Tag Archives: Gaming

The Couch Keyboard Has Been Bad for Years and Framework Just Fixed It

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If you’ve spent any time using a home theater PC from the couch, you’ve probably already met the Logitech K400 Plus. It’s been the go-to couch keyboard for years, not because it’s particularly good, but because nothing better has come along. The touchpad is cramped, the keys feel cheap, and anyone who’s used one knows it’s a device you tolerate rather than enjoy.

Framework ran into this same frustration while developing and testing the Framework Desktop for living room use. Their team kept reaching for the same underwhelming keyboard until they decided to stop tolerating it and build something better. The Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard is the result, borrowing the same keyboard and touchpad design from Framework’s laptops and packaging them into a compact wireless unit.

Designer: Framework

The keys use the same chiclet-style, low-profile design as Framework laptops, with 1.5mm of key travel and full 19mm key spacing. That’s a higher standard than this product category usually bothers with, and it shows in how the keyboard feels to type on, even while holding it in one hand. The slim body doesn’t sacrifice the typing experience for the sake of portability.

The touchpad is where this keyboard makes its most meaningful departure from what’s currently available. At 68.8 x 85.6mm, it’s a clickable Windows Precision Touchpad with full multi-touch gesture support for Windows and Linux alike. That’s the same touchpad architecture found in Framework’s laptops, which means the precision and responsiveness are genuinely comparable to what you’d expect from a proper laptop trackpad.

Connectivity covers everything you’d reasonably want. You can pair up to four devices simultaneously over Bluetooth, plug in via USB-C for a wired connection, or use the USB-A dongle, which stores neatly in a slot on the back of the keyboard. Framework is even developing a USB-A Adapter Expansion Card so the dongle can sit flush inside a Framework laptop or desktop.

For living room setups, having a touchpad built directly into the keyboard changes how you interact with everything on screen. Pulling up a browser, adjusting playback settings, or scrolling through a queue from across the room becomes far less awkward when you’re not hunting for a mouse on the coffee table. It’s a small shift in workflow that makes a noticeable difference in day-to-day comfort.

Sim racers who mount keyboards into cockpit frames will appreciate the integrated touchpad even more, since a separate mouse is barely practical there. Of course, Framework being Framework, the hardware is fully open-source, with design files already on GitHub. The firmware runs on ZMK, and the Control Board exposes 28 I/O pins for custom configurations, with Framework even offering the board free to developers who apply early.

The Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard is expected to ship later in 2026, with pricing still to be confirmed. It came from genuine frustration rather than a gap in a product roadmap, and that tends to show in the details. The couch keyboard category has been stuck with one mediocre option for far too long, and this one finally gives people something worth reaching for.

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This transparent glass foosball table at Milan Design Week looks straight out of a 2000s sci-fi movie

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The early 2000s had a very clear idea of the future. Think of films like *Minority Report* with its PreCrime headquarters, all white rooms and glass interfaces where everything looked seamlessly bonded rather than bolted together. Or *I, Robot*, which pushed that look even further with its glossy USR tower and Audi concept car, a world that had erased any sign of how things were actually made. That aesthetic has aged remarkably well, but it’s a territory most game furniture never touches, usually favoring rich materials over making things look like they are barely there. Basaglia + Rota Nodari are the exception, and Ghost, their foosball table for FAS Pendezza, is the proof.

The table itself is built from thick tempered glass, laminated at 12 and 9 mm, with a playing field that’s 114.5 by 70.5 centimeters, and it’s made entirely in Italy. Its body is bonded with a special adhesive, so there are no visible screws or bolts anywhere in the frame. That’s a key decision, because if you saw hardware, the whole ghost-like vibe would fall apart. A clean, conical white metal base holds up the floating glass volume, while chrome rods and two-tone players complete a color scheme that’s intentionally minimal. At 8,900 euros, it’s priced as a piece of design, and it earns it on looks alone before a single ball gets dropped.

