I just tested the Turtle Beach KB7 TKL — and 8,000Hz polling, adjustable actuation and a massive touchscreen (almost) make it a winner

Turtle Beach has finally made screens feel useful without being gimmicky, as the large touchscreen on its Command Series KB7 TKL is simply beautiful. Enabling you to customize actuation points and enable features like Rapid Trigger on the fly, the KB7 TKL is one of the best gaming keyboards you can buy today — if you’ve got nearly $200 to spare.

The KB7 TKL is not only great for gaming, but it’s solid for typing and productivity, too, thanks to the multi-functional screen and an optional number pad accessory. But the keyboard isn’t perfect, as it isn’t hot-swappable or wireless, and it costs a pretty penny.

For the complete breakdown, read my full Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL review.

Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL review: Specs

Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A wired gaming keyboard with a 75% layout and Hall Effect switches
• Who is it for? Competitive gamers
• How much does it cost? The Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL is available for $199 / £159
• What do we like? The sturdy build, large screen for on-the-fly customization, elite gaming features, and the decent typing experience
• What don’t we like? The wired-only, non-hot-swappable design, and expensive price tag

Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL review: The ups

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL nails the sturdy, durable design, and packs a large touchscreen for on-the-fly customization, 8,000Hz polling, Rapid Trigger, and more.

Sturdy build

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL feels like a supremely well-built keyboard, utilizing a combination of an anodized aluminum top plate and a plastic chassis. These give it some heft, as the keyboard weighs 2.47lbs (including wrist rest) but it’s nowhere near as heavy as some of Keychron’s full-metal decks, like the Q6 HE 8K (5lbs, $239) or the Q12 HE (4.85lbs, $249).

That’s because the KB7 TKL is a low-profile keyboard, and these are generally lighter than standard-profile ones. Though the KB7 TKL is heavier than, say, the Hexgears Immersion A3 TKL (1.67lbs, $129) and the NuPhy Air75 V3 (1.65lbs, $139), I haven’t had any issues carrying it to and from work in my backpack.

The KB7 TKL, as its name suggests, is a TKL keyboard, so it doesn’t feature a number pad. It measures 15.71 x 10.08 x 1.22 inches so it shouldn’t take up too much space on your desk. If you wish it had a numpad, you’re in luck. You can grab the optional Turtle Beach Command Series KP7 for $99 / £89 which conveniently slides into place on either side of the keyboard, thanks to dual modular rails, and turns the KB7 TKL into a full-size keyboard. This is a great choice for both left- and right-handed folks. The KP7 functions as a standalone wired Hall Effect gaming keypad, too.

Adding to the KB7 TKL’s durable build are its double-shot PBT keycaps which are more durable and resistant to wear and tear than their ABS counterparts. Turtle Beach happily includes a detachable, light-diffusing silicon wrist rest in the box, too, which helps you feel comfortable during long gaming or typing sessions.

Large touchscreen for on-the-fly customization

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL’s large 4.3-inch touchscreen that takes up a lot of space on the keyboard’s right side. This replaces the navigation keys cluster you’d normally find on other TKL keyboards — but you still get access to these via the touchscreen.

In addition to that, the KB7 TKL’s touchscreen enables you to adjust all the keys’ sensitivity at once, enable ReacTap and Rapid Trigger, record macros on the go, remap keys, adjust the keyboard’s lighting, and more.

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To unlock the touchscreen’s full potential, you should download Turtle Beach’s Swarm II companion app on your Windows laptop. Via Swarm II, you can customize the touchscreen by adding widgets to it, or selecting a template preset, such as ‘KB7 CS.’ This is designed specifically for Counter-Strike, and it shows you handy information, such as your equipped weapon, bullets remaining, total kills, etc. You can add third-party apps to the touchscreen, too, like Discord, Steam, and StreamLabs. This is how you make a keyboard’s screen useful and not just a gimmick.

Top-tier gaming features

The Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL is, first and foremost, a gaming keyboard. It’s fitted with in-house Titan low-profile Hall Effect switches, and it has an 8,000Hz polling rate. For 99% of gamers, 1,000Hz polling is more than enough. 8KHz is also a drain on system resources, but thankfully, you can drop the polling rate by launching Swarm II on your machine.

I tested the KB7 TKL by playing Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, and the keyboard didn’t let me down even once. I tried both 8KHz and 1KHz polling rates and didn’t notice any input lag or unresponsiveness. The Titan switches’ per-key adjustable actuation is the real star here, though. Their sensitivity can be adjusted between 0.1mm and 3.2mm.

I appreciated being able to adjust the sensitivity via the touchscreen itself, so I could quickly drop to a low actuation point of around 0.3mm for ultra-responsive gameplay in Counter-Strike 2. Turning the sensitivity of action and movement keys down meant that I could quickly swap between weapons by lightly tapping a key. Executing a series of complex actions felt like a walk in the park too, as I could sprint, throw a grenade, and crouch into hiding rapidly. This gave me a competitive advantage that often mechanical keyboards can’t offer.

