Do you ever wanna buy a nice wireless keyboard?
One that you can customize with firmware
and hot swappable keys and everything?
The new Keychron K8 Pro has got
just about everything you need.
For those of you who don't know,
Keychron's a keyboard company,
and a lot of you in the comments are always saying,
"'Hey, check out the Keychron, check out the Keychron,
"'check out the Keychron.'"
And you're right, I agree with you.
I love Keychron, I think they're a great company,
especially if you want something that's a little higher end,
but still it's not enthusiast level.
It's just a solid option,
and it's someone that I typically recommend
to my own friends for anyone who doesn't wanna wait
six plus months for a group by the end.
They've got a ton of features advertised on the box.
They've got screw-in stabilizers, hot swappable,
PBT key caps, I think they're double shot,
via QMK and Bluetooth 5.1.
Whoa, I love that sound.
Cool, they've got a little guide here,
an open source customizable keyboard
for peak productivity.
Ooh, okay, so yeah, here's our board.
It's a TKL.
Before we look at it any further though,
let's take a look at what else is in the box.
We have got
a cable.
Ooh, and they've got like a right angle connector.
I actually wish more places did them
because it's just a nice sleek look,
especially, I think these guys have a side connector.
Yeah, theirs is on the side,
so that's gonna look great coming straight off of it.
We've got a screwdriver, which is really teeny.
We've got our other Windows keys,
like Alt and Windows and stuff.
This has got the Mac layout on it already.
And key cap and switch puller.
I think that's pretty much it.
I think there's not a whole lot.
And then an instruction book.
Yeah, extra key caps, warranty, via.
Oh, wow.
They actually tell you how to use via though.
A lot of people in the mechanical keyboard community
love customization.
And the fact that they've included this
for anyone who hasn't used via before is kind of nice.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting that.
So here's the board.
Well, the layout itself is fine,
but I don't like this edge on the metal here.
I would much prefer to honestly, at this point,
remove this extra lip,
but otherwise you end up with this like tray.
I'd much rather that the housing came all the way up
and covered all of this.
So that you'd have like a metal layer
that just goes right around here.
It's an aluminum top.
And then you've got a steel plate
with the bottom being made out of plastic and it's fine.
It doesn't really flex around
because of all the metal in there.
But if you're looking for like a much heavier build
or something with like a bar on the bottom and all that,
it's not gonna be quite at that level.
2.865 pounds.
So it's just shy of three pounds, which isn't crazy heavy.
So you've got feet.
I'm always a fan of feet, especially with two modes.
You're gonna do the,
big guys or the little guys for different typing angles.
One minor quality issue that I'm not crazy about
is you can see how there's like a connection here
on each of the corners.
So it's not one giant piece of milled aluminum for the top.
You've got a Windows and Mac switch,
and then you've got a BT off or cable.
It's a little thick on bottom.
That's because there's a big battery in here.
And it's, I think 4,000 milliamp hours,
which nets you something like a hundred hours
on time if you've got the Bluetooth running and RGB on.
So that's not bad.
Like a hundred hours is quite a long time.
Oh, I turned it on.
Hey, look at all the RGB.
Yeah, tab works.
Turns the backlight on or off.
If then Q cycles through modes.
Sweet.
As you can see,
there's kind of a lot going on in this board
and they've got a little ARM processor built in.
That's probably to handle everything it's got going on.
Like the RGB, the Bluetooth connection, the QMK firmware.
One small issue on the key caps is they're not shine through.
Which is fine for some people, but in the dark,
it's actually a lot easier to type
if you can see the light underneath your keys.
The typing experience is not bad.
These are just Browns, the new Gateron G Pro Browns.
And I like them.
I'm not crazy about them.
I feel a little scratchy.
I think they're pre-lubed,
but could go for a heavier lube.
Yeah, they're just Browns.
One small thing to note that I completely forgot about
until I took the switch off
is it's all south facing RGB as well.
So if you care about that,
that's a big plus for some people.