Designers: Basaglia + Rota Nodari for FAS Pendezza

Even the players, made of white and gray resin, look like they belong in this sci-fi world. They’re somewhere between a medical illustration and a concept-car sketch, simplified to the point of anonymity. That’s exactly why they work. If they were in conventional team colors, the table would feel like just another piece of recreational equipment. Instead, these figures feel closer to the NS-5 robots of *I, Robot* than to any real athlete, which helps keep the whole look clean and unified. The chrome coil springs connecting them to the rods are the one little nod to mechanical texture, and they look almost like jewelry against all that glass.

But what really captures you are the detailed shadows the Ghost projects on the floor, if paired with the right lighting. At Salone Satellite, Ghost casts an incredible wireframe shadow on the floor, like it’s drawing a blueprint of itself in real time. Pitch markings are printed beneath the crystal surface, so they appear to float inside the glass instead of sitting on top. From any angle in the FAS Pendezza booth, you can see right through the structure, with the players and chrome rods suspended against the room itself. The name makes perfect sense when you see it in person.

FAS Pendezza is presenting Ghost at Salone Satellite this week as part of Milan Design Week 2026, in a booth where the table’s shadow alone justifies the detour. Seeing it alongside the rest of the brand’s lineup confirms Ghost as a deliberate formal departure rather than FAS Pendezza’s default register. The studio, Basaglia Rota Nodari, launched in 1997 with a stated ambition to build objects that convey emotion beyond their function, and Ghost may be their sharpest expression of that intent to date. For those who have already left Milan, Ghost is available in white and black finishes and retails at €8,900.

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The Xbox Prototype That Cost $18K Now Takes Just a Spool of Filament

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There are hardware designs from the early 2000s that still stop people cold, and the original Xbox prototype is near the top of that list. Revealed at GDC 2000 by Bill Gates and Seamus Blackley, it was a massive X carved from a single block of aluminum, reportedly costing around $18,000 per unit. It was a developer showcase piece that toured press conferences and wasn’t meant for production.

Tito of Macho Nacho Productions previously got as close as anyone has managed by building a functional aluminum replica, though the enclosure alone cost thousands of dollars in machining. It was impressive and historically faithful, but it wasn’t something you could attempt yourself. His new version takes the same idea and rebuilds it entirely around 3D printing, with accessibility as the primary goal.

Designer: Macho Nacho Productions/Nacho Engineering

The digital files are available through his online store, and the enclosure can be printed at home if you have a large enough machine, or sent off to a 3D printing service. It’s not a complicated sourcing challenge; different configurations accommodate different build approaches, giving hobbyists some flexibility in how they put it together. Either way, the barrier to entry has dropped considerably, which is the entire point.

Getting the shell printed in clear resin produces a glass-like finish the aluminum build never had, and the transparency turns the internal components into part of the visual appeal. More significantly, this version finally matches the true dimensions of the original GDC prototype, a distinction the previous aluminum replica couldn’t make. For anyone interested in historical accuracy, that’s the more meaningful improvement of the two.

The original prototype didn’t have much at the center of its X besides a small green light. The replica replaces that with a round Waveshare LCD driven by a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 paired with a DVI sock. That combination lets the Pico push video to the round display without additional hardware, a compact solution that gives the build a much more animated presence than the original’s glow ever managed.

What makes this genuinely interesting beyond nostalgia is how deliberately it was rebuilt for the modding community rather than as a personal showcase. The print-friendly engineering turns what was previously a one-of-a-kind machined object into something with a shared community standard. Hobbyists don’t need access to a machine shop anymore to own one; they just need a printer, some patience, and a donor Xbox motherboard.

The build runs the original Xbox motherboard inside the new shell, keeping its gaming credentials intact. A modern USB-C power solution replaces the original Xbox’s notoriously oversized power brick, freeing up internal volume that the X-shaped enclosure genuinely needs. It’s a practical modernization that doesn’t ask you to give up the authenticity of running original hardware, which is exactly what this kind of replica demands.

The original X design was always more statement than product, a way of telling developers in 2000 that Microsoft was serious with hardware dramatic enough to make the point without words. The retail Xbox that followed looked nothing like it. Twenty-five years later, the modding community is effectively building the console Microsoft couldn’t, and making the files available to anyone willing to put in the work.

