Engadget Picks Keychron Q Max, NuPhy Air V2 Among Top Keyboards
Engadget published a short guide on November 22, 2025 that named broad category winners and practical picks for shoppers seeking mechanical keyboards. The concise roundup highlighted the Keychron Q Max and NuPhy Air V2 while outlining testing methods and the hardware features that matter to hobbyists.
Engadget released a short guide to top mechanical keyboards on November 22, 2025 that aimed to give readers quick, expert driven recommendations without the weight of longform reviews. The guide named the Keychron Q Max and NuPhy Air V2 among its top choices and presented a testing approach built around real world use. Each keyboard was used as a daily driver for several days, and wireless models underwent battery tests to assess endurance under normal workloads.
The guide organized picks across practical categories, calling out options tuned for typing, low profile needs, and gaming. It emphasized features that matter to enthusiasts, including hot swap PCBs that allow easy switch swapping, keycap material concerns with double shot PBT versus ABS, mount style, and internal dampening choices that shape sound and feel. Readers were guided to weigh these technical details alongside price and build quality when narrowing options.
Engadget also placed newer analog and magnetic designs in context. The guide compared Wooting and Wooting style HE boards, as well as SteelSeries Apex Pro variants, against refined mainstream designs from Razer, Logitech, and Corsair. That comparison framed analog sensing and magnetic actuation as specialist strengths that may appeal to gamers and advanced hobbyists, while mainstream models offered polished software ecosystems and broader accessory support.
For the community the guide serves two functions. It is a quick starting point for holiday shoppers and newcomers who need a short list of dependable choices, and it highlights the specific hardware trade offs that experienced builders and modifiers care about. By emphasizing hot swap capability, keycap material, mount architecture, and acoustic treatment, the piece reinforces the idea that small design choices can have outsized effects on typing experience.
The short form approach means readers who want deep teardown level analysis will need to look elsewhere, but for many buyers the guide provides a focused set of recommendations and a clear checklist for comparing contenders.
