open source what does that mean to you does it sound like software does it
sound like i don't know some kind of philosophy
or could it maybe be something a little bit
more this is system 76's latest product it's
called the launch configurable keyboard and as it its name suggests it is a
configurable keyboard i'm not sure where the launch name comes from probably
because of the uh galaxy theming here
so there's not a whole lot going on on the packaging for what is a very very
exciting product so let's pull this out
there we go nice
oh wow oh it's actually really fancy on the inside ready for launch welcome to
the launch keyboard crew we're happy to have you on board the configurator will
allow you to adjust your flight path to your liking at any point along your journey unlike
they're so nerdy make a difference at warp speeds and most importantly have
fun ah that's that's really that's really cute
just grab it and oh oh that's
that is substantial it's a lot heavier than i thought it would be i mean
obviously it's got a all metal chassis
get back to that in a second let's dig through the rest of the box uh we've got
a nice braided usb type c cable here very nice actually
type c to a so this is a 3.0 cable
this is a nice braided c to c cable and we've
got a bunch of replacement keys so we can set uh we can
get different size escape keys is that right so this is the escape key here use
the key puller here so if i pull off this escape key here
okay yeah so these are jade switches so they're
they're clicky so how does this larger escape key work
presumably this would go like somewhere else you can remap this keyboard to
basically do whatever you want so you can re you can type in like you put in
like a b c d e f g and like set it up in
the configurator so that it actually works alphabetically
it actually matches your layout so i guess that's what these are for i don't know maybe if you replace tab maybe tab
or caps lock who needs caps lock let's just do
that we have different color escape keys that we can use so i can use another
blue one over here i really want it oh well
put the tilde key back in so that's that um one other thing that i can do is i
should be able to just pull these key switches off
there we go so if you have your own
key switches then you can replace these jades with whatever you want basically
as long as it's this uh cherry style mount with the two
pins here it's something you're seeing a lot more these days uh it's basically
the perfect way to customize your keyboard like you can have a mix of
different keys like you can have caps lock feel like something different
there's also this little uh like a stand almost
and that just attaches magnetically oh that's cool
and it raises up your keyboard for you which i
i love how smooth that looks like i'm not sure if you can see that there's
basically no seam they've precision crafted this like
it is it is awe-inspiring i mean maybe maybe that's
being a little bit too glowing but like
it's not this is a level of detail you don't often see
the point of the keyboard is
you can do whatever you want with it so you can remap all the keys like you
can rearrange all the keys remap them to whatever you want you can make it so
that this function gives you another layer so you can have like macros or
whatever uh you could have multiple layers like
that and uh it just passes through
different keystrokes for each of these functions
probably the most configurable keyboard you can get would be the one that you
build yourself but probably one of the more customizable
ones you can buy so you plug plug this guy in
like so you also get an integrated usb hub
so you have two more type c's as well as
two type a's just kind of chilling
i can weigh it taking a lot of direction from jono today that means i'm not doing
a very good job i'm just trying to
let me help you this is uh this is pretty hefty here 867
grams 1.9 pounds
so it is basically a weapon and when you add
this how much is this 0.182 pounds
which would make it i think a full kilogram didn't it
almost 950 grams that's um that's pretty heavy
yeah there's no such thing as deck flex on this board though like if you try
hard enough you're just gonna bust it but one thing i am noticing
on the back here there's no such thing as like a security
screw all of these are phillips screws and
they're like kind of inviting do you have a screwdriver
while jono gets a screwdriver let's talk about our sponsor NVIDIA thanks to
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membership neat these are these screws so in order
to not strip out or even mark the uh
aluminum enclosure they use these little plastic cups almost so you drop the
screw into that and it just screws down into it i don't know if you
can see that but it is ridiculously thoughtful it's almost like they want
you to take this thing apart this is open source hardware you can build this
on your own if you want
probably not you 3d printed why not actually there are cnc uh
like websites kind of like 3d printing sites now so you can actually get custom cnc done