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A$AP Rocky Just Made a Retro Gaming Console That Looks Like a Famicom on Steroids

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There’s a reason every retro emulation console of the last decade keeps cribbing from the same 1980s Japanese design playbook. The Famicom and the original SNES established a visual grammar for home gaming hardware that has never really been improved upon, just iterated, simplified, or fetishized. Cream-colored ABS plastic, primary-red accents, ribbed black ventilation grilles borrowed from HiFi separates, and chunky cross d-pads big enough to register through a winter glove. Analogue has built an entire premium business on faithfully reissuing this language. Anbernic and Miyoo have built equally large businesses on cheaply approximating it. What nobody has really done is take that grammar and warp it through a fashion-house sensibility.

A$AP Rocky’s Hommemade studio just gave it a shot. The HGC-V.1, or Hommemade Gaming Console Version One, is a flip-screen retro emulation system designed in-house at AWGE and built around a chunky, almost cartoonishly oversized form factor that reads like a Famicom rendered as a desk sculpture. Cream and slate-blue body panels, two red arcade-style thumbsticks, a cobalt cross d-pad, SNES-coded face buttons, and black ribbed heat sinks flanking a flip-up LCD that boots into a pixelated starfield with the Hommemade “h” logo glowing front and center. It’s a console designed to be looked at as much as played.

Designer: AWGE / Hommemade

The form language here rewards a closer look. Most retro consoles fall into one of two camps, the faithful reissue (Analogue Pocket, Mega Sg) or the all-in-one emulation handheld (the entire Anbernic catalog), and both prioritize either accuracy or portability. The HGC-V.1 ignores both briefs. It’s a tabletop unit, roughly the proportions of a 1980s portable TV, with a flip-up screen that gives it a clamshell silhouette closer to a Game Boy Advance SP scaled up to coffee-table size. The d-pad, joysticks, and face buttons are all deliberately oversized, pushing past ergonomic logic into something more sculptural. You don’t pick this up the way you’d pick up an Anbernic RG35XX. You sit at it.

The detailing is where the AWGE handprint gets loud. “HGC-V.1” sits in red Famicom-style lettering across the bezel, “Powered by AWGE” gets stamped in that scrappy hand-drawn type Rocky has used across his whole creative universe, and the chunky blue “h” logo on the right shoulder behaves less like a brand mark and more like a structural element, almost a handle. Around the back you get USB, what looks like HDMI out, and a physical toggle switch with the satisfying mechanical heft those late-90s appliances always had. The package ships with two wireless gamepads that crib NES proportions while smuggling in twin analog sticks and a four-button face cluster, essentially a hybrid retro-modern pad capable of running anything from NES ROMs through to early PS1 emulation.

No public price has been announced, which fits the Hommemade pattern. The label operates on a made-to-order basis through a single email address (hommemade@awge.com if you’re interested), and the rest of the Galaxy Collection ranges from $13,500 dividers to the $300,000 CBNT.V1 entertainment console covered by Hypebeast last week. Expect this to land somewhere in art-object territory rather than competing with the upcoming Steam Machine. The HGC-V.1 isn’t trying to win on specs or library size. It’s trying to win on the simpler proposition that gaming hardware can be a piece of furniture worth designing properly, and on that front, it makes a genuinely compelling case.

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ONEXPLAYER X2 Mini is a power-packed compact PC, tablet and handheld in one

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We’ve been ranting all year long about the rise of the handhelds and the choices spread across a wide spectrum. This diversity is attributed to many variables, including the use case, the genres of games the device is expected to play, and, most importantly, the price segment a gamer is looking at.

ONE-NOTEBOOK has more often than not shown what a premium gaming rig or a powerhouse handheld is supposed to be like, going beyond the utility of simply enjoying your favorite titles. The ONEXPLAYER  G1 laptop, the ONEXPLAYER  X1 tablet hybrid, and the ONEXPLAYER  Youxia X1 Pro EVA Limited Edition handheld gaming PC proved it all right.

