The Akko 3061 Neon offers an eyecatching appearance that will spice up any gaming setup
Akko 3061 Neon on Amazon & Akko Neon Keycaps
The Yunzii Akko Neon 3061 is a 60% board with a futuristic, Cyberpunk-inspired set of keycaps. It supports the Bluetooth 5.0 protocol with a 1800mAh battery, and you can also plug in the USB-C cable to run it in wired mode. The board features double-shot PBT keycaps with some extra modifiers and novelties in the packaging. We have a very interesting selection of switches, including Gateron Pink, Orange and White. The Akko3061 Neon offers full RGB backlighting and N-key rollover.
I’m absolutely in love with these keycaps, and they’re based on the GMK Laser set. The combination of purple alphas, cyan legends and hot pink accents look extremely good. These colours create a very appealing neon aesthetic, and this would go so well with a Cyberpunk or Retrowave desk mat. The keycaps can be bought separately, and do yourself a favour and check out Yunzii’s other sets; great cost-effective alternatives to GMK. I’ll definitely be grabbing the Macaw set soon. The quality is also excellent here, with double-shot PBT at a thickness of 1.5mm. No need to worry about things like keycap shine or legends fading. These keycaps have the Cherry profile, and this is my favourite profile because of the ergonomic feel and softer bottom out sound.
I love the unique selection of switches for the AKKO 3061 Neon. It’s really refreshing to see something different than the usual Red, Brown and Blue. The Gateron Orange switches look absolutely stunning with the smokey housing, very similar in appearance to Gateron Ink switches. In comparison to Gateron Brown, they have even less tactility, so it almost feels like a linear switch. Definitely better sounding than Gateron Browns in that they are softer and far less pingy. The bump sits towards the top of the downstroke and it’s a very smooth feeling tactile switch with a tiny rounded bump. I enjoyed typing with these switches: they sound really good and it’s almost like a linear/tactile hybrid.
Incredibly, the Akko 3061 Neon is free from metal ping. No switch ping or plate vibration. I cannot remember the last time I said that in a keyboard review! This leads us to pretty much the only thing I didn’t like about this keyboard, and that’s the stock stabiliser performance. The rattle was quite bad on the bigger keys and it really detracted from the overall typing experience. I listened to a few sound tests and the stabs sounded much better than on my board, so looks like a minor QC issue. The actual stabs are good; they just need some modding. Sadly this board isn’t hot swappable, so modding these stabs will require desoldering. I feel like it would be a disservice to this board not doing a stabiliser mod, so I just desoldered the stabiliser switches to gain access to the stabs. After that it sounded really good, powered by the mellow sound of the Gateron Orange switches.
The Akko 3061 Neon features Bluetooth 5.0, and it’s always nice to have that wireless feature. I had no pairing issues using a Bluetooth dongle on my PC. You simply flip the switch on the bottom of the board, and it will automatically go into pairing mode for Device #1. You can save up to four devices on the keyboard, and these are accessed via Fn + E, R, T and Y. The bluetooth felt very snappy and I didn’t experience any input lag when typing or gaming. The keyboard will enter sleeping mode after 10 minutes of idle time. Nice to see the up-to-date Bluetooth 5.0 protocol here, as it is more power effficient than older versions. You can get up to 90 hours of use with the backlighting off. During the review it struck me that with this keyboard my desk setup is entirely wireless, and it looked really clean.
The Fn layer is pretty barebones here, and there are some productivity keys missing. The only Nav cluster keys included are Insert and Delete. The Fn arrow keys are on WASD, so you’ll need two hands to access these, however you can temporarily make them dedicated by holding Fn + W. There are some useful volume controls, and I like the positioning as you can reach them with one hand. It would’ve been nice to a see a more complete Fn layer, as this is not the greatest for productivity, for example the arrow key arrangement did slow me down when doing word processing. But it’s totally fine for general use and some light work. There is no companion software for the board, but you can do macro recording with Akko Macro v1.0.
The Akko 3061 Neon does feature RGB, but you don’t really see much of it as the keycaps aren’t shinethrough and the mounting plate is black. But the little bit of underglow you get looks really nice with these neon keycaps. There are 18 RGB modes in total, and all the expected controls are there, namely mode switching, single colour selection, and brightness and speed control. I was quite curious to see what these keycaps would look like with a more potent underglow, so I just popped them on my SnowFox for fun.
Build quality is very good. The case is made of plastic and features some ribbing for reinforcement. The weight of 580g is fairly typical for a plastic construction, and it felt sturdy in its assembled form. The bottom features four substantial rubber feet. There are dual fold outs which will give you two typing angles, and for me the natural angle of the case was very comfortable so I never used these. There is a little bit of hollowness towards the back of the case, but it didn’t have a negative impact on the sound. The assembly looks good, with a metal mounting plate and neatly soldered PCB. You may have noticed that this board has a north facing switch configuration with Cherry keycaps, but thankfully there weren’t any issues with interference.
So in summary, the Akko 3061 Neon offers a unique, eyecatching aesthetic that will spice up any gaming setup, and it will be strong competition to boards like the Ducky One 2 Mini and Anne Pro 2. I love the variety of switches and, barring the stabiliser QC issue, the typing experience is excellent. There are a few nitpicks, such as the barebones Fn layer and lack of hot swap, but overall this is a great keyboard.
headtr1p 