Lemokey P2 HE review: A tiny powerhouse to rival Wooting

The Lemokey P2 HE is a compact 65% magnetic gaming keyboard from Keychron’s gaming sub-brand. It’s one of the dinkiest keyboards Lemokey sells, and is perfect for gamers who are short on desk space, or who like to move their keyboard around a lot (that’s me).

There’s a lot to love about this little deck, from its wide array of gaming features and responsive magnetic features, through to its effortless type feel and supreme build quality. This is a performance-oriented gaming keyboard that will also stand you in good stead for a whole day of working and typing.

There aren’t too many negatives to live with either, although the board is very tall and has no adjustable feet, which can make it a little awkward to use when gaming. It’s heavy and kinda pricey, too, although both of those are symptomatic of the exquisite build quality, so I’m not complaining too much.

Is this the best gaming keyboard for you? Find out in my full Lemokey P2 HE review.

Lemokey P2 HE review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 65% magnetic gaming keyboard
• Who is it for? Gamers who type a lot and want to customize their deck
• What does it cost? $169 at Lemokey
• What's good? The gaming performance, type feel, customization options and compact design
• What's not? It's tall, heavy and on the pricey side

Lemokey P2 HE review: Specs

Lemokey P2 HE review: The ups

The Lemokey P2 HE is a lovely deck for gaming and typing alike, packing plenty of magnetic gaming performance and superb switches. It’s beautifully built and very customizable, too.

Solid gaming performance

The Lemokey P2 HE packs Gateron’s Double-Rail magnetic switches — the same ones we’ve seen in many other Keychron/Lemokey boards, like the Keychron K2 HE ($130) and Keychron Q16 HE 8K Ceramic ($229). They’re utterly formidable gaming switches, and can rival the fantastic Lekker switches found in the Wooting 60HE ($174).

At your disposal are pretty much all of today’s must-have gaming features. There’s adjustable actuation down to 0.2mm for ultra-snappy and responsive inputs. I don’t go as far as 0.2mm as it results in accidental inputs when knocking keys. But I adjusted the switches to 0.6mm for gameplay on Counter-Strike 2 and Isonzo, and found the switches a joy to use.

There are also multiple selectable and customizable simultaneous cardinal opposing direction (SOCD) resolutions. Namely, there’s Last Key Priority, or ‘Snap Tap,’ which prioritizes the last key pressed when two keys actuate simultaneously. This facilitates super easy counter strafing in games with internal movement accuracy penalties, like Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant. It’ll get you kicked from CS2 immediately.

There’s DKS, or Dynamic Key Stroke, which allows you to assign up to four inputs per keystroke (two up, two down); Rapid Trigger for repeat inputs without needing the switch to recycle; and a long-press switch, where a single input acts as a continuous input — ideal for automating walking, for example.

You’re short a few features versus, say, the NuPhy Air60 HE ($139) and NuPhy Field75 HE ($169) — namely Mod Tap, which allows you to assign different inputs based on whether a key is tapped or pressed. Other than that, though, the P2 HE really has every gaming feature there is to care about right now.

All of these features are accessed and customized via the Lemokey Launcher web app, which is fantastic. It’s web based, so you can access it from any computer, and so there’s no need to install any bloatware. Launcher gives you access to everything you’d want to customize about the board’s firmware. It’s a far cry from the janky software of the Epomaker HE75 Mag ($99), or the horrible bloatware, Armoury Crate, which you have to install to tweak Asus boards like the TUF Gaming K3 Gen II ($99).

The P2 HE polls at 1,000Hz over wireless and wired connections. This may not sound that impressive given every gaming keyboard manufacturer worth its salt is shouting proudly about 8K polling these days, but trust me, 1,000Hz is plenty fast enough for a keyboard, and I experienced no lag or missed inputs when gaming.

Beautiful to type on

As with all Lemokey and Keychron boards, even though the P2 HE is packing serious gaming heat, the typing experience isn’t sacrificed. Now, this isn’t the most comfortable board out there. The PCB is gasket-mounted which is kinda rare for Hall Effect gaming boards, but the mounting is fairly firm — I’d even go so far as to say the board feels more like a plate or top mounted deck. That’s fine, though, because this is a gaming deck, and you don’t want that PCB/plate assembly jiggling around while you’re at 0.2mm actuation.

Otherwise, it’s a truly lovely board for typing. The results below were my first type test on the P2 HE. Straight out of the gate, I scored 100WPM with above average accuracy. I’m writing this review on the P2 HE, and after some hours of use, I’m even faster.

Like its Keychron stablemate, the Q16 HE 8K, the P2 HE uses Cherry profile keycaps, which is ideal in a gaming-skewed deck. They’re medium low-profile, allowing you to skim across the board quickly and easily, and there isn’t too much sculpting to the keys to get in the way. On a productivity board, I prefer a more typing-focused profile, like the Keychron H2 HE’s OSA or the NuPhy Halo75 V2’s ($129) mSA profiles. But for an all-rounder with a gaming focus, Cherry is perfect.

I utterly adore the feel of the Gateron Nebula switches, too. These are the medium-weight options of Gateron’s Double-Rail line, the others being the lightweight Dawn switches or the heavyweight Aurora switches. I’ve used them all, and Nebula are my favorite. With 40g actuation and 60g bottom out force, they have a medium weight to them — not so heavy to become fatiguing, but just enough to give a springy, elasticated feel that I find a little addictive.