Designer: ONE-NETBOOK

The Shenzhen-based electronics company is back with another powerhouse gadget that should solve your gaming, work, and entertainment needs. ONEXPLAYER  X2 Mini is the latest teased handheld by ONE-NETBOOK, and it packs some real power for playing AAA titles. Despite the “Mini” in its namesake, the device features a slightly larger 8.8-inch OLED screen compared to the Apex handheld’s 8-inch display shown off at CES 2026. The display supports VRR and HDR modes, along with the superior 144 Hz variable refresh rate for demanding titles. This pits it directly in competition with the Lenovo Legion Go 2.

Powering the guts of the handheld is the power-packed AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, and there is no word yet about the RAM or storage on the gaming device. The beefy processor with 16 Zen 5 CPU cores is mated to the Radeon 8060S integrated GPU. That kind of hardware requires active cooling, and ONE-NETBOOK has an optional external water cooling pack in the mix. That amount of processing power can be overkill for a handheld, but it makes sense since the device doubles as a potent mini laptop. The screen is completely detachable and connects to a magnetic backlit keyboard for your work routines on the go.

To power the demanding machine, they’ve decided to go with a user-detachable 85W battery to make swaps quick, in case you want to extend your gaming sessions on a long flight. The detachable controller has swappable face buttons (with micro-switches), a capacitive joystick, casing, and a vibration motor for haptic feedback. Thus, making the handheld mini PC easy to replace with new components. D-pad will also be user configurable in two options – the standard cross version, or the octagonal setup similar to the Xbox Series Elite controller. For better control in-game, the two-stage analogue trigger provides micromovement and linear freedom in switching. The controllers can be connected to the independent wireless connection base, which turns them into a capacitive touchpad for mouse-level precision while working.

ONEXPLAYER  X2 Mini will likely have 128GB of storage and ultra-fast LPDDR5X RAM to go with the Strix Halo APU, which should put it flush in the premium handheld category. That should carry a premium price as well, somewhere around $4,000 or more. Add the price of accessories to that, and you have a handheld-PC hybrid poised to attract power gamers and users who have always wanted a modular device for multi-functional needs.

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ANBERNIC RG Rotate handheld with swivelling display doubles as a music player

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Handheld gaming has just exploded in the last year or so with players like Ayaneo, Analouge, ANBERNIC and Retroid catching the pulse of handheld gamers. There’s one for every type of gamer, whether someone who likes things arcade, retro modern, or a demanding nerd who wants to have a compact console to play AAA titles.

ANBERNIC has been in the news lately due to their rumoured handheld with a rotating screen, and now things are official. Their next retro gaming handheld, called RG Rotate, looks somewhat like the Motorola FlipOut phone, which was released way back in mid-2010. The idea here is to emulate classic console titles and also double as a music player since the device can play MP3 files.

Designer: ANBERNIC

Building on the success of the RG Slide and the exciting prospect of the RG DS, the brand was confident enough to introduce a rotating-screen handheld to its gaming community. The result is an Android handheld that is compact enough to fit in a pocket yet powerful enough to play demanding arcade classics without breaking a sweat. This device has a peculiar pivoting square display that hides the D-pad and the buttons.

This rotating action relies on the proprietary ultra-thin alloy hinge mechanism, which should be durable enough to take on the constant movement that gamers are going to put it through. After all, it has gone through high durability testing, even though it was an engineering challenge for the brand. The confidence of a successful hinge mechanism and the constant movement on the RG DS should have brought enough input to go with this form factor.

The RG Rotate comes with swappable in-line L2 and R2 buttons to toggle the height of the shoulder buttons as per liking. This handheld also comes with a single USB-C port and a microSD card, but surprisingly, it doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack, given that it has built-in capability to play MP3 files. The only option left is to play music via the Type-C port. The aluminium screen frame handheld comes in two color options: Polar Black and Aurora Silver, which both have different body builds. One has an aluminum body frame, while the other has an ABS plastic body.

There is no word yet about the pricing or the availability of the rotating screen handheld. Also, there is no confirmation whether the two different body frame options will be released together or at different times.

