I have been a fan of Wooting keyboards for quite some time. Before this review, I had seen and loved their top-notch keyboards, the Wooting One and Wooting Two, and the Wooting Two HE is their latest and greatest keyboard and should already have the makings of a great mechanical keyboard, but at the same time it has to live up to my ridiculously high expectations. It should already have the makings of a great mechanical keyboard, but at the same time it has to live up to my ridiculously high expectations.

Thankfully, it definitely delivers.

Looking at the black faceplate and keycaps of the Wooting Two HE, one might wonder what all the fuss is about. In fact, it looks a little more boring than most, and some have recently taken "extras" to a whole new level.

For RGB enthusiasts like myself, this keyboard shines brightly enough to meet all the requirements on the outside without being overdone. Looks don't matter, so let me explain why it's actually exciting.

The Wooting Two HE offers analog key control. When you press the W key, for example, instead of sending a simple on/off signal to the PC, the keyboard measures the full range of motion of that key. This means that you can change the range of motion to walk or run in a game without using a controller, or control a driving game without an analog stick or wheel; perfect for games like "GTA V" where you are running around, driving, or flying through the air.

This concept has been seen from major brands, but as far as I know, Wooting was the first to bring this concept to life with the Wooting One, an easy-to-use and affordable product.

However, the Wooting Two HE differs from the Wooting One and Wooting Two in the way it measures analog inputs. Whereas the old Wooting board relied on optical Flaretech switches, the new HE board uses Lekker switches that Wooting made with popular switch manufacturer Gateron and relies on the Hall effect to achieve analog input (hence Wooting Two 'HE').

The Hall effect uses the force of a magnet. There is a magnet in the stem of every Lekker switch, and by measuring the magnetic force of the magnet as it moves through a Hall Effect sensor on the keyboard's PCB, the Wooting Two HE can accurately track the complete push-down and return of a mechanical switch.

On the software side, the game must register this switch operation as DirectInput or Xinput. In other words, the up/down and left/right of the left analog stick must be set to the WASD keys of Wooting in order to replicate the movements of an analog controller.

However, you are free to configure Wooting's analog inputs however you wish. Unlike some analog keyboards, all switches on the Wooting Two HE act as analog switches. However, overdoing it can get a bit tedious, and since game support varies, you may not necessarily be able to get the most out of Wooting for every game.

Nevertheless, the Lekker switch has its advantages in keys that are not used for analog operation. For one thing, the actuation points of Wooting's keys can be changed by the user in Wootility, the company's in-house app and keyboard control center.

The actuation range of the wreck switch is 0.1 to 4.0 mm, which can be set in 0.1 mm increments for each key. You can fine-tune this keyboard to your liking, and you don't have to buy a completely different mechanical switch to do so.

That said, one of the reasons I'm so enamored with the Wooting HE is that there's always another cool thing you can do with analog switches. The Rapid Trigger feature eliminates the need to set a reset point, which may speed up the response time in games. Basically, you can press a key, release it slightly, and press it again. It counts as a keystroke whether you release the switch completely or not.

So the next time you furiously hit the keyboard in a QTE, you don't have to work so hard.

There is also a dynamic keystroke feature, which is honestly a bit beyond my level in terms of configuration and actually using it correctly, but in the right hands it is pretty solid. It takes full advantage of analog input, providing multiple actions (key presses, macros) at different points of key movement.

"I want to map an entire moveset to a single power key in a game" It's certainly possible. You can chain skills, moves, and spells together in a game and have them all apply to a single keystroke. Or, if you really want to be precise, you can have two different actions for each key press.

I didn't find much use for this particular feature in my normal writing and gaming schedule. Instead, I found myself using this feature most often in shooting games, where the analog input allows me to slow down the pace of my run a bit. Nevertheless, I found Wooting's analog feature to have a great deal of appeal, and I felt it made the most of the fact that it has analog switches.

Most of the time, you will be diving into Wootility to change your Wooting setup. There is also an option here to adjust the RGB lighting profiles. The keyboard stores all this information in its 16MB of internal memory, so if you don't want Wootility on your desktop, install it, run it (account is free), set up the keyboard, and then uninstall it. without Wootility. Everything should work fine.

There are many peripheral-specific applications out there, and Wootility doesn't bother me one bit. It is simple, well organized, and has improved since I last used it. In fact, its ease of use and sleek look puts it head and shoulders above the other big manufacturers.

As for price, the Wooting Two HE is $195 (£169/€161), so it's not cheap. There is no media key or wrist rest (which can be added for $28.80). Nevertheless, the price is not so unreasonable compared to current $200+ gaming keyboards, so you are not paying a complete premium for analog features.

That said, Wooting generally does an excellent job of meeting expectations. The keyboard is solidly built and comes with a two-year warranty. If a switch breaks, the board itself is hot-swappable and can be replaced. One advantage of magnetic wreck switches is that there aren't that many mechanical moving parts, and another is that they rarely break in the first place.

This is what I like about the Wooting keyboards I've seen so far, and nothing I like more than the Wooting Two HE. Even if you are convinced by the Wooting's analog controls and find them limited in scope depending on your preferred games and genres, there are many other reasons to like the Wooting.