This is the Ducky Cushion 98, and it is, by far, the smoothest keyboard in the world. It is the butteriest, biscuitiest of bases. Between the “Shush Green” switches, the Nest mount design and solid construction, this is as silent as it gets, yet still tactile, and buttery all at once. Despite not being hall effect, this is very close to being my favourite keyboard ever. Let me explain why.

Ducky is no slouch when it comes to exceptional keyboards, but this bad boy.. This hits it out the park. This is a 96 percent board, not to be confused with the 98 in the name, nor the 100 keys that adorn it. Basically it’s a full size board in a TKL body – crush everything together and you get almost all the keys with none of the wasted space. I like it. You keep the function row, the full size arrow keys, and even a num pad, but lose print, lock and pause, and the right windows key. That’s it. Oh, and half the width of the 0 on the num pad. Not bad! I’d be swapping insert for printscreen personally, I use the latter much more, but other than that this is a great layout. Styling wise you have a tri-tone keycap set which matches the ‘Nickel’ colourway body nicely, and for me the baby blue pops beautifully, but if you have no joy in your soul whatsoever they do include grey versions of all the blue caps in the box. 

I should also mention what else you get in the box. Four spare switches – they are mechanical after all – a very funky keycap and switch puller, a USB C to C cable and an A to C adapter, a Ducky brush, oh and an entire optional rubber dampening mat. Yeah, so the one they include here is the softer one, but if you want something a little firmer you can swap to this grey pad instead. The shell comes apart easily from the top and you’ll find the stack inside. This is incredibly easy to get at, clean, and of course to swap switches thanks to them all being hot-swap too. Awesome! 

There’s a lot more we will talk about, but I want you to hear this thing. It’s glorious.

This is nearly silent – honestly my fingers hitting the caps make most of the sound – while still being ludicrously smooth AND tactile. To be fair, especially with the soft pad in there you get a lot of deck flex, especially at the edges, but it only aids the supple feeling. I have a hard time describing things, but please believe me when I say this is one of the nicest typing experiences I’ve tried. The switches are effortless, yet still have a tactile edge, and are dead quiet. For typing – or gaming – this is phenomenal. Speaking of gaming, that’s a pretty great experience too. The tactile bump is something I really enjoy for gaming, although the 2mm of travel to get to the actuation point makes this a little more of an all-rounder rather than a pro gaming board, but that’s fine. In short then, I enjoyed using this.

I should also note that this is both a wired and wireless keyboard, AND THE DONGLE DOES COME INCLUDED… I totally didn’t miss this without help… Ok so maybe I did, but in my defence this thing blends in and has no grip so it doesn’t feel natural to pull it out, but yes this is the USB dongle. It can also do Bluetooth, or run wired. I did, of course, test the latency with my very own open source latency testing tool which you can pick up at OSRTT.com, link in the description, and this one is weird. The latency for both wired and wireless is kinda rough – 12 milliseconds is a lot for keypress latency – but wireless was almost 1 millisecond faster which is unheard of. I double checked the wired latency too, even moving what port it was connected to to check for an issue with my test system, but nope. Slower both ways. Weird! I wouldn’t consider this one game-breaking, especially considering it isn’t aiming to be a pro-esports board, but perhaps keep that in mind.

The other catch here is the price. It’s £150. That’s a lot for a board, especially these days, but you do get a lot for your money. Undeniable quality, deliciously smooth switches, a nice layout, wireless and wired operation, hell even 2000 hertz keyscanning (although only 1000 hertz polling…) all adds up to a pretty incredible experience and board. Despite the latency, and the price a bit, I’d still be more than happy to use this as a daily driver. I like this a lot. Great job Ducky!