Our Verdict
Pros
- Fantastic Hall Effect features for PC gaming
- Responsive magnetic switches
- Seamless 8K gaming performance
- Compact, portable design
- Affordable price point
Cons
- The small size won't be for everyone
- Plastic shell, although lightweight, does feel a little cheap
Should you buy it?
Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up
When it comes to keyboard sizes and form factors, 60% is probably the smallest you can get without the experience starting to feel impractical or tailor-made for portability. Even compared to a 65% form factor keyboard, there's a big difference in what's missing, as that 5% means you lose out on dedicated arrow keys when the board opts for full-sized keys and keycaps. This is why they're often referred to as 'Mini' keyboards, with the new Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 falling into this category, albeit with a design firmly focused on delivering impressive gaming performance.
This is good news because Mini 60% keyboards are often best suited to gaming, namely playing competitive titles, where having that extra desk space for big mouse movements is a plus. That said, when it comes to the overall layout, switches, customization, and on-board features, the difference between two 60% keyboards can often be much larger than the difference between two bigger boards. With its full Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard naming, this is not only the latest keyboard featuring customizable magnetic switches from the company, but it manages to offer up a better gaming experience than most keyboards that feature things like arrow keys and a function row.
One of the big reasons it excels comes down to the layout and how Corsair mapped out the various secondary functions, as well as the in-depth customization on offer that goes beyond changing the actuation points. Using the browser-based Corsair Web Hub, you can not only assign multiple actions to a single keypress, but the innovative Smart Tap feature lets you assign secondary functions based on how long you press or hold down a key. Right off the bat, even without dedicated arrow keys, this can add arrow keys as a "tap" function on the right-side Shift, Control, and Alt keys. Does this immediately make the Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 comparable to a full-sized keyboard? No, but it means that there's a lot more going on here than the size lets on.
Specifications & Close Up
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Product Name | Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard |
| Product Type | Wired Gaming Keyboard |
| Compatibility | PC, Mac, XBOX One, Windows 10 or macOS 10.15 required for Corsair Web Hub |
| Interface | USB 2.0 (TypeC to TypeA) |
| Size | 60% |
| Polling Rate | Up to 8,000Hz |
| Switch | CORSAIR MGX Hyperdrive Core |
| Keycaps | DoubleShot PBT with shine through |
| Lighting | Customizable per-key RGB |
| Dimensions | 294 x 103 x 31mm |
| Weight | 414 grams |
| What's in the Box | CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard, Braided USB Type-C cable, Safety leafet |
Best Deals: Corsair Clipper PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard
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Kosta's Test System
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | MSI MPG X870E Carbon Wi-Fi (Buy at Amazon) |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D (Buy at Amazon) |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition (default) (Buy at Amazon) |
| Display | MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED 4K 240Hz (Buy at Amazon) |
| Cooler | Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RX LCD Liquid CPU Cooler (Buy at Amazon) |
| RAM | Corsair VENGEANCE RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 (Buy at Amazon) |
| SSD | Sandisk WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB PCIe Gen5 (Buy at Amazon) |
| Secondary SSD | Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite 4TB PCIe Gen4 (x2) (Buy at Amazon) |
| Power Supply | MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5 (Buy at Amazon) |
| Case | Corsair FRAME 4000D Modular Mid-Tower PC Case (Buy at Amazon) |
| Case Fans | Corsair iCUE LINK RX120 MAX RGB 120mm PWM Starter Kit (Buy at Amazon) |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (Buy at Amazon) |
Design & Software
Design
Outside of its size, the first thing you notice when picking up the Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 is its lightweight 414-gram build. For a gaming keyboard, this is the equivalent of an ultralightweight mouse; however, when it comes to keyboards, you do want some heft. The reason for this is twofold: it helps minimize physical movement when placed on a desk or mousemat, and it improves acoustics by damping unwanted pings and potential rattles. Corsair attempts to mitigate this by including rubberized adjustable feet on the underside to keep the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 in place, and optimizing the acoustics with dual-layer sound dampening. And it works, with an added IP57 rating for waterproofing and dust resistance.
That said, with its plastic top and bottom cover, there's an initial sense of the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 feeling a little cheap or inexpensive in its physical design and construction. This is par for the course when it comes to keyboards, where an aluminum top plate is often a sign of quality. This isn't to say that plastic is bad, but it's a move made by Corsair to maintain a budget-friendly price for a gaming keyboard stacked with gaming features. The CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 is powered by Corsair's new MGX HYPERDRIVE CORE Hall Effect magnetic switches, which differ slightly from the company's MGX HYPERDRIVE switches that we've seen before.
Here you've got a lighter touch, with a 27g - 40g actuation force compared to 30 - 55g, alongside a slightly more constrained actuation point adjustment range of 0.2 - 3.8mm. To suit the more compact build of the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60, the MGX HYPERDRIVE CORE switches feature a square stem design, which means they're not hot-swappable. But, as they're rated at 100 million clicks, the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 should last several years of heavy gaming, with Corsair offering a two-year warranty on the switch performance. The square stem design also reduces wobble, and when you pair that with the multiple layers of silicone dampening, the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 has surprisingly great acoustics for such a small magnetic keyboard.
As mentioned in the introduction, as a compact 60% form factor keyboard, you miss out on several keys that you'd find on a full-sized keyboard, including the function row, arrow keys, NumPad, and various system keys. This also means there's no room for dedicated media controls or a control dial, but on the plus side, the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 ships with audio controls already mapped out across some keys. Although the overall build is lightweight and a tad too plasticky, the PBT double-shot keycaps with shine-through per-key lighting do feel premium. And when it comes to performance, as a wired keyboard (another design choice that helps keep the overall cost down), it also supports Corsair's AXON technology for true 8,000Hz polling.
