What if Keychron made a gaming focused keyboard?
Well, that's kind of what they've done with the LimoKey. It's their, ah, it's their brand
that is a subdivision of Keychron. And we've got the L3 here,
which is a TKL wireless keyboard. You know, oh, they do say gaming,
gaming mechanical keyboard with endless possibilities.
The only real difference between this guy and other stuff from Keychron, as far as I can tell,
is they've got 2.4 gigahertz wireless now, which is actually really good
because it lets you hit 1,000 Hertz polling rate on wireless.
I use them all wired anyway, so I like them and I'm fine, and they do 1,000 Hertz polling rate wired,
but they only have Bluetooth, typically. Does it come with a dongle?
Where is the dongle? Yes, we have our dongle. Ask anyone around here.
I basically never use wireless anything, but if it uses a dongle, there's a good chance
it's gonna at least be okay. Bluetooth, I just don't trust it, I'm sorry.
Man, I just love saying the word dongle, too. It's such a weird name.
Such a weird word. I feel like a boss on me. Dongle, dang, I got the dongle in my back.
Oh yeah, they're gonna hate me. They're gonna hate me, they'll be like, that sounds like some garbage, they'll be like, garbage.
So we've got a screwdriver, an Allen key,
and a key cap and switch puller. Very handy.
I actually really like that they include a little screwdriver and two Allen keys, actually,
so that if you do wanna open this, you're not without the proper tools.
We've got some extra key caps here. That looks like it's for, you know, if you wanna convert this to an Apple or Mac layout,
so it's got command instead of control or Windows key.
Oh my God, I am such a fan that more and more companies
seem to be including extra hardware. I love that they've got extra, two extra case screws,
and then we've got four screws that go to the PCB, probably for your stabilizers.
Really teeny tiny guys. We've got some feet.
I don't know if these are extras, let's take a look.
Yep, feet are already pre-installed, so these are just extra feet, which is always nice.
And then we've got a bunch of extra, it would look like gaskets. It is gasket mounted, double gasket, apparently.
They've also got a handy dandy quick start guide. This is pretty typical for Keychron in general.
And they've, yeah, they've got the Type-C extension adapter in case you don't have a USB-A port to use,
which is actually becoming more and more common on laptops. It's not male.
Okay, I don't like the adapter as much as I thought I did because it's not just a pure adapter.
It's female-female on both ends.
So unfortunately, you can throw this in here, but then you're gonna need a USB-C to C cable.
Yeah, just a really minor thing. Like it's nice that they've included the adapter,
and it's nice that they've also included an adapter going the other way for the USB-C cable.
However, I really wish this was a female-to-male connection
so that you could just take the dongle and slot it into your laptop or computer.
Otherwise, we've got a nice long cable, which does come with a female-to-male connector.
The only problem is it's USB-C female side and then USB-A male side,
which might not be what you're looking for, especially not with this if you wanna use the dongle.
But you know, it's like a good, what, five or six foot cable, that's great.
You know what, we're not gonna use the cable today.
Boom, we're gonna try the dongle.
That's a great question, Bill. Does it have a dongle storage on the keyboard?
Because you know what, a lot of people do lose those things, especially when you wanna grab it and go,
and it does not look like there is a spot to put the dongle.
So that's a bit of a miss, kind of annoying when you can't just like,
slot it in somewhere, especially if there's a little cover there to keep it in place, keep it hidden,
keep it secret, keep it safe. You know how I know it's a key-cron company,
Limo Key, because I got this key-cron thing here. Make sure switch pins are straight
before inserting switch in, wow. If it wasn't clear already, this is hotswap.
I think just about everything from key-cron is hotswap these days, if not everything.
And they got this really nice guide here, if the quick start guide isn't enough for you.
Oh, I love how they've got a item list. So the fully assembled version,
you've got everything that it comes with, you've got everything for the bare bones version, just to make sure that you haven't actually lost anything.
There's nothing missing from your package. It defaults to Windows.
This is via QMK compatible, although I think the firmware isn't uploaded yet,
so you have to get it yourself and then map it or something. It's on their website.
Watch the building tutorial on our website. That's always nice as well.
Most kits that you buy will have some kind of build guide somewhere,
but it's not always readily apparent. So it's nice when they have it just on their website.
As for the actual design and construction of the keyboard, it is aluminum CNC 6063 aluminum,
and it's been anodized to whatever color you want it in. It comes in black, blue, or silver.
We've clearly got the black one here. I've never seen this before, but it has, aside from the actual case,
it's got these sort of face plates on the top. And I don't know if you can take those off.