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Georgia Is Building a Chess Palace That Looks Exactly Like a Chessboard

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Georgia has a claim on chess culture that goes deeper than most countries appreciate. The nation has produced grandmasters at a rate disproportionate to its size, and the game is woven into its educational and cultural identity in ways that feel genuinely foundational rather than ornamental. Given that context, the decision to build a dedicated Chess Palace in Batumi reads as overdue rather than extravagant, the kind of civic investment that a country with this relationship to the game probably should have made a generation ago.

What makes the Batumi Chess Palace architecturally compelling is that Irakli Emiridze of Alpha Architecture refused to treat chess as mere decoration. The entire building is organized around the game’s visual logic. Its form references an unfolded chessboard, its facades use perforated solar shading to animate a black and white grid pattern with real-time light and shadow, and a dramatic sculptural installation marks the entrance as both functional threshold and symbolic statement. The two-story, 60-meter-deep structure is due for completion in 2027, housing a tournament hall, chess library, hotel rooms, exhibition spaces, a gym, and study rooms.

Designer: Irakli Emiridze, Alpha Architecture

Perforated solar shades wrap all four elevations in a dense, pixelated black and white grid that shifts in depth and shadow as the sun moves across it. In still photography, the building reads as a graphic object, clean and immediate. Experienced over the course of a day, the surface behaves more like a living board mid-game, its apparent pattern changing with conditions outside any designer’s control. That quality, the way the building changes without changing, separates a strong concept from a merely clever one. The HPL panel system that underlies the shading adds durability to what could have been a purely cosmetic gesture.

Emiridze has extended the chessboard geometry across the entire site rather than limiting it to the elevations. From above, the rooftop alternates planted green squares against glazed skylights in a grid that mirrors the facade pattern. The ground plane continues in oversized alternating light and dark paving squares that push the building’s visual field outward into the surrounding landscape. Every vantage point, aerial, street level, interior looking out, returns the same binary rhythm, a level of conceptual commitment that most thematic buildings abandon the moment it becomes structurally inconvenient.

Rather than placing a literal chess piece at the entrance, Emiridze commissioned a tall, twisting corten-steel installation, two interlocking curved fins spiraling upward into a form that hovers between abstraction and figuration. It suggests a chess piece without depicting one, which is the more intelligent move. A literal rook or knight would have read as theme-park signage. This form reads as architecture, and the warm oxide tone of the corten against the monochrome facade gives the building’s street presence a focal point that earns its scale.

The program signals serious ambition for chess tourism. Beyond the tournament hall and study rooms, the building incorporates a chess library, exhibition space, conference facilities, a sports shop, a food facility, hotel rooms with two adapted for disabled visitors, and a gym. That breadth positions Batumi as a potential international destination for the chess world, a place where a grandmaster could arrive, compete, study, eat, and sleep without leaving the building. Alpha Architecture won this commission through a governmental competition, which means the Chess Palace carries public accountability alongside its conceptual ambition. The real test arrives in 2027, when Batumi either gets a landmark that genuinely serves its chess community, or a building that performed better on screen than on the ground. The bones are strong enough to be optimistic.

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Razer Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed earbuds switch between devices, double as 2.4GHz wireless receiver

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True wireless earbuds have come a long way from their early days of bulky, uncomfortable designs to today’s slim, ergonomic form factors built for extended use. The next phase in that evolution is specialized buds designed for specific use cases. Whether it’s high-fidelity listening for music or gaining a competitive edge in fast-paced shooters where directional audio can determine outcomes, gaming earbuds have carved out a distinct and rapidly growing category.

Razer sits firmly at the forefront of this shift, and its latest release pushes the idea further. The Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed wireless earbuds refine the formula with a strong focus on cross-platform versatility and performance. Built to transition seamlessly between consoles, handhelds, PCs, and smartphones, the earbuds aim to eliminate friction in multi-device gaming setups while maintaining consistently low latency.

