I'm a big heavy metal fan. So I'm always looking for the heaviest
and most metal keyboards imaginable. And when Keychron made the Q1HE Copper Edition,
I had to open it and take a look. This is the first time that it's actually
been kind of hard to unbox the product because while it might be only about four kilos,
it's in this really small form factor. Oh my God.
Sometimes when the suction happens, the keyboard comes off the table. That didn't happen at all.
Little quick start guide with some Switch DuToggle Bluetooth.
This is wireless. I think it's got a 4,000 milliamp hour battery.
But realistically, this thing's staying on your desk and it's never moving.
We've got a little combo switch key cap puller. We've got a little screwdriver.
What looks like maybe some extra gasket material or something and probably the feet right here
as well as an Allen key. And then we've got an actually nicely matching cable.
That's beautiful. Kind of coppery in color.
Comes with a USB-C to A adapter attached.
We've got our dongle along with another C to A adapter.
They really want to load you up with C to A adapters. And some copper colored key caps.
It's too bad these aren't copper. If the key caps were copper, admittedly this board would probably
not be the exorbitant price that it already is. It'd be several hundred dollars more.
Holy s**t. It's like actually kind of hard to lift with one hand.
Oh my God. Hold on, I'm gonna drop it from like an inch.
If you've used the Q1HE from Keekron before, it's basically the same thing,
except it's got a instead of aluminum case.
We've got a copper top and bottom case.
Now my one major complaint is this is the all copper
keyboard and they're using an aluminum plate in here. They could have at least used brass.
They chose not to probably for good reason. I don't think anyone even really prefers brass these days,
but you gotta stick to the bit. Otherwise, yeah, it's a Q1HE.
You've got TMR switches in here. Now with their dual rail design.
They've also got another double in here. They've got a double gasket mount system in play.
And along with that double gasket system, you're getting a ton of different foam layers.
So this thing should mute that sound as much as you desire.
And if you don't like it, it's a little too muted. You open it up and you take one of those layers out.
It'll still work. There's just less foam inside. This thing is mesmerizing.
It's really nice that the keycaps match the rest of the kit, but I really would prefer if these were metal.
So I highly recommend any enthusiast. If you do want to get this thing,
treat yourself to some nice metal keycaps.
We've got a tri-mode switch at the top, wired dongle and Bluetooth,
as well as a Windows and Mac toggle.
Right next to our USB-C port. The feet are already attached,
so I don't need the extra feet. They don't give you spares, which is nice.
Otherwise, these are all just cherry-profile keycaps,
PBT, die-sublimated, so you're not gonna get any shine-through or anything,
but it does have RGB, which we'll get to in a second. And I believe it's hot-swappable.
Look, let me take a look at these dual rail magnet design.
Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Well, yeah, that was nice and easy.
Very cool. All-effect switches, linear as per usual with all-effect.
These come pre-lib from the factory. Nice sound and feel okay.
And it looks like they've got south-facing RGB for anyone who wants south-facing instead of north.
Yeah, let me lift this up, too. I don't know if you can see the light.
Yeah, you can kind of see it.
Oh, it is. It really is.
Let's see how heavy it actually is. Wow, yep, four kilos, like I said.
Now imagine if you had metal keycaps on here. I know I've already said that, but I'm gonna say it again
because I bet you it would be even heavier. One feature I hadn't mentioned yet
is the rotary encoder knob. This is QMK via compatible.
Like, I think everything from keychron, if not everything, then basically everything.
And overall, it's just, it's gonna be, we're gonna get to the price later.
But it's a little hard to justify.
But you know, I can't really make up my mind until I type on it. And I can't type on it until I tell you about our sponsor.
One thing Bell mentioned actually is that it looks a bit more gold or yellow-y than real copper.
Like when you think of a copper, you think of kind of a penny, like more of a brown color.
And I agree, but in that case, you know,
maybe if you want an all gold keyboard, but you can't afford one
because that would be astronomically expensive. This is the one for you.
Another thing we researched quickly is the price of copper.