all right let's see what happens when we drop this
panel off there's not a whole lot on the inside
this is part of how they got that structural
rigidity this is thick
what we're looking at back here though we've got this
probably either the keyboard's controller chip or the usb hub i can't
quite make out but over here you can see that there's actually a little test
point here and i guess presumably if you really wanted to you can
either probe or yeah abr isp so that would basically
let you unbrick it if you were to break the firmware here
so that's pretty cool these little bumps here obviously if you
look around the other side they match up with the actual keys themselves
these are the hot swap sockets and i think the the reason why
the leds are on the back here as well is because
these hot swap sockets need a certain amount of clearance in order to actually
work properly so that is a design consideration that they actually made um
i saw somebody asked a question about that which is actually
really cool like you can talk to their actual engineers on twitter it's pretty
great can you tell that i like system 76
so let's talk about the actual feel of the keyboard now from what i can feel
well i mean they're they're jades they feel pretty good the keycaps themselves
feel like they're pretty good as well i think they might be dye sub
so yeah it's just fine you can replace them later if you want
uh the split space i think for me anyway would take a little bit of getting used
to but one thing that it does do is it gives you a
much more stable space bar than a traditional long format space bar would
be so you can actually map one of these to
something completely different if you'd like
yeah this one is backspace this is forward space
i think i would actually prefer it with the 15 degrees of incline
that this provides yeah that's that's a little more natural
for me anyway but yeah i actually quite like it it's compact without being like
too compact you're not missing a whole lot of keys you've got your page
up and page down you've got home and end you have delete and backspace here you
have all the f keys interestingly there's no um
what is it called properties key you know the thing that gives you like uh
like a context menu like right clicking but it's something you can put back in
because it's a it's completely customizable in fact this actually is
qmk compatible as well so if you're used to that
there you go i think the only thing left to do is to like plug it in and see what it's
actually like eh yeah let's do it
so if i want to do something with uh
this here spacebar let's say i want to want that space to
be backspace let's see what happens here um
backspace okay testing backspace
oh yeah yeah i i
i went to hit spacebar with my left hand or my right hand
and it deleted the g that's
it worked that's it doesn't even need you to like
hit apply or anything it just it just does it if i wanted uh
the alt key to be where the super key is i can just do that left alt and this can
now be left super this can be function okay so that's
that's now alt so if i wanted to replace
those keys so that's now alt that's now function
and that is now super that might take a little bit of getting used to but you
know depending on who you are that may not be a problem but yeah you can rearrange this layout
to your heart's content you can do whatever you want with it
uh what they have for patterns as far as the RGB goes right now it's on
100 brightness it's on space-time right now
looks like it's just a moving rainbow bound keys only oh so this just lights
up all the keys in your in the current layer that are actually used for
anything so if i were to hit function a lot of these keys will blank
out because they have no functions but they have these keys over here do have
functions splash down so that's like your lighting propagation
thing like you press a key and it just like propagates out it's the only thing
that's really left to talk about is the price so
it starts at 285 dollars
i don't know what your problem is jono mechanical keyboards is a expensive
hobby it sounds like a lot of money which is because it is
but the thing is you're getting a really
well engineered keyboard that is completely open completely
customizable works on Linux macOS and Windows you
can basically do whatever you want with it i do not think this is a bad price
for what you're getting considering what the options are
it's exorbitant and i wouldn't personally
spend that much money on a keyboard but this thing feels pretty indestructible
and it is very configurable
screw you jonno it's a lot of money but i i can't not recommend it for somebody
who's looking for a custom mechanical keyboard for everybody else it's a bad
deal okay just so we're clear you can get like a 80 keyboard like a red dragon
or a g skill or something like that and be perfectly happy but if you are a
keyboard nerd you um you would do well
to look at this and you'd do well to
like and subscribe and check out more ShortCircuit videos in
the future screw you jenna maybe maybe i could kill someone with
this