It looks like you can use a really tiny Allen key. Let me check and make sure
that you can use the small one they include. Yep, I can confirm the tiny Allen key
that comes with the device will fit into these guys here.
I don't know if you have to take the face plates off to fully disassemble it, but they're kind of neat.
Aside from that, it's just kind of a typical TKL. Almost.
We've also got these four, what I'm guessing are macro buttons right here.
Ooh, these are nice. And they're full key switches too, which is great. They're not like little extra.
Cause we've had a couple of keyboards recently that they had macro buttons,
but they were like buttons, like click buttons more than they were keys.
So this is nice. You can fix and replace these if you need to. We've got a nice knob here, which does click down.
I don't know what these three little strips are here.
I'm guessing that their LEDs with maybe like,
it tells you caps lock is on or something like that. We'll find out once we turn it on.
And then aside from that, you know, we've got our USB-C port on the left side,
which is good for people who want to, you know, some people like it on the middle.
Some people like it on the right. Some people like it on the left. This one's on the left, just so you are aware.
And then on the bottom, it's actually got this neat like X cross design
on three little sections here, along with the feet.
I kind of like it. It's got south facing RGB. That's how, you know, it's really for gamers.
Oh, it turned on. Oh, look at that. It's a lot more noticeable in person,
like directly in front of me here. I can very easily see that.
That being said, you know, the one thing that you might want to consider is shine through key caps
cause these don't look like they are. No, it doesn't appear to be.
Ooh, and these things do light up. The only thing that I'm a little confused about
are these ports down here. There's like a grill with one, two, three, four, five,
six ports. And then there's a seventh one with something.
It kind of looks like a light, you know, like one of those factory lights or,
oh, what are those lights called that you like hang on things in workshops?
I'm not sure why that's there. We thought maybe it's for the dongle
to slot the dongle in somewhere, but they're not big enough for the dongle to slot in.
So that's definitely not the case. And I don't think there's a built in speaker
on the, I guess back of the keyboard. We've also got limo key.
They're a little badge up here, which is, you know, it's fine. It's nice and understated,
not like when you're buying a red dragon keyboard and it's like red dragon, like right there.
As for the switches, let's check them out. We've got Jupiter red switches from Gateron.
Man, I love hot swap. It's just so nice. You just, you take the switch out,
you put the switch in, it just works. They're reds, all right.
They're linear, they feel and sound pre-loobed.
I'm not sure how I'll like them because I'm kind of leaning towards
a very heavy linear these days or a tactile.
The PCB looks all right. Can't tell too much without, you know,
actually opening it up and taking a look, but it's not some stock green PCB.
It's nice and black to match the rest of the keyboard
and all the inside components. In typical Q-Series fashion,
which is the more premium lineup from Keychron. Under the top case, you got gaskets, your plate,
sound absorbing foam, a nice PCB, some case foam,
silicone gaskets, of course a battery because, you know, it's wireless.
How does it sound and feel and type? You know, that's the real question.
Like it looks cool. It's definitely for certain people
and not for certain people. If you don't like this kind of weird industrial thing
they're going for, I don't think it's gonna be for you. I kind of dig it, but we're gonna do our typing test
to truly evaluate it. Setting up device, we're setting up limo key link.
Whoa! Yo, that's cool. I love it when it just recognizes it like right away.
That's fantastic. It's working!
So I don't know what they're mapped to originally, but VIA isn't detecting them
as like one of the alternate keys that's already on your keyboard. So it's not set to like F13 or anything.
Actually, you know what? I'm gonna use something that's not VIA. Yeah, even keyboardtester.com
isn't pulling anything up for these. But you can set them to whatever you need.
So it's always nice having extras. I actually don't really use macros for anything.
I hardly, I don't even use VIA. Like I just, I don't know. I'm not one of those people who likes to remap things.
Even in most games, if the control scheme sucks, I just kind of deal with it and learn it.
And then it's too late. All right, so let's try monkey type and away we go.
Oh.
116, 98%. That's not bad, but I've definitely done better.
What? I've been like damn, only 168%, this keyboard walks.
No, it's a good keyboard. One thing I noted though, while typing on it,
is one problem with the Q series that a lot of people experience,
and it's kind of like one of the only downsides, is the stabilizers aren't always perfectly done.
And so what you end up with is a very different sound
when you go to hit the spacebar compared to any other key. And that's just kind of always gonna happen
just because it's like a really long key instead of a small one.
But it's not massively different on a lot of keychrons that we have here at the office
that's everyone's complaint is like, oh yeah, you know, I can really hear the spacebar every time.
But this one is nice and muted. And it's not massively different
from the other sounds of the keys. So it actually sounds really good.
