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I love Ducky keyboards. If you’ve taken a look down my blog, you might have noticed my review of the Ducky One 2 Series 10, Rosa Edition keyboard. I’ve also taken the liberty of trying out Ducky’s new One 3 series keyboards, specifically the Aura edition. Let’s take a look at this keyboard.

Ducky One 3 Aura: At a Glance

Keyboard	Ducky One 3 Aura Edition
Price	$169.99
Tier	Premium
Switches	Cherry MX Blue
Keycap Profile	OEM
Keycaps	ABS Plastic
Interface	USB-C to USB-A
Layout	USA ANSI
Hot-Swappable?	Yes

Ducky One 3 Aura: My Thoughts

At first, I really liked this keyboard. It was comfortable and easy to use, but I did have some problems with it which made me question its high price point. Let’s take a look at my thoughts in-depth.

Price

This keyboard is expensive! I was lucky enough to get it as a present (yes, I asked for it specifically) but when considering how much the buyer spent on it, I had a lot of problems for such an expensive keyboard! When I compare it keyboards that are less expensive, but have more features and less problems, I feel a bit cheated. I feel like the person who bought it for me got ripped off, you know?

Construction

The construction of the keyboard is very high quality. It doesn’t feel cheap or overly lightweight at all. The frame is very well constructed and durable. However, the construction of the LEDs was not so good. I had a lot of problems with the keyboard’s LEDs and they are currently completely broken, which is why I’ve rotated the keyboard out permanently.

Keycaps

The keycaps are made of ABS plastic, which is not my favorite material. Ducky ships keyboards with PBT keycaps and it’s unclear why these ones were made with ABS instead. The keycaps are translucent, and allow the light to shine through them. However, the legends are not shine-through legends and can be quite hard to read with the lights on.

Switches

The switches I chose for the keyboard were Cherry MX Blue switches. Lately, I’ve been preferring linear switches to clicky ones. However, I tend to prefer clicky switches when typing and linear ones when gaming. When this keyboard was purchased, it was for work, which is typing. So, I went with clicky switches. I have no complains about the switches.

Sound Profile

The keyboard has a good sound profile. I don’t think it would have been as good with linear switches. However, that depends a lot on what switches were installed. As I mentioned in earlier articles, I don’t really like the sound profile of Cherry MX Reds and those are the standard linear switches that can be installed on this keyboard.

Problems Encountered When Using the Ducky One 3 Aura

I had two main issues when using the Ducky One 3 Aura keyboard with my computer. Firstly, the keyboard is wired only and doesn’t allow for use with USB-C to USB-C cables, only USB-C to USB-A. This is a deviation from the previous Ducky keyboard I was using and a solid disappointment for me, as I had to use an adapter to connect the keyboard to my laptop.

Secondly, after a little under a year, the LEDs on my keyboard crapped out. Several of them got stuck showing green and the color profile of the affected sockets changed entirely because they were unable to show other colors correctly. I will be trying to fix this by resoldering the LED connections, but if that doesn’t work, unfortunately the keyboard will be going into storage and staying there until I can find someone who doesn’t care if the keyboard LEDs are a little funky.