Arturia KeyLab MkII 49 Black

After a few years of heavy use, I was looking for something to replace my M-Audio Code 49 and the aim was to upgrade to something more premium/professional (I use my controller every day, for several hours).

The two main contenders were the NI Komplete Kontrol and Arturia, but I opted for the latter in the end as for my needs the integration and workflow are superior, but your milage my vary.
First; the build quality is top notch. I come from a background of hardware synths and this is as close as a MIDI controller will come, there are moments where I forget this is a controller and not a really well made synth. The aluminum body feels great, the pitch and mod wheels also have a very nice feel. Knobs feel good to press, with just enough resistance and "click" and the layout of controls is very ergonomic for me, but again your milage my vary.
Encoders and faders are good, the latter have a good feel and the travel is smooth, however both of those are a noch bellow the rest of the stuff, but not bad in any way.
What wins for me is the integration with AnalogLab and the V Collection, which I have been using for a very long time; the workflow is absolutely worth the money in my opinion. It delivers the hands-on synth experience and sound-design becomes a delight. The transpose function is well implemented (just press the "transpose button" and press the desired key), pads feel nice and I love the chord mode on them.

The only divisive aspect of the Keylab MkII might be the keybed; before I tried it, I heard both a lot of good and bad stuff about it and to be honest BOTH are true in a way... From a synth perspective, this is an absolute breeze to play, the aftertouch is responsive and one can absolutely fly over the keybed with leads and bass lines. It is a very nice synth action keybed and I wouldn't mind something akin to this on some of the hardware synths.
On the other hand it is a synth action board (a very good one IMO), but for piano and orchestral sounds, the board might not be perfect; I still use the Code for some of that stuff as it has semi-weigthed keys and I'm still used to that a lot. Again, it comes down to personal preferences. The mod and pitch wheel are also quite small, so using them for dynamics of orchestral plugins can be a bit jarring at first.
With all that out of the way, I can absolutely recommend the board for synth and sound design stuff, which I do mostly anyway and there the Keylab absolutely shines! The integration alone + the fact that the AnalogLab comes included is well worth the price, the build quality is the icing on the cake.

As a newbie to Midi keyboards I have been using this device for about 4 months now and I am very happy with it. Integrates smoothly with Ableton (separate DAW mode to easily work within the ableton and control a lot of things through the keyboard).

Build quality is great, it feels like it will last for ages.

Connectivity has all I need for home studio use currently but would also be very well workable for a gig.

The device came with ARTURIA's V collection, which is an absolutely stunning piece of software, again here also you feel quality everywhere.

As I am fairly new to MIDI keyboards, I reached out to Arturia's service / help desk a couple of times over the past months. They are REALLY helpful and swift in answering. Next to the overall quality this is a really important element for me in considering buying additional gear of the brand.

I was a total beginner to keys and music production when I bought this controller, but I soon found out it's got everything I needed. The build is sturdy, solid. I'm using it at home only, but I'd feel at ease if I had to travel with it. The bundled software is fantastic value for the money and it's receiving updates to this very day! Analog Lab and Piano V2 have massive amounts of sounds. Also, it's also a good gateway to other stuff from Arturia's ecosystem - I crossgraded/upgraded to V collection and FX collection at hugely discounted prices.

I am very satisfied with the quality of keys for my needs. Later on, I got KeyLab 88 Mk2 which has weighted keys and in hindsight I guess the feeling of "synth" type of keys this model has can make it a bit difficult to play with the same dynamic range weighted keys have. However, I cannot take it as a negative point because it's the nature of the design. I have to admit I don't use the track controls very much, but they're there if you need them. I had no problem enabling it in Reaper DAW and it worked like a charm from the get-go.

There's plenty of faders and all the knobs are infinite. They can easily be assigned to any function in Reaper when you need to do automation or control VSTs while playing. The pads serve the purpose and have good dynamic range, but they can be a bit stiff under fingers for my taste. I haven't tried other controllers by the competitors so I can't really compare. Ultimately, there's little to complain given the package as a whole.