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Again, where the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 shines is with its Hall Effect features, which are as numerous as they are intuitive to set up, configure, and customize.
Frequently Asked Questions
Open a question for an answer from TweakTown's coverage of this review, or ask your own below.
What Hall Effect (magnetic) switch-adjustment options does the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 offer in Corsair Web Hub?
How does Smart Tap and Tap Lock work on the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 to add arrow or function inputs on a 60% layout?
What are the MGX HYPERDRIVE CORE switch specifications (actuation force and adjustment range) and are they hot‑swappable?
What polling rate and low‑latency features does the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 support for competitive gaming?
Have a question about this content not listed here? Ask below and TweakBot will answer it.
Software
The good news is that even with its in-depth customization, you don't need to install any dedicated software to customize CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 - all you need is a browser and access to the Corsair Web Hub. With its Hall Effect or magnetic switches, as expected, you've got access to per-key actuation point adjustments for a snappier or more measured response. The Actuation section of Corsair Web Hub is also where you can enable and fine-tune Rapid Trigger features for each key, which basically resets as soon as it hits a certain travel distance or actuation. Here, Corsair expands on what you normally find on other magnetic boards with the ability to set different press and release sensitivity alongside enabling a special 'Continuous Rapid Trigger' mode that keeps the keypress or trigger active until it's fully released, which is a fantastic addition for all of the different 'press to' abilities in games.
Next up, you've got FlashTap or SOCD, for cleaner movement and strafing in competitive shooters and action games. Two Hall Effect features you can find here that aren't guaranteed elsewhere, or as intuitive to enable, are Tap Lock and Smart Tap. Tap Lock lets you basically turn every key and in-game action into a toggle and hold, which means you can tap W to start moving forward, tap it again to stop, or hold it down as per normal. Smart Tap is a dual-mode feature perfect for a 60% form factor keyboard as it lets you assign two actions to a single keypress. This lets you add an arrow key or even a function row key assignment to a tap, while retaining the key's original functionality via holding it down. Corsair makes setting this up very easy, while offering detailed control over the hold duration, letting you make small millisecond adjustments.
One Hall Effect feature that you do find on several magnetic boards is the ability to assign multiple actions to a single keypress - based on travel distance. For the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60, you can actually assign up to four actions to a single keypress, with Corsair's interface for doing so also being simple and easy to follow, with a detailed visual representation of the actions, keypress, key release, and actuation points. Once you add up all of these Hall Effect features, it makes the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 an impressively customizable magnetic gaming keyboard.
Of course, as a 60% form factor keyboard, creating and modifying primary and secondary assignments is important, and the Corsair Web Hub interface for this is equally intuitive, with a clear separation of the main and function layer, with all of the various assignments broken up into various categories. Macro recording and assignment are also found here, with the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 featuring five on-board profiles to switch between. Rounding out the customization, you've got detailed lighting controls for the surprisingly vibrant RGB, as well as a Game Mode that lives up to its promise by not only locking certain system keys, but switching the keyboard into its 8K or 8,000Hz polling mode for ultra-low latency performance.
Gaming and Productivity Performance
Gaming Performance
For this review, we decided to stick with action-heavy games for testing, including several shooters like Counter-Strike 2, Battlefield 6, and DOOM: The Dark Ages. Testing out various actuation points for WASD movement and other actions, there is a noticeable difference you can feel. When paired with the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 8K polling, the responsiveness is seamless. Ahead of putting the keyboard through its paces, we were worried that the lightweight build would lead to unwanted movement when gaming, which turned out not to be the case thanks to the rubberized feet doing their job. Of course, in our time with the keyboard, we also tested all of the various other Hall Effect features, with Tap Lock and Smart Tap being two standout features that help set the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 apart from the pack.
Productivity Performance
Okay, so without a Numpad, arrow keys, a dedicated function row, and nice-to-have things like a control dial and wrist rest, the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 isn't exactly built for day-to-day productivity. This isn't to say that it can't be used as a day-to-day driver, and I used it extensively to write articles and stories over the course of a week, slowly getting used to the small form factor. Having Hall Effect features like Smart Tap definitely helps; however, even as a small, portable keyboard that can be taken on the go, the lack of wireless support does affect its versatility as a compact productivity keyboard.
Keyboard Acoustics and Sound Level
Keyboard Acoustics
Here's a recording of the Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard. With two layers of silicone dampening, pre-lubricated MGX HYPERDRIVE CORE magnetic switches, and PBT double-shot keycaps, the overall acoustics here are clean and crisp - a pleasant surprise.
Keyboard Sound Level
To test a keyboard's overall sound level, we use the Ozito Digital Sound Level Meter, capturing the sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" multiple times and recording the maximum dB level. This indicates how "loud" the switches used are for everyday usage. The following chart showcases where the Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard sits.
Final Thoughts
The Corsair CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard lives up to its "mini" name, and it doesn't sacrifice gaming performance or limit functionality in the shrinking process. Competitively priced, it delivers fantastic Hall Effect features thanks to its magnetic switches, including a few that you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. And thanks to the intuitive web-based customization software, making changes is easy, even for first-time magnetic keyboard users.
Even so, if you're not a fan of a mini keyboard, then the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 probably won't make you a true believer - outside of its gaming performance, that is. Even with in-depth customization and Hall Effect features, not having dedicated arrow keys is something you will notice and need to make adjustments for. Ultimately, this means the CLIPPER PRO MINI 60 is tailor-made for gaming and those looking to free up desk space while unlocking a new level of control and performance.
