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When ceramic keycaps first launched, I kickstarted those. I wanted a set so

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badly. So, when Keychron came out with a Q16 HE 8K, a 65% magnetic switch

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keyboard that is also, surprisingly, I don't know why they don't put this all

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over the box, but this is the world's first ceramic keyboard. That's right,

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there's no aluminum. Well, the plate? I don't know, we'll get to that.

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That was a really satisfying box slide off. Yeah, so it uses TMR magnetic

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switches. So, if you want four different actions per key, you can do that. So, it

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does like an action when you barely tap it and when it's fully depressed and then you can set different ones at

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different points. Like, a lot of the other HE Hall Effect keyboards that

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we've seen come out from like Wooting or whoever else. In the box, we've got our

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quick start guide. If you're a Windows user, please find the appropriate keycaps in the box, then follow the

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instructions below to find and replace them cuz it what? Shows up with Mac

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keycaps? What else we got? A really nice cloth, actually. This is like glasses

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cleaner level quality of cloth. They probably included this because ceramic

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is a fingerprint magnet. You will see

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smudges all over this thing if you're not careful, both on the keycaps and on

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the case. We've got a sleeved cable with ferrite bead. It's their 8K polling rate

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for 8 kHz gaming. Comes as a USB-C to C

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cable, but with a little handy C to A adapter. Always useful. I've got a

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couple of these just lying around at home cuz you never know when you're going to use a C to A adapter. Uh we've

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got a keycap and switch puller, which you're probably going to need cuz it's hot-swap. Little screwdriver. I love to

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see those. Some replacement looks like gaskets and a couple of screws or maybe

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feet, actually. These might be the feet. And what else we got? Some extra

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keycaps. These are our Windows keycaps. Very nice.

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That's right. They're ceramic. I got rid

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of my ceramic keycaps. I think I sold them to someone because while I really

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liked them for a lot of reasons, um I don't know if it was just the first revision that was done uh that had

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issues, but mine didn't always seat properly. And so, I'd be gaming and I'd

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go to hit control or alt or something and then it would like the keycap would come off with me as I pulled my finger

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off it. So, I think it caused me one or two deaths in Elden Ring and I said,

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"No, no more of this. I can't do it." But, this it feels so wild.

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>> It's so shiny that it almost looks cheap.

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>> Right? So, part of it does feel cheap, but in a really weird way. The thing

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about ceramic is it can look and feel plasticky depending on your materials

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used and how they're doing everything. Like, I'm not going to sit here and tell

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you I know how to make ceramics. I just know that they typically use like clay material along with some other organic

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material and center it at different uh heats. The the the palm or like finger

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feel definitely feels like you're touching plastic, but it feels like a

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very slippery high-end plastic. I don't exactly know how to explain it

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otherwise. The weight is about right, actually. We should probably weigh this thing.

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2.06 lb. So, it's definitely heavy

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enough that it doesn't feel like a cheap plastic keyboard. Like, this thing's got

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some weight to it uh and I really really like it. I also just love the blue.

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Like, this really dark kind of navy blue that they've gone with is beautiful. I

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love how shiny it all is, too. It's so weird. I don't know, ceramic is such an

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odd choice, but it's a choice they made and it's a choice they're sticking with and I am all for it cuz the price isn't

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even at all that absurd. Uh we'll get to it later, but it's under $300.

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And then uh talking about those smudges earlier, uh I've barely been I mean,

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I've been handling it more than most people would, I guess, but we've got some smudge action kind of already

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happening here. And then so, that's going to happen to your keycaps as you type on them as well, especially cuz you

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know you're going to be actually touching these all the time. The other thing to know is the material they went

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with is softer than glass. So, you want to be careful with your coffee mugs.

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This is like, "Oh, I don't know." And you just hit the corner or something

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and then like this whole part just cracks open or something like that. It'd be wild. As for the layout in the

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keyboard itself, it's a 65% so, it should be pretty familiar to most of

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you. You've got pretty much everything you need with like your delete and page

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up, page down, arrow keys. And then if you want like all of your F row, you

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just hit function and whatever number corresponds with that.

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On the bottom, there's not a whole lot going on, which I'm kind of a fan of.

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There's been a lot of fancy weights and stuff recently and uh what I like is

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they've just got this like kind of divot running right through the center here.

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And then uh the feet are nice and I like that they gave me replacement feet. Uh

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and then as for our switch, we've got a little Windows and Mac switch and a

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USB-C. Boop. Is it openable?

