NuPhy Field75

Verdict

Stylish and smooth, the NuPhy Field75 is a truly premium mechanical gaming keyboard. It feels wonderful to type on and includes several clever design features. Yet it’s difficult to look past a few key shortcomings that turn its $159.95 price from reasonable to stingy. Collectors will like this very much. Ordinary gamers should look elsewhere.

Introduction

NuPhy has made a name for itself over the past couple of years for producing well-received, stylish mechanical keyboards, and is now adding to that roster with its first keyboard designed for gaming.

A wireless mechanical keyboard with four switch options, as many colourways and an eye-catching design, the NuPhy Field75 definitely does a lot right. But with sub-standard RGB lighting, an absent accompanying app, and a half-realised theme, it doesn’t quite live up to its hefty $159.95.

Design

• The dieselpunk idea feels half fulfilled
• Volume roller and macro keys are well placed
• Dinky despite its features

The NuPhy Field75 notionally has a diesel-punk design, although it feels somewhat half-hearted. The metal handlebar sticking out of the side, the gear-shaped knob in the top left, and the clicky metal volume roller give it the air of a device that should run on steam, but it doesn’t really commit to the bit. The rest of the keyboard is built from standard, if nicely durable, plastic and the key layout and design are nothing out of the ordinary. There’s some visual flair here, but it’s hardly thematic. 

Elsewhere on the front plate, you’ll find eight macro keys. By default, the four on the left are used as transport controls while the bottom four are unassigned, and all can be customised to your liking. They really stand out, though, for their position, with the bottom row placed within easy thumb reach. They’re slim switches rather than full keycaps, which can take some getting used to, although that lets them sit snugly around the board’s edge without taking up too much room.

The addition of all those extras means this 75% layout keyboard is larger than some others in that range, but it’s by no means bulky. It can still fit on a desk without taking up too much space, and don’t worry about it slipping and sliding across the place – as well as several rubber feet, its weight alone stops it moving about.

Add to that the four colourways to choose from, which toe the line between gaudy and boring, and there’s little more you could want from this keyboard from a design perspective. 

Performance

• Hot-swappable key switches
• Wireless connectivity
• NuPhy’s own ‘ghost bar’

The NuPhy Field75 comes in four switch varieties: NuPhy’s own linear Polaris and tactile Fleeting Gold, or the linear Cherry Speed Silver and tactile Ergo Clear. I found the Polaris switches straightforward and well-tailored to gaming, with a short pre-travel time making them particularly responsive. The whole keyboard’s fully hot-swappable too, meaning you can replace its factory key switches with whatever else you’d like. As a nice touch, it comes with a key/switch puller, four different demo switches for you to test out, and alternative keycaps for Mac users.

The Field75 also features a ‘ghost bar’ – NuPhy’s own type of spacebar housing that includes silicone sound absorbers to stop every tap of the spacebar sounding peculiarly hollow. It’s a minor addition, and if you’ve never been irritated by the spacebars of other keyboards you’re unlikely to notice much difference. But, for those who like an even auditory response across all of their keys, this will do you nicely.

Fully wireless, the Field75 can connect over Bluetooth, a 2.4GHz USB receiver or a USB-C cable. Connecting it over any of them is a breeze, and a handy, unobtrusive light in the top right corner displays green for a high charge, amber for medium, or red to signal it’s running out of juice. NuPhy reckons you’ll get over 40 hours of charge if you keep the backlighting turned on and over 160 if you go dark, which is plenty.

Less useful, though, is the somewhat cumbersome lighting system. You have to navigate the backlighting options through a few FN key combos, which can take a bit of learning. It’s nothing too cumbersome, but if you’re the type of person who likes to switch back and forth between keyboards, expect to be reminding yourself of the shortcuts every now and then.

Software and Lighting

• Disappointing RGB lighting
• Absent software

More disappointing are the relatively meagre lights themselves. The RGB glare is fairly weak and barely visible along the edge of the keycaps. In a dark room, it’s pretty effective, but don’t expect to astonish any passers-by with your multicoloured desk ornament in daylight. There’s a big selection of lighting patterns, but I often found myself having to look down at the keyboard from directly above to check they’re actually glowing.

Things also went a little awry when I tried to download the accompanying Field Console app. It’s supposed to grant you greater and easier customization of the keyboard, though when I went to the NuPhy website I was met with a screen informing me the software wasn’t yet available. It’s not catastrophic but doesn’t leave a great taste in the mouth. There’s no telling when it will go live.

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