Designer: Razer

Unlike conventional true wireless options, the Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed ships with a charging case that doubles as a 2.4GHz wireless receiver. This is a clever addition that significantly reduces latency compared to standard Bluetooth connections. The case houses a USB-C dongle that can be plugged directly into compatible devices, effectively turning the case into a bridge for high-speed wireless audio transmission. This setup ensures responsive sound delivery, which is critical in competitive gaming where even minor delays can disrupt timing and awareness.

Beyond hardware, the earbuds are engineered for fluid transitions between different usage scenarios. With Bluetooth 6.0 support alongside the HyperSpeed wireless connection, switching between devices is designed to be quick and intuitive. Razer’s SmartSwitch technology enables users to jump from a gaming session on a console or handheld to an incoming phone call without manual reconnection. This can be done via simple touch controls on the earbuds or through the companion app, making the experience feel cohesive rather than fragmented.

Audio performance remains central to the experience. The inclusion of THX-certified 7.1 spatial audio, supported through Razer Synapse 4 on PC, enhances positional awareness in games. This is particularly valuable in competitive titles where identifying the direction of footsteps or distant movement can provide a tactical advantage. The spatial processing aims to create a more immersive soundstage without overwhelming the listener, balancing clarity with depth.

Razer has also improved active noise cancellation, ensuring that external distractions are minimized during gameplay or media consumption. At the same time, ambient awareness modes allow users to stay conscious of their surroundings when needed, striking a balance between immersion and practicality. The earbuds are tuned to deliver a mix of gaming-focused precision and everyday usability, making them suitable for both intense sessions and casual listening.

Battery performance has seen a boost as well, with extended playback times supported by the charging case. Fast-charging capabilities ensure minimal downtime, aligning with the expectations of users who frequently switch between devices and activities. The earbuds also feature customizable touch controls and EQ settings, allowing users to tailor the experience based on their preferences or specific game requirements.

The Razer Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed gaming earbuds are now up for grabs for a lucrative price of $130, which is very competitive given the features on offer. If you won’t use the dongle functionality, the V3 X version can be had for just $100 which is an even better deal.

 

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Keychron Cut a Keyboard in Half and Accidentally Made the Perfect Gaming Peripheral for $60

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Think about the last time you actually used the right half of your keyboard while gaming. Your right hand was on the mouse, your left hand was camped on WASD, and every key to the right of G and T was essentially decorative. The numpad, the arrow keys, the entire right side of your keyboard sat there collecting dust while you were busy fragging opponents or managing cooldowns. Keyboards have been designed for typists since the 1860s, and the gaming world has largely just accepted that and moved on.

Keychron hasn’t. The C0 HE 8K is a 35-key one-handed gaming keypad that takes the left half of a conventional keyboard, wraps it in an aggressive chassis with a built-in palm rest, and throws Hall Effect magnetic switches and an 8,000 Hz polling rate at it. The result is a peripheral built entirely around how PC gamers actually use their keyboards, rather than how office workers do.

Designer: Keychron

Hall Effect magnetic switches read actuation depth using sensors rather than physical contact between two metal points, which means the switches don’t wear out the same way traditional mechanicals do since there’s no metal-on-metal degradation over time. More practically, you can set exactly how deep each key needs to travel before it registers, right down to fractions of a millimeter, through Keychron’s browser-based Launcher app. Set a shallow actuation for your sprint key, a deeper one for an ability you don’t want to fat-finger, and a rapid trigger profile for keys where you need near-instant re-registration. This level of per-key granularity has historically lived in expensive enthusiast boards, and Keychron is bringing it to a purpose-built gaming pad that fits in half the desk footprint.

At 8,000 Hz, the C0 HE 8K reports its key state to your PC eight times more frequently than the 1,000 Hz ceiling most gaming keyboards hit. You can switch between 1,000, 4,000, and 8,000 Hz in the Launcher app depending on whether you want to conserve USB bandwidth or go full competitive. For most players the difference is nearly imperceptible in casual play, but in titles where frame timing and input consistency matter at the margins, having that headroom available without buying a separate board is a genuinely useful option.

