I finally found my perfect one-handed gaming keypad
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Summary
If you’ve been reading my coverage for a while, you know that I have an incredibly specific and niche accessory interest: little one-handed keyboards for gaming. It started decades ago with a Belkin gadget, and I eventually “made” my own. I’ve been trying to find or make a “perfect” one , at least for my needs. I’m pleased to say I’ve finally gotten pretty darn close. Welcome to the Boost Mode newsletter. Every week I share my insights on PC gaming, desktop setups, and hardware optimization. I also track down some of the most interesting PC and nerd news from around the web, plus a PC game pick you might not have seen elsewhere. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website ! The last time I looked around for new gadgets in this category was when Razer refreshed the Tartarus one-handed keypad, with a ridiculously expensive option that still lacked wireless . (It’s been almost 20 years, Razer, c’mooooon. ) Upon investigating I found this one , which is admirably cheap, but lacks the hot-swap switches I covet. Then I spotted it: Redragon. Redragon, if you were a person (or perhaps a dragon?) instead of a budget accessory maker, I could kiss you. The company has made a few of these, but they were generally missing the features I needed. No longer. Meet the Redragon K776-WL , sometimes styled as the “Grind 39” according to the box in which it arrived. It’s one-handed, with a semi-standard layout for a QWERTY keyboard, so your muscle memory needs no adjustment. It’s wireless, both 2.4GHz with a slim USB-A dongle and Bluetooth. It recharges with USB-C. It’s programmable, with an admittedly ugly but functional Windows driver. And it’s hot-swap. We’ve covered all the bases. Redragon Once I procured this little fella for just forty US dollars, I proceeded to customize it, like a teenager who wants to impress people with a bone-stock 2004 Honda Civic. I replaced the switches with my favorite for gaming, Kailh’s BOX Heavy Yellow , a linear design with a reinforced stem and stiffer springs, since I tend to bottom out. I moved the keycaps over from my previous one-handed project, which was based on a GameSir device (now apparently discontinued?) intended for the Nintendo Switch. Note the metal WASD keycaps, a HyperX add-on, to differentiate them from the lower-profile XDA keycaps around them. The keycaps are the one true sore spot on this little board. The package comes with all-matching keycaps, obviously. But the small spacebar, the T and G keys, and the tilde key are all non-standard sizes. I couldn’t find printed keycaps that matched them, so I replaced them with black generic options, found here . And sadly there’s no easy-to-find space bar that fits, so I swapped in the one from Magee, which is slightly less annoying. I also swapped out the rotary dial with a slightly chunkier one from the Magee design. Michael Crider/Foundry Next I added my favorite wrist rest, elegantly secured with Gorilla Tape. I moved over the “tenting” feet that I previously had stuck to the GameSir, which add a bit of cant height for slightly better ergonomics. These are chunky and also magnetic, so now it sticks to my PC tower under my desk , for easy storage. I attached the included strap, just for fun. And that’s it. My perfect — or perfect enough — one-handed keypad is complete. The improvements over my previous hacked-together design are USB-C charging, hot-swap switches, a programmable layout (that don’t require a somewhat sketchy Android app), and I suppose RGB lighting. And I’ll point out that I got it for exactly half the price of the latest version of the Razer Tartarus , which is wired and doesn’t use mechanical switches. Redragon has also made an adjustable actuation version of this board . I can’t vouch for its quality, but at $55, it’s less than a third of the price of the Tartarus V2 Pro with the same feature. Razer, ya could have had my money years ago — and a pretty good chunk of it — if you’d just made it wireless back then. Cool stuff from around the web: AMD says it’s a “data center first” company : Y’all said the quiet part out loud . The company isn’t abandoning the gaming market, at least for now. Nvidia now has an “unboxing” game for the classic GeForce 8800GTX graphics card from 2006 . Because you can’t afford a flagship card today, you might as well dream about yesterday’s . Nvidia is also in hot water , as its leather-bedecked CEO is being investigated both within and without for an alleged affair with a possible Chinese spy. Not our usual coverage on PCWorld, mind you, but we’ll have to wait and see if this affects the company or the products. 81monkeys Fast food chain Wendy’s made a JRPG, and you can play it for free . WendyQuest is a real game , not AI slop, developed by the same team that’s currently making World of Anterra. Speaking of slop, both Steam and Itch.io are making efforts to stem the flood of low-quality or nothing games appearing on their platforms . Itch has the better solution: a full filter for all vibe-coded games and software . Game pick of the week: Into the Breach Subset Games Toss the mecha-monster action of Pacific Rim and chess into a blender, and you’ll get something like Into the Breach . It comes from the same people who made FTL , and for my money it’s the better experience. This is a small, tight strategy game that’s more about managing your turns and resources than building an unstoppable army. You’ll need to use the pixelated environments to the maximum to survive each stage. There’s a hint of roguelike in the setup: for every run, win or lose, you can bail one of your three mecha pilots out and send them back in time to use on the next run. Into the Breach is deceptively deep, offering a lot more customization than it seems right away, especially once you unlock the ability to mix and match mech teams. It’s $15 on Steam , also available on Switch, iOS, and Android. That’s all for this week. To get my editorials, news picks, and game recommendations delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up for Boost Mode on the PCWorld Newsletter hub . Also check out The Full Nerd for more enthusiast-focused goodies, Prompt Mode for AI tips, Safe Mode to keep your PC and gadgets secure, and Smart Mode to boost your productivity.
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