In addition to that, you also get ReacTap, which is Turtle Beach’s term for Last Key Prioritization — a type of Simultaneous Opposite Key Detection (SOCD) resolution, or in other words, telling the keyboard what to do when two opposing commands are entered.

Enabling this essentially prioritizes the last key pressed, and I use it primarily for counter-strafing. You can basically draw to a complete stop from a sideways strafe by pressing the opposing direction key (A and D or vice versa). This gets you kicked out of Valve’s games, like Counter-Strike 2 and DOTA, as it acts as a cheat code — but it’s not banned in Valorant and other non-Valve competitive games. It also works like a charm in single-player games, like Cyberpunk 2077 where I was running circles around NPCs.

Finally, there’s Rapid Trigger which ensures that all inputs are recognized by enabling near-instantaneous switch reset when lifting. This allows for quicker directional changes and micro-adjustments when dodging or repositioning, for example. In Cyberpunk 2077, I used it to quickly peek around corners. All of these elite features come together to deliver an exceptional gaming experience.

Decent for typing, too

While I prefer one of the best mechanical keyboards, like my trusty Epomaker Glyph ($139), for typing, the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL is a good deck for productivity, too. The first page of its touchscreen features functions like Print, Insert, Page Up and Page Down, which are more productivity-oriented. There are Copy and Paste shortcuts, which negate the need to hold down Cmd/Ctrl + C/V.

The KB7 TKL feels good to type on, too. To put it through its paces, I took a series of typing tests at 10fastfingers.com, with the keyboard set to different sensitives for each test.

As you can see in the table above, the KB7 TKL performs well, but it doesn’t quite match up to other magnetic keyboards I’ve tested. That’s on me, though, as at the time of writing, I’d tested a bunch of mechanical keyboards leading up to the KB7 TKL, and was more accustomed to their tactile feel. I’ve personally enjoyed typing on the KB7 TKL. Its keycaps feel soft and polished to touch, and with the actuation set just right, my fingers felt like they were gliding across the board.

Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL review: The downs

Annoyingly, the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL isn’t hot-swappable and can’t be used wirelessly, and it’s expensive, too.

Not hot-swappable

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL is that it isn’t hot-swappable. That means its Titan Hall Effect switches are soldered to the PCB, so you can’t just pop them out and replace them with switches of your choice. Having tested nearly 100 keyboards at the time of writing, that’s a fairly significant drawback, especially when Turtle Beach’s competitors have been doing it for a while now.

If you want a hot-swappable keyboard, I’d recommend the Keychron K2 HE ($130) or the Wooting 80HE ($199). At the time of writing, Hall Effect switch choice is fairly limited, but we expect more switches to pop up in the market as these keyboards gain more popularity and become more mainstream.

Wired-only

This is more of a pre-purchase consideration rather than an outright flaw: the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL is a wired-only keyboard. You can connect the keyboard to your machine either via USB-C or two USB-A ports (using the included adapter), which is similar to the Turtle Beach Vulcan II Max ($229). You also get USB-A passthrough for connecting other devices straight to the KB7 TKL.

If you want to use a Hall Effect keyboard on the go and would like wireless connectivity, I’d recommend the Epomaker HE65 Mag ($99) or the Epomaker HE75 Mag ($99).

Expensive

Turtle Beach makes some great peripherals but they don’t always come cheap — and the same goes for the KB7 TKL. The keyboard retails for $199 / £159 at Amazon so while it isn’t as expensive as the Keychron Q12 HE ($249) or the Lemokey L5 HE ($220), it isn’t the cheapest either. That price tag hurts more when you take into consideration that the KB7 TKL isn’t hot-swappable and doesn’t offer wireless connectivity.

The KB7 TKL faces fierce competition from other Hall Effect keyboard manufacturers — and you don’t need to spend nearly $200 or more to get a decent one nowadays. The Keychron K2 HE ($130), the Epomaker HE65 Mag ($99) and the NuPhy Air60 HE ($139) are exceptional magnetic keyboards that don’t break the bank.

Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL review: Verdict

If you want a powerful gaming keyboard, the Turtle Beach Command Series KB7 TKL is a standout choice as the keyboard doesn’t give you too much to complain about. It packs 8,000Hz polling, adjustable actuation, and top-tier gaming features like Rapid Trigger and ReacTap. In addition to that, you get a large customizable touchscreen that enables you to adjust settings on the go.

But unfortunately, the KB7 TKL has its flaws. It isn’t hot-swappable, which most of its competitors are, and it isn’t wireless either. It’s also expensive and is simply outdone by the likes of Epomaker and Keychron offering better value for money.

If you aren’t bothered by those drawbacks, then the KB7 TKL could be perfect for you. I, for one, absolutely love how helpful the touchscreen is, and now I wish all keyboards had it.