Akko ASA Pixel Keycap Set

I replaced the stock caps on my daily board back in 2021 with a set that cost three times what these Akko ASA Pixels run, and I spent about a week convincing myself the premium was justified. Two weeks ago I pulled that set off and spent fourteen days with the Pixel set instead, and I have some things to say about where the keycap market has landed in 2024.

The ASA profile is the first thing that needs explaining, because Akko doesn't always do a great job of marketing it clearly. ASA sits taller than Cherry, closer to OEM in row height, but with a more aggressively spherical top dish than either. The result is a keycap that feels substantial under fingertips without the flat, utilitarian feel of Cherry profile. At 1.4mm wall thickness, the PBT is noticeably stiffer than budget ABS sets you'd find at the same price bracket, and the thock you get on a gasket-mounted board is genuine rather than the hollow, plasticky slap you associate with thin-wall caps. These are double-shot legends, which means the pixel-art characters are a separate layer of PBT injection-molded into the cap, not printed. Shine-through resistance is not a concern here. The legends will outlast the switches underneath them.

My test methodology ran across fourteen days and three separate boards: a KBDfans 5° aluminum tray-mount with Boba U4Ts, a gasket-mounted Akko 5075B Plus, and a barebones hotswap 60% with Gateron yellows on a polycarbonate plate. I compared the Pixel set side-by-side against an EPBT x Dreamland set at roughly $80 and an older GMK Botanical clone set sitting at $45. I typed a sustained 10,000 words of editorial copy across sessions, ran daily gaming sessions in Valorant and CS2 averaging 90 minutes each, and did a deliberate shine and oil test on the most-used alpha keys by coating my fingers in a light film of hand lotion before extended sessions to simulate months of accelerated wear. I also pulled individual keycaps and flexed them laterally to check for warping susceptibility on the wider keys (spacebar, left shift, backspace), which is where thin-wall PBT almost always fails first.

The hands-on reality is largely good news. On the Akko 5075B Plus, which pairs obviously with these caps both aesthetically and sonically, the 1.4mm walls produce a satisfying mid-pitched thock rather than the sharp crack you get with thinner sets. The ASA dish catches fingertips cleanly in fast-typing runs, and I noticed zero fingertip fatigue difference versus the EPBT set after extended sessions. The legends on the pixel-art alpha keys are crisp at typing distance, which is harder to achieve with small decorative legends than it sounds. The spacebar on all three boards seated flush without shimming, which is not guaranteed with aftermarket PBT spacebars that often bow during the injection process. The lotion-accelerated wear test after four days showed minimal shine on the home row alphas, which is a strong indicator that the PBT compound Akko is using is dense enough to resist the surface degradation that makes cheap keycap sets look gray and greasy within months.

Now for what the product page glosses over. The layout coverage claims ANSI 60% through full-size, and that's accurate in structure but not in modifier variety. You get one set of modifiers in a specific size layout, and if you're running a 65% or 75% with non-standard right shift or bottom row spacing, you may find yourself without a matching key for one or two positions. I ran into this on the barebones 60% with a split backspace layout and had to pull a blank from another set. The pixel-art theming is also polarizing in a very specific way: the legends on the function row and navigation cluster are clean alphanumerics, but the decorative alpha legends use pixel-art character art that some users will find busy. On a board sitting under dual monitors with RGB off, it reads as charming retro. Under heavy RGB backlighting it becomes visually noisy because the double-shot legends don't diffuse light, they block it in the shape of 8-bit sprites. If RGB is core to your setup, these caps work against it rather than with it.

At $32, the Akko ASA Pixel set occupies a price point where most competing options are either ABS shine-magnets or PBT sets with printed legends that will fade. The 1.4mm wall thickness and double-shot construction at this price is not a compromise, it's a genuine value proposition. The ASA profile won't suit everyone, particularly typists who have built muscle memory around Cherry profile boards and don't want the relearning curve of a taller dish. But for builders who want a thematic set that doesn't read as cheap on a $150-300 custom board, these hold up aesthetically and physically. The Pixel set is the right call for mechanical keyboard hobbyists building their first themed board on a budget, and it's a credible secondary set for experienced builders who want theming without spending GMK money.

Marcus, Scout Gear Team