MSI GK30, GM30 & GH30 Gaming Peripherals Review




/ 4 years ago

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Is it time to upgrade your dusty old gaming peripherals for something fresh and exciting? Or perhaps you’ve just built your first gaming PC, or at least are planning to build one and need some peripherals? With a little change from £120, you can grab all three of these from MSI. Here we have the GH30 gaming headset, the GK30 gaming keyboard and the GM30 gaming mouse. They’ve been designed to be a little more affordable, but also still appealing to PC gamers and deliver solid performance. Of course, it’s my job today to see if they live up to that expectation.

MSI Gaming; GK30, GM30 & GH30

They may be “affordable” but they’re still from a premium gaming brand. So you’ll find the headset comes with powerful 40mm drivers, an on-cable controller and a detachable microphone. The keyboard uses tactile plunger switches, with full RGB lighting and built-in multimedia controls. Finally, we have the GM30 mouse, which offers up RGB lighting, a PAW 3327 optical sensor, and six programmable buttons. On paper at least, all of these things sound pretty great!

GH30 Headset

  • Large 40 mm drivers
  • Extra 3.5 mm splitter cable to use microphone and speaker on PC
  • Lightweight and foldable headband design
  • Detachable microphone
  • Easy volume and microphone control

GM30 Mouse

  • U-shaped edge RGB lighting with over 9 lighting effects
  • PAW-3327 Optical Sensor up to 6200 DPI
  • Polygonal side buttons with effortless pressing
  • Fine-tune detailed settings with MSI Dragon Center
  • Double injection and Dragon scale side grips

GK30 Keyboard

  • Mechanical-like plunger switches for a crisp typing experience
  • Stunning RGB lighting effects in 6 areas
  • Increased stability with Gaming Base
  • Water repellent keyboard design
  • Fine-tune detailed settings with MSI Dragon Center

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Packaging

All three peripherals come nicely boxed and feature the same red and white packaging theme. They’re all part of the same series, the 30-series or the G-series, whatever you want to call it. There’s a nice clear image of each device on the front of the box, which is usually a good sign. Plus, the mouse box can be oped up so you can get a closer look at the overall size and shape.

Around the back of each box, a nice technical breakdown showing all the major features. Here we can see the mouse features a symmetrical design, six programmable buttons, etc.

The headset features a hard-wired cable, but also comes with an on-cable controller.

While the keyboard features LED lighting, a splash-resistant design, and Dragon Center support.

———————–

A Closer Look

The GM30 looks great from the moment you take it out of the box. It’s hard-wired with a USB cable.

It features a hard-spring of plastic near the top, which should help with the life span of the cable.

The GM30 uses a similar textured design that we saw on the GM50 and GM70. It’s actually quite smooth to the touch but looks like a polished stone finish rather than a cheap plastic finish, which is great actually.

It features a good hard-wearing texture down the left side, ensuring you can really get a hold of it.

Plus, you get the same grip down the right side too.

The main focus has to be on the top though, with separately sprung panels for the LMB and RMB, as well as a nice oversized scroll wheel with a soft rubber grip.

Further back, you’ll find a small recess with the DPI button in the middle, albeit, that button is programmable too thought the software. There’s also a load of RGB lighting tucked into this recess.

Finally, on the base of the mouse, you’ll find two large slipmats as well as the optical sensor.

The keyboard looks fantastic too, with a nice two-tone design on the plastics, and a generally more “grey and silver” look rather than just a flat black.

The design even includes their own custom font, which is more in-line with the MSI branding design.

There’s a load of features built right into the keyboard too, with all the RGB effects, lighting patterns, effect speeds, etc, all being controllable using Fn-Shift functions.

It does bug me a little that the UK version of the keyboard uses the American spelling of colour though, a minor detail, but hardly a deal-breaker, obviously.

There are additional Fn-Shift functions on the top row too, allowing you to control your music, skip songs, control system volume, etc.

Overall, it’s a pretty nice keyboard and loads of features are built-in, which is great.

On the base, you’ll find some durable rubber grips to stop it sliding around your desk.

Plus, the kickstands have their own rubber grips so you don’t lose traction while it’s raised up.

Finally, we have the headset, which features a pair of 40mm drivers with an around-the-ear cup design.

On the back of the ear cups, you’ll find a large MSI dragon decal, which I… well, I hate this if I’m honest, but I’ll dive into why on the next page.

On the base of the ear cup, you’ll find it comes hard-wired with a black braided cable. I do prefer a detachable cable, but on a more affordable model, it’s something I can live with.

Much like the keyboard and mouse, the headset also features a two-tone plastic finish. This time mixing black and a matte grey colour scheme.

One pleasant surprise about this headset has to be the folding design. There are metal locking hinges on the headband, allowing to your fold it down, making it much easier to safely travel with the headset in your backpack.

Plus, it has a durable metal strip through the headband, ensuring it stays rigid.

The on-cable controller is pretty basic, with a volume wheel on the side and a slider to mute the microphone. Of course, it’s still a very welcome addition, and really handy while you’re working/gaming.

