Around same time in 2024, I purchased a Bakeneko60 from CannonKeys through their 50% off Bakeneko sale, essentially meaning BOGO. This board changed my approach to keyboards by simply getting what I know works instead of trying to chase the board everyone sleeps on but is lowkey a beast. A year later, I’d grown my collection significantly with much better boards and felt I deserved to get myself an upgrade for an o-ring board. The Frog Mini, and by extension Geon, are very much well-acclaimed. So, for the super cheap price tag at Geon quality, it felt like a no-brainer to get in on the Leggera hype.

Design/Aesthetics

The Frog Mini Leggera does indeed mimic the exterior appearance of the original Frog Mini, with the small but still welcome curve on the side, the small cherry lip chamfer on the front, and the decently sized weight on the back with the name of the board in gaudy cursive. The similarities end there, however, as the board is a very different beast to its namesake. Instead of being a tadpole mount two-piece case, the Leggera is instead a one-piece case that can be had either for tray mount or o-ring mount, with the focus to be more approachable for people looking for the best HE case swap. Because of the one-piece case, the seam that goes across the board is no longer present, leaving it rather flat (which is not necessarily bad!). One major difference that I and many others do not like, though, is the change in case feet. The original Frog Mini use the infamous “Geon feet” which are long strips of rubber that sometimes stay in, sometimes not. The Leggera on the other hand uses four dimpled push-in feet that really take a lot of convincing to get in there, and sometimes don’t even stay flush in the case. Using regular 3M 8mm bump-ons would have been far more welcome as they’re basically universal, and the case no longer needs to be unscrewed from the bottom due to it being a one-piece case, so all around it comes out as a silly decision.

The internals are also notably different, with the construction being entirely aluminum and where the interior weights of the original Frog Mini being left open; The interior being full aluminum and having the gaps seems to be of polarizing opinions, with the argument for the gaps being that there is more surface area for sound to get caught on. The interior is also slightly different based on which case you get, as the tray mount case will have a USB cutout for the GH60 footprint (and of course screw standoffs) while the o-ring case moves the USB cutout to the center as it instead uses a Fly daughterboard. Also present in the o-ring case (not sure about the tray mount case) are small divots near backspace and space to allow room for screw-in stabilizers, which while I feel are neat, I also feel they may compromise the friction fit of the o-ring, but I’ll get to that later.

Despite the changes to the design, the Leggera is still a very pretty board with great machining and anodization (which is allegedly Chinese manufacturing so, damn) and is certainly up there in the “small but effective” design category, and I can’t say whether it looks better or worse than the original Frog Mini.

However, the carbon fiber “weight” really did not do it for me. It looks pretty, but- spoilers for the typing experience- the Leggera sounds incredibly hollow and pingy with it in there. So that’s when I took upon the task of making my own weight in brass. A few rough measurements (*really rough*) and one $30 JLC3DP order later, I got my custom brass weight in… only to figure out that the screws are not perfectly centered on the height of the weight. So, some even more really rough sketching and drilling, and eventually I got the brass weight to fit. And it changed the build for the better. Unfortunately, just a week or two after going through this awful reverse engineering and some redneck engineering, Geon released a copper weight. Damn. At least mine is brass, I guess.

Assembly

As with all o-ring mount cases, it’s a very simple build. Switches, plate, PCB, shibari it up, push it in and go to town on it. A total of two screws are needed for securing the daughterboard, which was a little difficult only because I think one of the screw holes was not tapped perfectly, but it did go through just fine in the end.

PCB and Firmware

While the Leggera on its own doesn’t come with a PCB, it should be compatible with any Bakeneko PCB for the o-ring mount case, or any GH60 PCB for the tray mount case, including the original Frog Mini PCB. For my build, I simply went with the Waffling60 PCB from 4pplet that I already had lying around.

But if you aren’t so fortunate to already own an aftermarket PCB, you can purchase one of the few Venom PCBs that Geon offers, either in HE or MX. The MX PCB is pretty good as far as options go, only lacking in ISO and using two SKUs for 7u and 6.25u instead of putting it on the same PCB. It also features a breakaway USB port that makes it usable by the tray mount case by default, but can be (irreversibly) converted for the o-ring case. This breakaway piece also means that the Esc and 1 are turned 90 degrees, so your mileage with interference may vary even though it’s R1.

When it comes to the HE PCB, it’s remarkably similar other than the HE features, though comes with nearly no layout options, only featuring split backspace, and once again having the odd 7u and 6.25u SKU split. While I haven’t had one of the Venom HE PCBs in-hand, the software looks pretty good, especially since you can preview the features without having one by letting you enable a “dummy” PCB, which I really love.

Typing Experience

Once assembled, the immediate impressions are great. With the brass weight installed, the resonance is very much tamed but still present enough to give character to the sound profile, and the sound is certainly bright with the little bit of rounding to it that o-ring inherently gives. It’s definitely an upgrade to the Bakeneko in just about every way, however it does feel as though the PCB rocks a little bit even with a more stiff o-ring. It’s not the end of the world but it is a little odd when I do notice it, and I suspect it’s because of the screw-in grooves in the case.