And it's only about $11 a kilo. So I get that a lot of the price goes into the molding
and machining all the metal and I'm surprised three times now, we'll get to it.
I promise it's just, it's not a low number. It's really not.
But we've got to do our typing test because that's what I do around here. All right, so it's a pretty typical Q1
with a chair style keycaps. So away we go.
Oh, I already, I'm restarting, I'm restarting, I'm restarting.
No, no, stop distracting me.
I want to say, I want to say sounds good, but I'm so close.
Woo, 1,200%, not a single mistake.
I did start over, I screwed up at the beginning, but that was a bad start.
So, you know, we get them all again sometimes. Honestly, it types pretty good.
It sounds great. The typing experience is pretty solid
and it even tested quite well also. Our wired latency is solid, same as with the dongle,
if you're gonna use 2.4 gigahertz. And then if you want Bluetooth, it actually tested pretty well.
You're obviously gonna have a lot more latency. We tested closer to 15 milliseconds or so with Bluetooth,
but I think that we normally measure like 20 plus.
So this is actually pretty solid, whether you want to use a wired or wirelessly.
And I mean, sure, it's not an eight kilohertz gaming keyboard,
but 1,000 Hertz is plenty fast enough. And all of the switches are TMR sensors,
so you can use their dynamic rapid trigger if you want to,
or any other similar like snap tap or whatever features
that you can dream of, it's gonna do it. I almost forgot to talk to you guys about the RGB.
Also the software, this thing does use Keychron software,
but like I said before, it's a VIA and QMK compatible. So pretty much whatever you want to do with it, you can do.
As for the RGB, mine's currently set to this green color that I think doesn't really go with this too much,
but it looks okay. It's south facing, it's a little dimmed, can I turn it up?
We're just using Keychron launcher, it's the web app. Hey, look at that.
It's actually pretty handy if you don't want to download anything. Brightness zero, that's why it looks so dim.
Oh, this is so much better. Now I actually really like the green. Green and gold looks pretty good.
Unlike previous keyboards with North facing RGB, you're not gonna be able to see it
through the top down very well. It might be a little hard to make out on camera,
but I swear, this is actually pretty bright now that I've turned the brightness up.
They've actually got a ton of different options for you
in their software. Yeah, once again, I'm actually really happy to see that this is just on the webpage,
instead of something you have to download and install. We've had trouble in the past
with other softwares from other companies, and they've got all the actuation distance options
that you can dream of. Oh, the default is set to default.
I'm setting it to gaming. You know I gotta do it to them.
One other thing that I didn't personally notice when I was looking at it is the screws are all visible.
I don't mind that. I think it's easy to get at them. And the reality is it's gonna be down like this
and you're never gonna see them anyway. What you will see is a hole in your wallet
because this thing costs $500.
I'm gonna let that sink in for a second. How much was a ceramic one?
Like 400? Regular price 230. Okay, that's not terrible.
It's really tough trying to decide
whether I think it's worth it or not. This one in particular at $500, no.
I mean, I just, I think that's kind of crazy.
Maybe if it also came with metal keycaps, maybe if there was gold in the board,
maybe if the knob was gold, I could see a value there. But as it is currently, I think the only people
that should probably buy this thing are people who are like massive enthusiasts
who need to own one of every like niche keyboard.
But as for the average person, I just, I can't say that I can justify spending
that much money on this. I don't honestly, I think I'd rather have the ceramic.
That one is at least like half the price roughly. So while you're spending more
on a niche material or feature, you're not spending like two times as much
as what the Q1HE normally costs. That keyboard, the base Q1HE,
I can recommend that all day long, no problem. Keychron makes a decent keyboard.
But the copper edition, oh, oh, it's so heavy though.
Man, the sheer weight of this keyboard.
When you like pick it up and you hold it with one hand
and you look at it on the desk, it's definitely something to behold.
And if you just want like a massive statement piece
and you've got the extra money to blow, okay, sure, maybe it's worth it to you.
But it's not worth it to me, ploof. But you know what is worth it?
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