Ducky One X Mini Review – INDUCTIVE SWITCHES?!?!

This is the Ducky One X Mini, and these are inductive switches! Inductive – not hall effect, not infrared, inductive! What does that even meannnnnnnn? Well, I will get to that, and we’re also gonna talk about the board itself because my god it’s good. It punches so far above its weight it isn’t even funny – like just to put this in perspective, a little note to keep in your head as I walk you through this thing, this whole board costs just £98. Just keep that in mind as we go on here. Right, without further ado, let’s dive in.

I have to start with those switches – I mean that’s all Ducky is talking about on the box, “Redefining Analog Keyboard”, “the world’s first inductive switch keyboard”, and even a shot of those switches is all on the front of the box. It’s the talk of the town here, and honestly, I can see why. While hall effect (and the basically identical TMR) boards are only getting more popular, this new inductive switch technology in theory offers better accuracy, longevity, and consistency. How? Well let’s look at what we’ve got here. The switches themselves – which by the way aren’t secured super well to the keyboard plate so when you try and pull a key cap off, the whole switch often comes with it – are literally just a metal cone sticking out the bottom. That’s it. A cherry looking housing, a nicely guided stem, a spring, and a metal spike on the end. Tah-dah… The magic, obviously, is in the PCB – except, looking at the hole, there isn’t much to say here. There is a reverse mount LED, and a hole for the spike, but otherwise? Not much is going on here! So what’s the deal? Well, a peek under the hood reveals the secret. All of these chips, these Azoteq ISQ9 chips are basically laptop trackpad ICs – although it seems like AESCO worked with Azoteq to make these ISQ9320 chips that have 20 inductive sensors per chip (hence the five chips). I think basically this has transmit and receive pins that send pulses out, and listen for them. By introducing something capacitive, like your finger on a track pad, or in this case a metal spear, you also those pulses, and the controller can work out a strength from that. 

Regardless, this is really clever, and does bring with it some benefits. The first is actually longevity. Magnets essentially degrade over time, losing their magnetic flux, which long-term means you’ll need to replace the magnets (although you’re likely talking decades, so realistically it doesn’t matter, but the drifting calibration might). You also, at least in theory anyway, get better accuracy and consistency. With hall effect boards you get dead zones, inconsistent actuation heights, and generally poor high end accuracy. The Steelseries Apex Pro Gen 3 highlighted that one nicely, a “0.1mm” actuation height setting, but over 1mm of travel needed to actually do it. With this, that should be a whole lot less of a problem. Now unfortunately I’m still working on my open source peripheral testing tool – and you can be sure I’ll have a full video testing a whole bunch of boards out once it’s ready – but I can say that this feels a whole lot more responsive. It’s really impressive.

As with all analog keyboards, you get a bunch of fancy features built in – well using their configurator website anyway – stuff like adjustable actuation points, rapid trigger, and multiple actions per keystroke. Their configurator is a little hard to get your head around, with a mixture of drag and drop and multiple pages. For example the multi-action function, you set heights and the four actions separately to one of a number of options, then in the main keyboard config page you then drag that multi-action ‘macro’ onto whatever key you want. Bit confusing, especially since the heights aren’t pre-set. Oh and it failed to update the firmware, and says “error” at the top constantly. This part still needs work for sure.

Something else that’s impressive though is the build quality. Between the gasket design, seven internal layers, and metal construction (with plastic outer shells) giving it a solid feel and no flex, this thing feels, and sounds, amazing. First, have a listen. To me this is perfection. It screams premium in a board that I needn’t remind you is less than HALF that Steelseries one. It has the perfect thock, it’s a dead blow, and I just love it. Even though these are linear switches, this still feels amazing to me. To say that I’m impressed with the feel and sound of this thing is a significant understatement. Of course it is kinda billed as a gaming keyboard, and naturally for that it’s pretty great too. Setting the actuation point to a high point – by default it’s already insanely high at 0.6mm – makes it snappy and reactive, while setting it a bit lower for typing makes it more reliable. I would have liked some actuation point controls on the board itself – it has ninja printing of the second layer functions which I absolutely love, more boards should have that – especially with a bit of tie in from the LEDs to show at least large step changes, but still. It’s a decent board for gaming.

There are a few things I’ve missed so far, like a brief tour. Being a 60% board it is missing the F keys, arrow keys and the num pad, although as mentioned those are available with FN and mostly the right side of the keyboard. Up top you’ve got a shiny plaque with Ducky’s logo, along with the power switch to let it run wireless, cable or Bluetooth, along with the USB C port and the dongle which nicely slots in up top so if you do need to travel with it, it stays with the board. Included in the box is a whole bunch of extra key caps, mostly with the red/orange styling, but the replacement space bar is a thing of beauty. You do of course have an included USB C cable – although this is actually a C to C cable. They do include a C to A adapter for one side, although I’d have liked a C to A female adapter so the dongle can stay up on your desk, as a few times at least initially I had some trouble getting it to stay connected to the PC that was only under the desk. 

One thing I found was that the title of “the world’s first inductive keyboard” might not be accurate. As best as I can tell, AESCO beat them to the punch with their A67/A83 board, and at least from the descriptions might have also worked with Azoteq to take their existing trackpad chips and make them more useful for this sort of use case. Whether Ducky is in that club too, or just the first customer, I’m not entirely sure, but this sort of switch does exist on other boards – two at least that I can find. That doesn’t diminish the cool factor, the features or functionality, or how damn good this Ducky board is, but I thought it was worth mentioning at least.

This board definitely needs some refinement, especially in the software and features department, but for £98? This thing feels absolutely unbeatable. My god does it feel good to type on and use. It’s reliable, and really cool to have these genuinely unique switches. This, or the larger full size version, jumps right up to the top of my ‘cool quality keyboards to buy’ list. Great job Ducky!