Compact 65% layout

When it comes to gaming keyboards, I’m a sucker for a 65% layout. Strip any more keys, like the 60% NuPhy Air60 HE, and productivity is seriously affected due to losing the arrow keys. The 65% layout gives you just enough to be suitable for daily use, while being perfect for smaller desks or people who like to move their keyboard to odd placements.

If you’re one of the former, the 65% layout gives you plenty of space for your mouse movements and minimizes the impact of the keyboard on your already dwindling space. If you’re one of the latter, like me, who isn’t short of desk space, but likes to put their keyboard way out on the left when gaming, 65% is also ideal.

The 65% layout is also a solid choice if you need to take the board in your bag, to work or a LAN party. However, as I’ll cover in the ‘downs’ section below, the chunkiness and weight of the P2 HE kinda rules it out for that.

Plenty of customization potential

The Lemokey P2 HE is a great shout if you like tinkering with your keyboards. Firstly, there’s all the software tweaks you can make in the Lemokey Launcher web software I covered above. There, you can reassign keys, create and assign macros, flash firmware, customize gaming features, and play around with RGB.

I’m a big fan of Lemokey/Keychron’s per-key and mix-RGB modes, which are fairly new additions to the Launcher software. These make it easy to assign blocks of RGB lighting and change the color of individual keys. This is something I love about the Wooting80 HE ($199) and its wootility.io software, so I’m glad to see Lemokey implementing it too.

Unusually for a Lemokey/Keychron board, the P2 HE has a ball-catch quick-release top case, giving you instant access to the internals to make modifications under the hood. We see this on super mod-friendly decks like the Wobkey Crush 80 ($190) and MCHOSE GX87 Pro ($109), and it’s great to see Lemokey following suit. If you want an even more moddable 65% though, check out the Wobkey Zen 65 ($165), which is equally easy to customize and even comes with all the materials needed to swap out the plate.

Superb build quality

As is customary with Lemokey boards, like the Lemokey L5 HE ($220), the P2 HE is built like a tank. The removable top case is made from thick aluminum, with a smooth finish. The bottom case is utterly gorgeous — again smooth-touch aluminum, with sturdy rubberized feet and a beautiful patterned plastic inlay. Keycaps are doubleshot PBT, which are more resistant to grease and to going shiny over time versus ABS caps. It’s just a fantastically well-crafted deck, which is clearly built to last.

Lemokey P2 HE review: The downs

Despite all its virtues, the Lemokey P2 HE isn’t perfect. It’s very heavy for a 65%, and has no height adjustment, which exacerbates issues with its tall design. And while not outrageously priced, you can get cheaper magnetic decks for less.

Very heavy

For a 65% keyboard, the Lemokey P2 HE is very heavy at 3.15lbs. While you could theoretically take it out and about — if commuting to work or heading to a friend’s house to game, for instance — you wouldn’t really want to. The P2 HE is best suited to sitting stationary on your desk.

If you’d prefer a more portable gaming keyboard, check out the slightly lighter Keychron Q16 HE 8K Ceramic (2.2lbs), the NuPhy Air60 HE (1.18lbs), Wooting 60HE (1.3lbs) or the SteelSeries Apex Pro Mini (1.34lbs, $239).

Tall case with no height adjustment

The Lemokey P2 HE has no adjustable feet to let you vary the height and angle of the board. Now, this is normal for keyboards with aluminum cases. In fact, the only aluminum board I’ve ever tested with adjustable feet is the Lofree Flow 2 ($149). The machining needs to be very complex to put feet on an aluminum case, which is why it’s so uncommon to do so.

I’m used to this, and it wouldn’t be a huge problem… if the P2 HE weren’t so tall. The case is very high, with fat squared off edges, making it quite uncomfortable to use at times unless you have a tall wrist rest. At first, I found the case got in the way a fair bit, too. Some angle adjustment would’ve been very welcome here, so this is a problem I’d like to see the industry address in future.

An easy solution already exists — Wooting sells its plastic boards with different sized rubber feet included in the box, which clip into grooves in the case. I don’t see why that wouldn’t work with metal cases either. Until then, I prefer using the much lower (indeed, low-profile) NuPhy Air60 HE.

Kinda pricey

Finally, the Lemokey P2 HE is kinda pricey, costing $169 at Lemokey. Given the gaming features, build quality and easy customization on offer, I don’t think it’s priced unfairly. Other keyboards offering similar features cost a similar amount or more: the Wobkey Zen 65 costs $165, while the Keychron Q16 HE 8K costs $229.

The P2 HE’s biggest competitors are the Wooting 60HE ($174) and NuPhy Air60 HE ($139). Sure, the NuPhy is cheaper, but we’re still in the same ballpark here.

That said, $169 is a lot of cash, and you can get similar features for less. The Epomaker HE65 Mag, for example, costs $99, while the Epomaker HE68 costs just $59. They aren’t built anywhere near as beautifully as the Lemokey, but if you’re on a budget, will perform just as well.

Lemokey P2 HE review: Verdict

I’m really impressed by the Lemokey P2 HE. It packs into a tiny package everything that usually makes Lemokey/Keychron boards so great — gaming performance, type feel, customizability etc — and throws in a long-overdue ball-catch quick-release case for easy modding.

Sure, it’s tall case and lack of feet make it a little awkward to use, and it’s objectively quite a lot of money to spend on a keyboard — but the P2 HE isn’t outrageously priced versus its competition, and more than justifies its MSRP through its features. What a lovable little keyboard!