Mechanical keyboards are really getting into the mainstream these few recent months, and day by day, it’s getting more and more crowded. The Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon is one of them. It’s a budget mechanical keyboard, and here’s what we think about it.
Let’s start with the packaging first. It’s fairly simple, to say the least. Nothing special in particular.
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Opening the box reveals the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon itself, wrapped in a piece of thin plastic. The wrappers gets the job done, but it’s nowhere near acceptable, in my opinion. There’s only some extra cardboard clearings at all the 4 edges, and that’s it.
Once everything has been dug out, it reveals the basics of what a mechanical keyboard should be shipped with. One tiny piece of user manual, a keycap remover, and the keyboard itself.
Might be a good idea to get another keycap remover though. The included one isn’t really that reliable.
[nextpage title=”Design”]
I have to say, the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon looks minimalist – with the LEDs off, of course. However, I don’t think that the design is clean. Sure, from afar it doesn’t look like there’s any type of funkily radical design, but if you look at at it at a closer distance, you’ll realize its exposed screws.
The entire Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon has a Corsair K-series-esque feel to it. It’s plate-mounted and has no case. So, all the key switches are just mounted on a piece of what Armaggeddon claims to be a metal top panel and soldered all the pins on the PCB underneath the metal plate. To be honest, I don’t think it’s metal, because of the hollow sound it makes when I tapped on it.
One thing I do like about its design is the caps lock LED being moved to somewhere near the arrow keys. Fits quite perfectly for a TKL keyboard. The other LED though, I have no idea what it does. It just doesn’t turn on, no matter what button I pressed.
There’s absolutely nothing to see underneath other than the single-tilt level rubber feet. The Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon does not have any sort of cable management routes, and the cable itself is slightly biased to the right side.
Also, what the heck are they thinking? Rubber bands to keep the cable intact? I expect at least a single cable tie, no matter how short it is.
[nextpage title=”Typing experience”]
Oh boy – there’s quite a lot to talk about in this section. Let’s break it down into three main parts – the key switch itself first, then the keycaps themselves, and finally the overall typing experience. Typing experiences are very personal, so I can only describe what I feel to you, so that you can judge it yourself.
Key switch
I have no idea where Armaggeddon found this company of key switches, but it’s called “CONTENT”. I can’t find any sort of product information for this keyswitch at all, so you’ll have to bear with my explanation here.
The Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon is only available in Blue mechanical switch, according to their product page. They did not mention what switch it uses, so here is what I can tell you all.
Its “CONTENT” key switch is extremely light compared to its Kailh RGB Blue switch. That “slot” where a DIP LED is supposed to sit in is filled with plastic protruding from the key switch’s case. I have no idea why they filled it with plastic – presumably for diffusion.
I feel that the key switch is also a lot more louder than other blue switches too.
Keycaps
This is where I think the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon really falls short. Armaggeddon touts that this keyboard uses their brand new KevlarTech key caps – a “high quality concave keycaps with lifetime fade proof warranty”. I quoted the sentence word by word from their product page, by the way.
This is what I can tell you about this KevlarTech – the keycaps feel like coarse sandpaper on a piece of plastic. I’ve reviewed the Ducky One with PBT Dye-Sub keycaps before and that is really smooth.The basic Ducky One I personally use daily has a really fine grainy feel to it, which I personally find to be the best. You might like this super-coarse sandpaper-like texture, but personally I feel like it’s sanding my fingerprint away with every keystroke. Better than, you might be able to take a keycap and rub your fingernail on it to do some polishing.
Other than its texture, the build quality of the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon’s KevlarTech keycap just feels… cheap. It’s a very thin keycap, and we can only tell that thin keycaps generally make a much louder clacking noise when the key is bottomed out.
Also, the metal plate that all the key switches are mounted on feels plasticky – because each bottomed out keystroke sounds like it’s plastic hitting plastic.
Overall typing experience
I personally don’t like the typing experience – and there are a few main reasons. Firstly, the keycap’s texture. Secondly, the keycap’s thickness. Thirdly, the overall noise level per keystroke on the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon.
However, I do feel that the stabilizer used for its spacebar is quite good. Resembles a little like the Costar stabilizers.
If you do have any further questions regarding the key switch, please do leave a comment in the comments section below – I read through every single one of it!
[nextpage title=”Features”]
Alright – the features. The Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon has a per-row colour backlighting with a total of 12 different backlighting modes.
I think the “12 different backlight movement” on the user manual is quite exxaggerated. It’s actually just half of that,as it’s split between its different directions. Imagine a the lighting effect is a wave movement from left to right. Toggling the backlight key again changes its direction to right to left, and it’s considered a backlight mode.
While that’s technically true, I think the per-row colour backlighting is a turn-off for some users. It doesn’t affect me however, as I really don’t like multi-coloured keyboards or mouse – be it RGB or something like the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon.
There’s one neat feature though – and that’s the arrow keys emulation by WASD keys by pressing FN+W. For my unit in particular, the other LED beside caps lock should indicate the FN+W status, but it just doesn’t light up. I think it’s a defect on my unit in particular.
Overall, features-wise is quite commendable – given that there are shortcut and multimedia keys on the function keys row.
[nextpage title=”Wrap up”]
The biggest question – is the Armaggeddon MKA-3C Psychfalcon worth buying? I personally would say no. Till now, there’s no official Malaysian pricing yet, but according to their product page, it costs USD $50. For me, I wouldn’t pay that much.
At the least, get a Ducky One with no backlighting – that’ll set you back about RM330 for its TKL version. I reviewed the backlit version here, but I can ensure you it’s the same as the non-backlit version and there’s no regret, if you chose the key switch of your choice that is. Maybe add the LEDs yourself if you wish to do so yourself – click here to check out my guide on how to do the keyboard LED mod.
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Which one do you prefer the most, Armaggeddon MKA-5R or Armaggeddon MKA-3C? I’m planning to buy my first mechanical keyboard. The price for each of it doesn’t vary much(in shopee). Anyway, please excuse any grammatical errors.
It’s your first mechanical keyboard and I’d say better to buy a better mechanical keyboard – like the Cooler Master CK530.
These two keyboards are… pretty old. Not really worth buying at all.