The faceted, angular chassis has beveled edges cutting across the top corners that give the C0 HE 8K a visual identity most gaming peripherals lack entirely. The integrated silicone palm rest flows organically out of the bottom of the unit, wide enough to actually support your wrist rather than just gesture at the concept. North-facing RGB shines through double-shot ABS keycaps in over 22 lighting modes with per-key control, keeping legends readable even in dim setups where the backlighting does most of the work.

Pricing remains under wraps for now. The C0 HE 8K sits in a niche that the Razer Tartarus and Logitech G13 have occupied for years, but neither brought Hall Effect switches or sub-millisecond polling to the category. Keychron has built a reputation on mechanical keyboards that punch above their price point, and if the C0 HE 8K lands anywhere near the $80 to $100 range its feature set suggests, it will be a serious conversation starter for anyone who has ever looked at the right half of their keyboard mid-game and wondered why it exists.

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The LEGO Metal Slug Diorama With Adjustable Cannons, POWs, and Mid-Air Grenades Is Here

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By 1996, the arcade was dying. Virtua Fighter and Tekken had the crowds. Sega’s racing cabinets had the spectacle. The conventional wisdom was that 2D games were finished, and anyone still making pixel art sidescrollers was simply behind the curve. Then Nazca Corporation released Metal Slug on SNK’s Neo Geo hardware, and the conventional wisdom had to sit quietly in a corner for a while. The game’s hand-animated sprites moved with a fluidity that polygon games couldn’t touch, and the humor, panicking soldiers, grateful POWs tossing rocket launchers, a tank that waddled like a toy, made the whole thing feel alive in a way that pure technical showmanship never quite manages.

LEGO Ideas builder MagicBrick has captured a freeze-frame of that world in brick form, reconstructing the game’s iconic jungle mission with 2,701 pieces and 6 minifigures locked into a scene of swamp terrain, rebel soldiers, dense jungle vegetation, and the squat, waddling Super Vehicle-001 tank at the center of it all. It’s a dense, affectionate build made by someone who clearly lost many, many credits to this game, and it shows in every deliberately chosen detail, from the mid-jump Marco Rossi clutching a Heavy Machine Gun to the bearded POW standing by with a reward.

Designer: MagicBrick

The scene is structured like a freeze-frame from the game itself, which is exactly the right instinct. MagicBrick describes the goal as capturing “a dynamic instant where everything is in motion: jumps, actions, and interactions come together to recreate the fast-paced feeling typical of the game,” and the build delivers on that. Marco Rossi in his red jacket is airborne, Heavy Machine Gun in hand. Tarma Roving, yellow jacket, stands ready with a pistol and knife. Three Rebel Army soldiers in green uniforms and helmets fill out the opposition, armed with bazookas and rifles. The swamp base uses tiles in multiple shades to sell the terrain, jungle trees and palms crowd the background, and the brick-built backdrop reflects the arcade color palette of the original game rather than any attempt at realism. That last decision is a smart one. Metal Slug was never interested in realism, and neither is this.

The Super Vehicle-001 is the centerpiece, and MagicBrick has packed a surprising amount of function into a compact footprint. The rear cannons are adjustable, the tracks are functional, and antennas complete the silhouette. Scattered across the scene are the environmental details that will hit Metal Slug veterans like a reflex: ammo crates, yellow barrels, a hanging fish skeleton, a parachute, and both the Heavy Machine Gun and Rocket Launcher power-up pickups rendered in brick. My favorite touch, though, is the grenade sequence, a classic cartoon-logic arc of thrown grenades ending in a mid-air explosion, frozen in plastic at exactly the right moment of absurdity.

Topping the whole structure is the Metal Slug logo itself, rendered in a red-to-orange gradient that makes the build read as a display piece as much as a playset. It’s that combination of environmental storytelling, playable features, and genuine fan knowledge that separates builds like this from generic video game tributes.

LEGO Ideas is the platform where fan-designed MOCs (My Own Creations) gather community votes, with 10,000 supporters needed to trigger an official LEGO review and potential production as a retail set. MagicBrick’s Metal Slug submission hit 100 supporters almost immediately after going live and has been picking up Reddit traction since. If you grew up feeding tokens into a Neo Geo cabinet, head to the LEGO Ideas page and cast your vote here.

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