Turtle Beach unveils the Command Series KB5, a full-size wired gaming keyboard featuring a 2.4-inch touchscreen, macro keys, and a more accessible price point, blending practicality with advanced control options for gamers.
Turtle Beach has taken a practical middle route with the Command Series KB5, a full-size wired gaming keyboard that combines a numberpad, five macro keys and a 2.4-inch touchscreen in one board. Tom’s Hardware said the result is more affordable than buying the company’s higher-end modular setup, while also sidestepping the need for a separate add-on pad. At $149.99, the KB5 lands far below the price of comparable touchscreen-and-macropad options.
The board uses low-profile Titan mechanical switches with a 1.2mm actuation point and a rated lifespan of 50 million presses. Turtle Beach positions it as an 8,000Hz wired keyboard, a specification aimed at competitive gaming input latency. Tom’s Hardware found the switches quick and stable in use, with a smooth linear feel and a subdued bottom-out sound against the aluminium top plate.
Physically, the KB5 is slightly larger than a standard full-size keyboard and has a brushed aluminium top plate, a plastic base and double-shot PBT keycaps. It also includes a clickable metal volume roller, a wrist rest, textured replacement caps for the WASD cluster and onboard profile storage. The layout keeps the numberpad intact while placing the touchscreen above it, which gives the display a little more room than the keys on the main deck.
That touchscreen is the KB5’s main differentiator. According to Tom’s Hardware, it is responsive to taps and swipes and offers six customisable control tiles, plus status information such as active profile and lock-key indicators. TechRadar and Cogconnected both noted that the display is useful for macros, system information and shortcuts, though both also pointed to the limits of a small touch interface when compared with physical buttons.
Software remains the most obvious compromise. Turtle Beach’s Swarm II application is needed for much of the customisation, including key mapping, lighting, macros and touchscreen setup, and Tom’s Hardware described the update process as cumbersome. Even so, the final package is straightforward to configure once installed, with per-key lighting options and up to five onboard profiles. In practical terms, the KB5 is best understood as a more restrained alternative to Turtle Beach’s pricier modular keyboard-and-pad approach: less ambitious, but easier to live with and better priced.
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