, as we've encountered some recent issues with our testing rig on lower Rapid Trigger settings. However, this didn't indicate any performance issue with the board itself. See the text in the Multi-Key Latency section for further details.

The NuPhy Air75 HE provides superb and exceptionally consistent multi-key latency performance. It's well-suited for playing any game that requires additional keystrokes while multiple keys are pressed and held.

We conducted this test using the following settings:

• Polling rate: 8000Hz
• Actuation: 0.1 mm
• Rapid Trigger: 0.2 mm press, 0.2 mm release
• Gaming Optimization: On
• Stabilization: Low
• Continuous Rapid Trigger: Off
• Deadzones: Off

We've used a marginally higher 0.2 mm press and 0.2 mm release setting at this time, as we've encountered some recent issues with our testing rig on lower Rapid Trigger settings.

For better consistency across all tested keyboards, we plan on retesting at the lowest (0.1 mm press and release) settings, and we'll update results soon. However, for full transparency, we expect the 0.1 mm difference will have virtually no impact on our results.

This keyboard has excellent chord split performance with very low 4-chord and 8-chord split delay, making it a standout option for playing titles that require multiple simultaneous inputs, like rhythm games.

The NuPhy Air75 HE uses a web-based configuration utility that you can access on Nuphy's website. Unfortunately, there isn't a separate downloadable client available, so you need to be online to customize your keyboard.

The software offers a wide range of customization options but remains reasonably straightforward to use. You can tweak RGB lighting and effects, remap keys, record macros, and manage profiles.

You can fine-tune switch actuation and rapid trigger behavior, and there's an automatic and manual switch calibration feature as well.

It also supports a variety of advanced actuation options, but the descriptions for these features are often vague. If you're not already familiar with gaming keyboards that offer adjustable actuation, the terminology can be especially confusing. That said, NuPhy provides a more detailed breakdown with examples in an online IO manual on their website.

Below, we've written a description of what these settings do. Keep in mind that you may need to experiment with them yourself to decide if they'll be useful for the games you play.

• Dynamic Keystroke: Allows you to map up to four different actions to a single key based on actuation distance.
• Mod Tap: Allows you to map two actions to a single key based on actuation distance: a held key for the first action and a tap for the second.
• Toggle Key: Toggle a command between on/off states by tapping a key. Holding the key activates the normal key behavior.
• Rapid Shift: Actively monitors two keys, prioritizing input for whichever is pressed further downwards at any time.
• SOCD: Specifies a pair of two keys with custom trigger behavior along three possible parameters: 1) Last input priority, where the last pressed key overrides the first if both exceed the actuation point. 2) No priority, where neither key triggers if both exceed the actuation point. 3) Absolute priority, where one key always overrides the other if both exceed the actuation point. Disclaimer: Using this setting may be disallowed in some competitive online games, such as CS:2.
• Hyper Tap: This setting binds two keys together and automatically triggers one as soon as the other stops registering. This setting has two priority options.
  • 1) Bidirectional binding: When either of the keys stops triggering, the other switch is automatically triggered.
  • 2) Unidirectional binding: When one of the two keys stops triggering, the other switch automatically triggers.
• Tachyon Mode: Separetly found under the Mode Settings tab, this preset forces what NuPhy has designated as optimal deadzone, actuation, and rapid trigger points.

There's a compatibility switch to toggle between Windows (M2) and Mac (M3) keyboard layouts on the back edge.

If you're a Linux user, you'll need to adjust your udev permissions to use the web-based configuration software. We confirmed the software is compatible with Linux during testing. You can find basic instructions from this Reddit thread.