Especially if you like that kind of more high pitched sound a little bit, like it's got foams in there.
But it sounds almost elegant in a way.
It sounds like what you expect a mechanical keyboard to sound like, but a little better.
I'm actually pretty against linears right now, unless they're super heavy,
but I really enjoy these red jukers from Gateron.
Maybe I just need to keep typing with linears again.
It's got a 4,000 milliamp hour battery if you're gonna go wireless.
I mean, 4,000 milliamp hours actually pretty average compared to other wireless keyboards out there.
Obviously, if you don't have the RGB either turned on
or have the brightness cranked, it's gonna last longer. Lights take a lot of battery life.
And I hit the caps lock. This does light up. Can you even see that, David?
Oh yeah, you can on the camera. Yeah, you can totally see that this one's blue now.
If I cycle it on and off, they definitely like come on.
So you can see it's RGB, it's red, green, blue.
It does that as soon as I set it to Bluetooth. So we found it in the manual.
Not in the quick start guide. If you're a little confused, go looking at the manual.
We've got our charging indicator on the left. The middle is supposed to be 2.4 gigahertz
or Bluetooth indicator. Okay, it doesn't when I connect it. It doesn't when you connect it, but then it turns off.
Which is kind of annoying. I actually really like the light staying on. And then the right one, I was correct.
It is the caps lock light. Cause that was pretty obvious. You hit the caps lock button, it turns on.
So I do like that they're red, green, blue.
It's a minor thing, but I mean, it's RGB. It's a gaming keyboard.
So I like it, I like it, I like it. Honestly, if you've been looking for something
that's wireless, but is still pretty decent and the best part is this is in stock,
maybe look no further. A thousand Hertz polling rate isn't anything special these days.
Just about everyone is doing that. Most companies are actually, I mean,
most of the bigger brands like Razer and Cort. I think Corsair has an 8,000 now as well.
They're going up to eight kilohertz now. But the reality is it's diminishing returns, right?
Like 250 Hertz. Yeah, the latency on that is not great.
But the problem before is that Bluetooth polling rate
sucks and people that want to use wireless, like it's fine for everyday tasks,
but when it comes to gaming, you do want to reduce that leg chain as much as possible.
And you can kind of do that now with a thousand Hertz. So that's a really nice feature.
And I've got to say, I'm pretty big on this thing.
Like most key crown keyboards, you can get this with a few options, whether it's bare bones, assembled or ISO layout.
So you get that weird vertical enter that I can't stand.
But it also comes with a number of switches. Gateron Jupiter red, like we have today.
Gateron Jupiter brown. Gateron Jupiter banana and bare bone,
which doesn't have a switch at all. You know, it's just bare bone. You just get the kit and that's it.
Now the current configuration, the one that we've got in front of us today is $216.
Now it starts at 189 bucks for the bare bone and it's currently only available through Kickstarter.
It's key crown, even though it's limo key. So you know that they're probably gonna end up delivering.
We've got a finished product in the box. It looks like they're all ready to go.
They just kinda wanna get a sense of whether people want this or not.
They don't wanna commit to fully pushing it out there, which is fine, it's a new product for them.
Assembled with switches, it's 209 bucks, which honestly doesn't seem too bad
for a keyboard of this level of quality. And from a company that I relatively trust,
I recommend key crown all the time because while this is in pre-order on Kickstarter right now,
chances are if it does well, they're just gonna add it and it's gonna be one of those things
that is readily available on their website. Don't get me wrong, some of their products go out of stock,
but they're really good because they're just, if you want a certain layout, it's usually there.
The only problem that a lot of people might have is that while it is a TKL, it's a lot bigger
than a regular TKL because it's got the knob and all these macro keys here.
So it's not actually that much smaller than if you bought a full-size keyboard,
but I don't know, I kinda dig it. I think it looks neat.
I really like the color scheme on this one, on the gray and black and red keycaps.
I am digging the cherry profile, although, ah, you know what?
You know, no, no, no, no, I took a quick look at this and I'm like, oh, I don't like that the macro keys
are all straight, but now I do like it. I changed my mind, just that fast.
I'm a fickle, fickle man. As for the keyboard itself, the only thing
that would really amp it up a notch in my mind is if it had one or two stage adjustable feet,
especially because, you know, typing angles, people are very sensitive to them
and everyone likes something different. I just wanna see that more on higher end keyboards
in general. Anyway, that's the Limo Key L3.
Check it out on Kickstarter if you want to. If you don't want to and maybe you want to later,
maybe it'll be on Limo Key's website. Let us know what you guys think in the comments down below,
subscribe to ShortCircuit. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
Bye. Cut the camera.