When it comes to keyboard makers, Vissles isn’t exactly a household name but after my experience with the Vissles V84 and it’s sibling the fantastic LP85, they really should be. The small company uses Kickstarter to bring their keyboard visions to life and they have been largely successful. Again, no surprises there as this is quality stuff. Starting at USD $99.00 or approximately AUD $140, the Vissles V84 is a 65% Bluetooth mechanical keyboard. The V84 can connect up to 5 devices which you can easily swap between with an easy button press.
You might be thinking, “oh gosh really, a Bluetooth keyboard?” but fret not. I’ve used the Vissles V84 for weeks and have never had any issue with the connection being laggy or unresponsive while gaming or working. Furthermore, it also works lag-free using any standard USB Type-C cable so rest assured. Nonetheless, if you want to jump into Halo Infinite or CoD: Warzone in the middle of writing thousand word essay, you won’t have to swap boards.
Vissles V84 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard Review
The V84 is a 75% keyboard which means it eschews the number pad and several other standard keys in favor of a more compact layout. It’s just 316mm wide and while not as small as my HyperX Alloy Origins 60, the V84 is a rather small board by any standard. And unlike the HyperX, the V84 maintains dedicated arrow keys, number row, function key row and home navigation keys. This immediately makes it far more user friendly for everyday productivity tasks like navigating spreadsheets and what not.
The board itself is rather stodgy thanks to it’s hefty 824g weight and kinda fat but solid metallic frame. Yes, this one isn’t for lugging around like it’s much skinnier sibling the LP85. The board I got came in White but there’s also a Black version which I think looks very Darth Vader. The keycaps are PBT so don’t worry so much about getting the white version though. The board looks really classy like more custom boards that cost several hundreds more.
Unlike other boards I’ve reviewed, the V84 doesn’t have adjustable feet but the frame is designed to give an ergonomic slope that’s immediately comfortable. If that’s not enough for you, Vissles includes a pair of magnetic feet to give you an extra 6-degrees of inclination. While I think that’s cool and all, there’s always a chance you could lose the legs and I don’t understand why they just didn’t have a built in option when there’s clearly enough space in the frame.
Another odd design choice and one that irritated me a bit was placing the V84’s power switch at the bottom of the board instead of at the top-front edge where the USB-C connection port is. It’s rather cumbersome to lift this heavy board just to switch between Bluetooth and wired mode. Additionally, the switch itself just feels really bad. It’s so thin you really need to dig in to move it. I wish they’d put a nice, premium switch similar to the one on the LP85.
That niggle aside, I have to give Vissles high praise for including a genuinely great wrist wrest in the box. Most keyboards that come with one chuck in a cheap, plastic thing that’s hardly comfortable but Vissles went the opposite direction. The included wrist rest is made of some sort of synthetic leather on top of memory foam. It’s very comfortable and feels way more premium than anything I’ve encountered before. Vissles have certainly shamed more expensive boards from Razer and HyperX.
Keycaps and Switches
The Vissles V84 comes with a choice of mechanical switches headlined by the company’s own in-house VS II switch — a linear switch that’s impressively smooth and quiet. It has a total travel of 4mm with a 45g actuation force that feels a lot lighter than that number suggests. So light that I was often mistyping because my fingers would ever so slightly touch adjacent keys thus activating them. As you can imagine, this responsiveness is excellent in gaming with quick and instantaneous response you need in twitch shooters.
But even then, I have really enjoyed using this keyboard to type a ton these past weeks. A big part of that is how quiet and smooth they are. In case you don’t fancy the VS II switch, Vissles also offers Gateron Red, Blue and Brown switches. The switches are rated for up to 60million clicks which is several years at least.
Whichever switch you choose, you’ll get some beautiful per key RGB lighting. Although the caps use opaque legends which prevent light shining through them like most other boards, the slightly translucent white caps allow the backlighting to shine so you can always see clearly. The colors are vibrant and expressive with a host of presets that you can change using Fn+ Home/End combo or using the Vissles software.
I should note that by default, this is a Mac OS keyboard and the hitting the function keys will automatically apply the Mac funtions which are labelled above. This makes it so eary to manage media, change brightness and more on Macs. Windows users will need to use the Fn+F key combination to achieve the same. Additionally, the V84 comes with Windows, Alt keys in the box to swap out the default Option and Command keys.
The V84 uses PBT caps which are also swappable and Vissles bundles a keycap puller in the box as well as alternate OS keys. The caps did a great job in staying quite clean over the month of my use; repelling my disgusting oil marks from the snacking I do over the course of the day. I’m so relieved as that’s something I was afraid about using a white keyboard.
Something interesting though is that the PBT caps come only with the VS II Switches. If you choose any of the Gateron switches, by default you get the ABS key caps and not in white. So think about that before you order.
Connection and battery
The Vissles V84 uses Bluetooth 5.1 as it’s primary connection method and will connect to five separate devices. You can instantly swap between them by pressing Fn + Q,W,E,R or T. I can’t overstate how incredibly useful this is when you have multiple devices. I always have my work MacBook Pro 16 and a review laptop or desktop running at the same time and being able to have both of them available to me at the press of switch is a lifesaver. Bye-bye messing cable shenanigans.
As I said before, the V84 works perfectly well in wired mode too for those who don’t want any excuse for latency or interference(although I never encountered the latter even with a ton of other wireless peripherals running). The V84 comes with a decent USB Type-C to A cable which means you can use any other similar cable.
The same USB cable charges the V84’s substantial 3750mAh battery; not that you’ll have to do that often mind you. Vissles claims 180hrs and my experience hasn’t deviated much from that. The V84 would last me over a week of constant use with full blown RGB vomit going so I have zero complaints about battery life.
Should you buy it?
Hell yes! The Vissles V84 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard is yet another winner from this company and I honestly love it. It’s a classic keyboard look, 65% form factor, excellent key switches and convenient wireless connectivity to multiple devices with no battery anxiety makes it a winner for me. Additionally, unlike the LP85 which I also loved, the V84 has two color ways and multiple switch type options to choose from.
And did I mention the $140 price? Well, good luck finding a similar keyboard at this price range. The Razer BlackWidow V3 Mini comes to mind but that’s at least twice the price. The biggest competitor would have to come from Keychron K2 which, if I’m being honest, seems to be the inspiration for V84. And Keychron seem to be more readily available in Australia. But even then, the Vissles V84 is still an easy recommendation and one of the best keyboards we’ve reviewed.
Vissles kindly provided the V84 to PowerUp! for the purpose of this review.
