[Hardware]Varmilo MA108M Moonlight Review: Smooth EC Sakura V2 Switches

[Revo]

 

 

A keyboard that’s fit for an office doesn’t have to look boring. The Varmilo MA108M Moonlight offers the best of many worlds. You get a polished design with a pop of fun, and the new EC Sakura V2 electrostatic capacitive mechanical switches (yes, more mechanical switches -- we’ll explain) tested here offer a smooth experience that we appreciated for both work and gaming.

But at $157, this is an expensive, high-end mechanical keyboard. And unlike many of the best gaming keyboards, which tempt with bonuses like per-key RGB, onboard memory and reprogrammable keys, the MA108M Moonlight doesn’t have a lot of features. And we have some complaints about the features you do get. 

The MA108M Moonlight’s top plate is plastic, which surprised me due to the keyboard’s premium price tag. But the dark plastic is carved with subtle engravings that make it look like a piece of wood. It also helps the keycaps stand out, and for good reason. Varmilo successfully does a delicate dance of colors, uniting an old-school gray with a darker one and tossing in some teal ones that’ll make you feel young again. 

The keycaps are PBT plastic and said to be 1.3mm thick. There’s a gentle texture on the light gray keys that’s slightly rougher on the darker gray ones and especially rough on the teal ones, particularly the spacebar. You wouldn’t note the small differences there by looks alone. As expected with PBT, these keycaps look pristine and remain fingerprint-free no matter how much you type.

The keycaps’ font is a little thick but clearly legible. It may be too much for some, but I love the classic look, which is partially due to the dye sublimation process, where the writing is created by sinking dye into a laser engraving on the keycaps, staining it. You can’t feel the writing, and it won’t fade. 

Less favored, though, are the keys in the upper-right corner. They launch (from left to right) in Windows: the VLC player, your web browser, calculator and the This PC menu. There’s no way to reprogram those keys, so I’d much rather have a set of dedicated media keys. 

Varmilo also made an interesting choice in cutting the dedicated Menu button; instead you have to hit FN and right Ctrl, as the subscript reminds you. Living in the Menu button’s typical spot is a right FN key, and where the right FN key typically is, is a second Windows key. It’s a small issue that I barely noticed in use (as long as I have a right FN key I’m fine), but if it annoys you, it’ll annoy you even more to know the keys aren’t reprogrammable. The solution is to swap the left Windows key and FN key by holding down FN and the left Windows key. 

The MA108M Moonlight’s MicroUSB to USB Type-A cable is detachable and goes into the right side, which could make it harder or easier to keep out of the way, depending on your setup. You get flip-out feet that bring the keyboard up about 0.8 inches, which felt about as high as it could get without becoming uncomfortable. 

Varmilo gave the MA108M Moonlight white backlighting, but it has an uneven look bleeding out from underneath the keycaps and is pretty dim from a top view, where the lighting looks the heaviest above the bottom row. Varmilo includes additional Caps, Scroll and Num lock keycaps with space in the keycap to make the backlighting more visible. It’s pretty essential for being able to tell if the light for these functions is on, (and that’s whether or not the backlight is activated). 

You can set the white lighting to a solid or breathing effect. The controls, however, aren’t intuitive, as there's no markings on the keyboard. You toggle through the different settings by holding FN and the right arrow key. When in solid lighting mode, FN and up or down increases brightness, and when in breathing mode, FN and up or down change the speed of the effect. To turn off the backlight, you have to leave the arrow keys and hit FN and X.

Electrostatic Capacitive Mechanical Switches: Varmilo’s EC V2 Line
You can get this keyboard with Cherry mechanical switches by opting for the Varmilo VA108M version (note the V starting the model number instead of an M). It’s selling cheaper than our review unit at $149-$154, depending on the switch. But the MA108M Moonlight we’ve tested comes with one of Varmilo’s three homebrewed EC V2 electrostatic capacitive mechanical switches, the EC Sakura V2, EC Rose V2 or EC Daisy V2.
This is the same kind of technology used in Topre switches, which are very po[CENSORED]r among some enthusiasts and expensive to find in keyboards. The difference with Varmilo’s switches is that they don’t use a tactile rubber dome or cone-shaped spring. Instead, they have a spring and plastic slider, like Cherry switches.

While the EC Rose V2 targets gamers and the EC Daisy V2 fights typing fatigue, Varmilo markets the EC Sakura V2s we tested for office and daily use and to those who like linear Red switches. This may be surprising, as linear switches are often preferred by gamers (all three EC V2 switches currently available are linear). However, I found the MA108M Moonlight keyboard much more enjoyable for typing than other mechanical keyboards I’ve used with linear switches.