Far be it for me to bore you with physics, but the Hall effect—the production of a potential difference across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current, as you well know—is brilliant. At least, it is when it’s applied to keyboards and game controllers, as it allows them to use something quite like a motion sensor that works over a tiny distance instead of a microswitch or bits of metal and plastic sliding over one another. This means keyboard switches with quicker response times and less grinding of plastic parts against other bits, so your switches wear out less easily.
All of which sounds great, and PC Gamer has long been a sucker for anything that seems like it might speed up keypresses. It’s also not new, and we’ve seen boards from the likes of SteelSeries, NuPhy and more—many of the best gaming keyboards, in fact—apply the Hall effect, and do it really well.
