NuPhy Halo96 [Halo65, Halo75]  Keyboard Review

These keyboards are available in various sizes. We bought and tested the NuPhy Halo96, which has a compact (96%) form factor, but a smaller compact (75%) Halo75 and a compact 65% Halo65 are also available. You can see the listed dimensions of these other size variants on NuPhy's website.

The NuPhy96 has nearly all the keys on a typical full-size keyboard but in a more compact package. This keyboard has conventional spacing between keys, so typing doesn't feel cramped. However, it doesn't have space between key zones, like the navigation cluster, arrow keys, or the Numpad. While this keyboard is smaller than most full-size options, it's also quite heavy and not very portable.

These keyboards have excellent build quality. The bottom part of the case is plastic, and the frame around the keyboard is aluminum. Altogether they feel very sturdy and don't flex. The keycaps are made of high-quality doubleshot PBT. NuPhy has included multiple layers of silicone inside the keyboard case and introduces what they're calling a GhostBar, a sound-suppressing keycap that's fitted with polycarbonate and silicone-dampening materials to eliminate the hollow sound many other spacebars make.

We've included photos of the underside of the spacebar and of the silicone dampening pieces underneath.

These keyboards have a high profile. There are flip-out plastic feet that provide two additional incline options. NuPhy has acrylic wrist rests available for separate purchase. We bought and tested one for our review and found that it wasn't quite as comfortable as a plush wrist rest, but it provides good support for your wrists and diffuses some of the backlighting from the RGB strip surrounding the keyboard case. We recommend using these keyboards with a wrist rest for the most comfortable experience.

These keyboards offer excellent hardware customizability.

If you're interested in a keyboard from the same manufacturer that's available as a barebones kit, offering you more opportunity for customization at purchase, see our review for the NuPhy Gem80.

These keyboards have full RGB backlighting with individually-lit keys. You can use the companion software or hotkeys to customize the lighting effects, colors, and brightness. NuPhy also sells acrylic wrist rests for a separate purchase which diffuses some of the lighting from the RGB strip that wraps around the keyboard case.

Although each key is individually lit, the stock PBT keycaps don't have shine-through legends, so you can't read them in the dark. NuPhy does offer shine-through keycaps available as a separate purchase.

For reference, we've taken a photo of the NuPhy Halo96 with the W, A, S, and D keys replaced with shine-through keycaps taken from another keyboard that you can see here.

These keyboards come with a detachable charging cable. It's braided and retains some kinks from the packaging.

The NuPhy Halo96 has a 4000mAh battery. NuPhy advertises this keyboard has a battery life of 5-10 hours with all backlighting on and up to 205 hours with backlighting off.

Other models in the NuPhy Halo lineup have the same sized battery but different advertised battery lives depending on their size. NuPhy advertises the NuPhy Halo75 can last up to 260 hours with backlighting off, while the NuPhy Halo65 has an advertised maximum of 320 hours with backlighting off.

These keyboards don't have dedicated macro keys, but all keys are macro-programmable using the customization software.

These keyboards have two switches on the top of the keyboard; the first allows you to change between Windows or Mac modes, and the second toggles between off/wired/and wireless connectivity modes.

Media hotkeys are labeled, and additional FN key combinations are listed in the user documentation, including commands to switch between paired devices, change backlighting colors and effects, check the battery level, enter sleep mode, and reset the keyboard to factory setting.

• NuPhy Halo96
• USB-A to USB-C cable
• USB-A wireless receiver
• Keycap puller/switch puller
• 18 extra keycaps in various colors
• 7x extra switch samples
• Adhesive pads for wrist rest
• User documentation that doubles a poster
• Stickers

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• Acrylic Wrist Rest

These keyboards offer an excellent typing experience that sounds and feels very satisfying. There are multiple layers of silicone material inside the keyboard that softens the impact of typing and dampens the sound. The keys are also very stable and have standard spacing between them.

The NuPhy Halo96 we bought and tested has Gateron Baby Raccoon switches, which are very light to press and have a shortened total travel distance. You can purchase these keyboards with other NuPhy and Gateron linear or tactile stock switch options.

The keycaps on these keyboards are made of high-quality PBT plastic and have a KOP profile with a slightly flatter top and more rounded edges than typical OEM profile keycaps.

These keyboards have layers of silicone sound-dampening material inside the keyboard, contributing to an impressively quiet typing noise. We tested the NuPhy Halo96 with Gateron Baby Raccoon switches, which are very quiet and unlikely to bother those around you. You can also get these keyboards in various stock linear and tactile switch options, which we expect to produce similar typing noise.

These keyboards are available in various NuPhy or Gateron linear and tactile switches and will perform differently depending on your choice. The NuPhy Halo96 we bought and tested has Gateron Baby Raccoon switches. These linear switches have a short pre-travel distance and a slightly shortened total travel distance, producing an earlier bottom-out feeling.

The Operating Force of these switches is significantly lower than the advertised values of 55±8gf. We found this behavior was consistent across the eight switches we tested. This didn't negatively impact their performance or feel during our testing but only indicates that the keystrokes are noticeably lighter than advertised.

These keyboards provide good single-key latency performance. They're more than suitable for casual gaming in any genre, but we recommend a keyboard with marginally lower or more consistently lower latency for playing competitive games.

For a similar keyboard with better all-around latency performance, check out the NuPhy Field75. Or, if you'd prefer a low-profile alternative, check out the NuPhy Air75 V2.

These keyboards have good multi-key latency overall, but they're fairly inconsistent, and we recommend a keyboard with more stable latency if you typically play faster-paced or competitive games requiring inputs while multiple keys are pressed and maintained.

These keyboards offer decent data transmission performance. They have full N-key rollover and can report multiple keypresses per USB report. That said, their effective update rate of 250Hz is a bottleneck for their 500Hz polling rate. Note that this test was conducted while connected wirelessly via USB receiver. You can also use these keyboards wired, but their performance is still bottlenecked with an effective update rate of 333Hz for a wired polling rate of 1000Hz.

These keyboards have good chord split performance overall, but they're somewhat inconsistent. The average 4-chord and 8-chord split delay is fairly low, but performance is somewhat variable, which can produce consistency problems for playing games requiring many simultaneous inputs, like rhythm games.

These keyboards use the NuPhy Console companion software. The software is well laid out and simple, allowing you to adjust backlighting, record macros, and remap keys. By default, you can create up to three profiles. However, you can add more and save both your macro and backlighting settings to the keyboard's onboard memory and use them on a computer that doesn't have the software.

These keyboards are fully compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. However, the software is only available on Windows. On macOS, all keys work as intended, but if you're not using a Mac screen, the F1 and F2 keys, which typically control brightness, don't work. On Linux, the F3 and F4 keys do nothing.

These keyboards are fully compatible with Android, iOS, and iPadOS. However, there's no customization software available, and the F3 and F4 keys don't work.