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Setup & Performance

I wanted to start with the headset, with features those lovely 40mm drives in their PU-leather padded ear cups. The drivers are wonderful, actually, they sound bloody amazing for the price of the headset, I really wasn’t expecting it. The sound really clear and natural and fantastic for music too. That’s about it, they just work great! However…

As comfortable as the headset is, it never felt quite right on my head. The ear cups don’t really clamp around my ears so much as they float next to my ears, it’s really annoying. I have a large head, I know that much, but the headset extension goes far enough to accommodate me and with more to spare actually so it should fit.

It did feel comfortable to wear, but as I said, it didn’t feel like it was sitting right and shaking my head made it fall off. The lack of a good seal also meant that it leaked noise both ways, so having it louder meant everyone in the room could hear it.

Fit is so subjective though, it may fit your head perfectly! But overall, I have zero complaints about the audio performance, and while nothing fancy, the microphone quality was decent too, more than good enough for a bit of team chat and the occasional Skype call.

Powered up, the keyboard and mouse spark to life in a wave of RGB goodness. The colours aren’t mega bright, but they’re hardly dull either. I don’t like them too bright anyway, as it’s distracting, but I do like vivid and rich colours, which is exactly what you’ll find here.

Of course, on the default setting, it’s all puking rainbows and looks pretty dizzying, but you can dial in any colour or effect as you see fit. Of course, you can turn the lights off too if you really need to; handy for movie nights!

The keyboard also has this lovely little strip of light on the front bezel, it’s a small detail, but one that I really like. You will also notice that most of the light is underlighting, with only a mild illumination on the keys. Again, I quite like it this way around.

The keyboard looks and feels pretty great though, the plunger switches are basically membrane technology. However, because they’re mounted with the plunger, they behave more like a Cherry MX Brown with some o-ring mods, rather than a simple rubber dome.

It’s a nicer feel overall though, without the added cost of a similarly equipped mechanical keyboard.

The mouse is equally stylish to look at, with the slick two-tone design that really contrasts well with the RGB lighting. The main focus of the RGB is clearly in the big recess at the top, and it looks amazing.

The colours are really strong in here, and it’s a unique way to show off some of the lighting effects. Of course, you also get lighting on the MSI logo as well as the mouse wheel.

The mouse is super comfortable to hold, and its symmetrical, so it’s just as comfortable in either hand. However, it only has side buttons on the left, making it right-handed use for most. It glides really well, the switches have a nice click to them too. Actually, the switches are a little heavy and the click is quite strong, but that’s just how I like it. However, it’s their sensor that stands out the most, tracking smoothly, no jitter, no angle snapping, it’s honestly pretty fantastic.

So, the only thing that bothers me is the design. The mouse looks great, the keyboard looks great, and the headset looks OK. However, despite all being branded as GH, GM, and GK, and all being number 30, implying they’re all the same range, series, etc, they all look different.

The headset is black and grey, the mouse is a glittery two-tone grey, and the keyboard a different set of greys and black again. The headset isn’t RGB, but the other two are. It makes no sense to me. On their own, they look fine, but as a set? It looks like three different teams made them, but didn’t check what the others were doing.

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How Much Does it Cost?

All three of these peripherals are designed to be somewhat affordable, but still deliver big on features. So their price isn’t “bottom of the range” but they’re certainly not wallet busters either. The keyboard is priced around £49.99 from most major retailers, and the mouse and headset are £42.00 and £25.99 respectively. I have seen prices fluctuate quite a lot, most likely due to current Covid-19 restrictions, so keep an eye out for good deals. However, it looks like you’ll get all three for a sniff under £120.

Overview

The latest peripherals from MSI are certainly interesting, as all of them are made with compromises. They were designed to be affordable, which means cutting some level of quality or features along the way. They could build the keyboard as a mechanical, it would increase the cost, they could build it as a membrane to make it cheaper. However, I think they struck a good balance with a plunger switch design.

Keyboard and Mouse

Actually, I want to say that the keyboard is just fantastic, it’s everything I could ask for from a keyboard of this price, and I highly recommend it. The mouse too is superb, with a really smart and modern design that feels great in the hand, but also looks good. Plus, the optical sensor they’ve employed works beautifully, and while the design isn’t quite the same as the keyboard, they do look good together.

Headset

The headset is fine, it really is, but it’s just doesn’t seem to be the headset for me or a good fit for the MSI **30 series. It doesn’t have a matching design or RGB technology, so it’s not a natural fit with the mouse and keyboard. It doesn’t fit my large head well at all, although my kids tried it, and it seems to suit them just fine. I will add though, it sounds absolutely fantastic, so if MSI can tidy up the design and fit, they’re onto a winner. However, for now, I’d rather just go buy the MSI GH50 for £79. Double the money, but it’s good enough to be worth it.

Gaming

Out of all of the hardware here, the mouse is the most dialled in for gaming. It’s the least compromised of the three products. The sensor is really good and the mechanical switches feel great too. The keyboard is no slouch for gaming either, but I’m not a pro gamer at all. I don’t play competitive, I don’t play FPS. However, for an evening of Elder Scrolls Online and a couple of retro fighting games through the day, it didn’t let me down once.

MSI GK30 & GM30

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