A lot of people don't like
north facing RGB
because they find it doesn't shine
through everything as well.
So you can get this fully assembled
with just a white backlight
using one of any of the three switches that they offer.
And it's, you know, it's your stereotypical
like red, blue, or Brown Gateron options.
That's 89 bucks.
That's a good deal.
Now that being said,
this one's got the aluminum frame
and it's got a full RGB backlight.
So this one is 110.
Getting something like this at 400, $110
is just such a better buy,
at least in my opinion,
than going with like,
Corsair or Logitech or Razer
or anyone else who is like a more major name brand,
gaming brand,
who's making their own mechanical keyboard.
Those guys are kind of catching up a little bit
in terms of features like hot swap
and adding foam and stuff to the board,
but they're still not there.
Like I'll never tell someone to buy a Corsair board.
I'm sorry, Corsair.
I like a bunch of your products.
I just don't like your keyboards.
It's okay.
Love Fox standards.
.
This one, the more expensive one,
does have a nice layer of silicone on the bottom.
We saw the same thing in that mountain board
was a big layer of silicone on the bottom.
And I'm wondering if we're honestly going to start seeing
more enthusiast boards that are like full kits
come with a big silicone layer for the base.
And then you've got some foam under the PCB, I believe,
and screw in stabilizers, which is really nice.
If you do want to change them for,
if you have your own like just cherry style stabilizers,
you can do that.
The quality on them is okay.
They're probably not clipped or lubed or anything,
but like, it's not bad.
It's pretty cool keyboard.
I really like it.
And we should probably plug it in and try typing on it.
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125, 100%, that's pretty good.
In terms of length for our banana for scale,
it's basically your average TKL length,
which I don't know the exact centimeters,
but it's like one and like a half banana.
It's almost a full-size keyboard, but 10 keys less.
So the keys, like the regular keys are fine,
but the space bar makes a very distinct,
like it is actually a pretty distinct thock.
And I noticed it every time I would hit the space bar
when typing on this test.
I'm very torn on.
I love the way the space bar sounds.
I just kind of wish the rest of the keys
sounded more like it as well.
It's just the way the stabilizers are lubed
and stuff probably.
Okay, so download, show design tab, on, load my JSON file.
JSON V2, cool.
We've got like four layers that we can alter.
They're already kind of preset a little bit, but it's sweet.
You can just like reassign keys to whatever you want,
make up a bunch of macros and lighting and stuff like that.
Oh, and there's a bunch of presets too,
like media, macro, special, QMK lighting.
You can use all of this stuff or just go full custom.
I don't bother usually personally, but it's there.
It's an option for anyone who wants a good wireless keyboard,
who wants a good mechanical, hotkey keyboard,
hot swap wireless keyboard with QMK and VIA functionality.
This is like basically it.
They're saying it's the world's first.
I don't know if that's 100% true.
I haven't really been able to find anything else
that's comparable to that point
where they've got all the same features.
So yeah, maybe.
Honestly, if they can do that,
then I hope that we see more of them down the line
from both Enthusiast Boards and other companies,
because I have respect for all these other companies.
I just wish that they would kind of keep up
with the times a little bit better,
especially at $110,
especially if you don't need a numpad,
and especially if you need Bluetooth.
And it works with Windows and Mac, no problem.
Just out of the box.
You know, there's a little switch on the side.
This thing just, it just does it all.
I love this thing.
I would change the key caps probably.
I would probably change the switches as well.
That's not hard when you've got hot swap.
Like it's great.
I really like it.
I don't want one,
but I wouldn't be unhappy if someone gave it to me
for a Christmas gift or something like that.
Like it's great.
There you guys have it.
That's the K8 Pro from Keychron.
Really nice keyboard.
I think it's a great value for the price.
And if you want to check out any other short circuits,
check out the Logitech one I did on the pop keyboard.
That was a lot of fun.
Not the best keyboard, but you know,
it was an aesthetic and they went for it
and they kind of nailed it.
So check it out.