Ajazz AK820 Max / Max Plus Review

75% is the most popular layout for keyboards, and it’s among my favourites as well. I always look forward to keyboards that are affordable, and today, I’ll be taking a look at the Ajazz AK820 Max Plus. I’ve been using this keyboard for the greater part of 3 months now, and I wanted to share its positives and negatives with you today, so you can make an informed decision when choosing your next keyboard.

UNBOXING

The Ajazz AK820 Max Plus comes in a nice, compact cardboard box.

In the box you will get:

• a manual for the keyboard
• a plastic dust cover
• the keyboard wrapped in a plastic protective sheath
• a USB A to C cable for charging and wired connection
• a basic keycap and switch puller
• and a couple of extra switches (matching the variant that you chose with your keyboard)

FEATURES

The Ajazz AK820 Max comes in 4 colourways:

• Starry Night Grey
• Glacier Blue
• Retro Orange
• BlackBerry Pink

I got the Grey colourway. I like all the options, and honestly I would have gone for the Retro Orange colourway if it came with the daydream switches. Which brings me to the next topic, the switches.

The Ajazz AK820 Max Plus comes with two switch options :

• Ajazz Day Dream switches
• Ajazz Flying Fish switches

More on the switches later.

BUILD DETAILS

The Ajazz AK820 Max Plus is an expanded 75% ANSI US layout, with 82 keys and a tactile knob. There are also three LED indicators on the right side.

It’s a gasket mounted keyboard which gives it a nice bouncy feel. The gaskets are these little silicone socks which is typical at this kind of a price point. The gasket performance is good, but the real soft typing feel comes from the switch positioning plate and the PCB.

The PCB has per-key flex cuts, and the PC plate has long flex cuts, which gives this keyboard a softer, flexible typing feel. I like flex cut PCBs but some people prefer a non-flex cut PCB. As with most things in this hobby, it’s all up to YOUR preference. But you’ll only know after you try them out. Flex cuts also thin out the sound of a keyboard, but that doesn’t really affect keyboards filled with foams like this one.

The Ak820 Max Plus comes with five layers of sound absorbing padding, which dampens any echo inside the case and leads to a pleasing, deep sound profile.

DAY DREAM SWITCHES

The Daydream switches are quite decent. They’re factory lubed and the lube job is actually pretty good. They have a very smooth typing feel and feel very consistent across the board. The bottom-out is nice and smooth. The sound is fairly deep and poppy. The stem on the switches are a little wobbly though, which doesn’t affect its performance, but it does cause the keycaps to be ever so slightly misaligned. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, and it can be fixed by getting other switches later on. It’s really only visible when you look for it.

STABILIZERS

It comes with plate mount stabilizers out of the box and they perform quite well. Over these 2 months, I can feel the lube diminishing in effectiveness, especially around the spacebar. It’ll need to be re-lubed soon (which most keyboards need, so it’s not a demerit). There’s no support for screw in stabilizers so you’ll have to stick to plate mount options.

APPEARANCE

It has got a decent RGB implementation. I’ve definitely seen brighter RGB, and the fact that the switches don’t have light diffusers doesn’t help its case. It’s still bright enough and looks quite nice. The keycaps aren’t shine-through anyways, except for the Pink colourway, so it hardly matters.

The stock keycaps on the Ajazz AK820 Max Plus are doubleshot PBT, Cherry profile keycaps on my colour variant and they’re actually quite nice. The colours are vibrant and the legends are sharp. They’re not gonna blow your mind or anything, but they’re of good quality, decent thickness, and they sound good. The print of the legends are mostly consistent and sharp. There is slight inconsistency in the thickness of the legends between the different coloured keycaps, but it’s not really noticeable unless you look closely at it and search for it. The texture on the keycaps is grippy enough. It’s not matte, but it almost feels like a nice mouse surface. It’s good. Very pleasant to type on.

CONNECTIVITY & LATENCY

It has tri-mode connectivity and so far I haven’t had any issues with connectivity or interference. It is compatible with Mac, Windows, Android and Linux. It doesn’t come with any extra mac keycaps.

The keyboard has a 1000Hz polling rate which is now an industry standard. Do note that it’s only 1000Hz in the 2.4ghz and wired connection mode. In Bluetooth mode, it has a 125hz polling rate.

I don’t have the latency numbers, but there’s no noticeable latency in wired and 2.4ghz mode. I noticed some latency in bluetooth mode when playing rhythm games(none when typing) which is cuz of the 125hz polling rate. All in all, no complaints here.

OTHER FEATURES

It comes with a massive 8000mah battery, and boy does this last forever. With the RGB off, the keyboard lasted about 170 hours (roughly 4 weeks) and with the RGB on it lasted about 70 hours (about 2 weeks). I’m assuming the 4000mah (non-plus) variant will last about half of this timespan.

The keyboard has height adjustable feet with three levels of adjustment. There’s also a magnetic slot for the 2.4ghz dongle under the left foot. Pretty neat. The kick-up feet are a nice-to-have feature. I usually don’t use them while typing but I use them often when I’m typing reclined on my chair or when playing osu.

This keyboard is fully hotswapable with 5 pin and 3 pin switches. 5 pin switches are more stable but 3 pin switches are usually a lot cheaper.

SOFTWARE

The Ajazz AK820 Max Plus software is your basic run-of-the-mill Chinese OEM keyboard software. Does what you expect it to do, has all the basic functions like macros and remapping and layers, and it’ll probably set off 20 false alarms in windows defender when you install it on your system lol. I recommend running it inside a VM just to be safe. You’ll most likely only use the software once to set the keyboard up (you don’t even need to do that if you’re a regular basic user tbh).

The software only works on windows, so if you’ve got a mac or something, you’ll need to run it on a windows machine to set the keyboard up. It works fine out of the box, but you’ll need the software for customisation.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

The keyboard looks really nice. I like the staggered location of the arrow keys and the edge around the keyboard. The spacing between the keys is very comfortable to type on and the RGB shows through the space well.

I’m not a fan of the Ajazz branding in the front, but that’s easy to cover with a sticker. It’s also not offensive to the eyes or anything. Looks fine.

The mode switch and the USB-C port for wired connection and charging are located on the right side of the keyboard. Personally, I prefer it on the left side. It just looks cleaner to me and if you’re using a coiled cable, it won’t get in the way of the mouse. Totally subjective though.

Speaking of the mode switch, I’m glad they have an easily accessible one. I dislike it when manufacturers put the mode/power switch under the caps lock or under the space bar.

SOUND TEST

CONCLUSION

At this price point, the value is great. It’s quite good, and it actually goes on sale often as well. Usually you’ll find the Plus variant for around $50 and the non-plus for about $10 lower.

I recommend this keyboard to anyone on a budget, and it is especially going to be an incredible experience for beginners to the mechanical keyboard hobby.