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I don't see any screws and this is a diecast piece of ceramic and I don't see

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seams, either. Like, is this a unibody? Is this all one solid piece? We're going

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to find out after this word from our sponsor. Thanks to MSI for sponsoring

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their Crosshair 18 HX AI laptop. Powered

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from its 18-in 240 Hz QHD Plus display.

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A 24-zone RGB keyboard illuminates your space in a way that screams, "Yeah, I'm

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a gamer." And with the ability to crank out 170 W of power thanks to their

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OverBoost technology, it scoffs in the face of CPU and GPU intensive games.

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Check it out today using our link in the description. After taking a couple

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keycaps off, you can see that they're magnetic linear ultra-fast lime

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switches, which, you know, feel pretty good. And they are hot-swap and I can

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see a little screw right there. I bet you I can

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pop these out and then it does look like this is one big shell and then you just

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pop the whole thing down in there. There's no case sandwiching or anything

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like that, which can be totally fine. Like, all the different mounting styles

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are, you know, they have their own merits. Yeah, let me take off just a

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couple more just to confirm, but there's probably

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like 1 2 3 4 5. There's probably something like six screws in here.

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I am genuinely afraid of like scratching this keyboard as I use this.

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Never. Yeah, they are in fact plate-mounted,

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can confirm. Ooh, they've got these nice little pieces of rubber here, too, to

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stop some extra noise. I like it. I like it. Yeah, one more screw here. So, it's

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probably three on the bottom, three on the top, maybe two more on the sides.

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I'm not sure, but uh man, that is slick.

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One thing about these ceramics Oh, these

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are different. On the first run, these were fully ceramic, if I recall

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correctly, because I remember hearing the like crunch as you were putting them

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onto your keyboard, which is a little disconcerting, but you know, it said

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it's compatible. I get I'm going to believe them. But, the problem is the tolerances uh have to be [music] perfect

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on those molds and that's why I was having keycaps like come off uh with my

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fingers as I'm lifting them up. They're sticking to it just a little bit and they're not really on there properly cuz

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they're too loose. So, what they've done, it looks like I'm not sure if this

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interior white >> [music] >> material is ceramic. It feels like it.

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Uh but either way, they've gotten they've gone and put these little plastic inserts into them so that they

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can actually fit properly on top of the stem. And the nice thing is plastic, you

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can make it a little too tight cuz it can stretch and bend and what and you know, not much, but it can. Whereas

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ceramic, yeah, ceramic's not going to do that, it's just going to shatter. So, that's really cool and I'm really happy

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to see this update. This is cool. I always love looking at Hall Effect switches, too. Just looks like a normal

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switch except it's a little different on the bottom here. You don't have those uh there's no pins. Instead, they've just

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got these two little pogo stands that you pop down into there. They're

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north-facing RGB, uh which is great if you've got shine-through keycaps. You

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probably won't see it a whole bunch on this board, but they're north-facing. Uh

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let me pop this guy back in here and then I'll fix my keycaps cuz I put them

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on in the wrong spots. I got so excited that I did it incorrectly.

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I think there's something about this sound that really resonates with me

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personally and I love it, but I think to some of you it's going to sound almost

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plasticky.

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Ah, I don't know. I really I Spacebar so deep.

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Also, like zero rattle.

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Maybe the tiniest bit.

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All right, let's plug it in. Boot it. Where's my north-facing RGB? I

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was promised it. Oh, it's on a like per type.

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Ah, wow. I love the way it's coming up

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through the cracks and just kind of shining on the edges of the keycaps. It

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really makes for some like OSL kind of look with the object source lighting.

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I haven't been this excited about a keyboard in a pretty long time. And I think that I really want some of the

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revisions on the keycaps. I don't know if it's the same company. I don't know who's making the keycaps, but I like

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them and I want them and I'm so glad they fixed that issue I had. So, let's

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do a typing test.

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121.99. >> [sighs and gasps] >> With ceramics, your fingers almost stick

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on the keys as you like wiggle them around and that's partly just because of

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like the oils on your skin, I'm guessing, reacting with the material.

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Whereas like on a plastic, it does stick a little bit, but it's not the same. I

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don't know how to explain it. You got to try it for yourself. It's just got this like odd skin feel. And then on top of

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that, uh it's you typically cold because ceramic like I don't know what it is

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about plastic, but these plastic keycaps, I mean, it's okay, to be fair,

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they're in a laptop, so those are heated up by the laptop, but even on a keyboard

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like my keycaps always feel room temp, whereas these feel ever so slightly

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cold. And like the funny thing is I normally dislike when a spacebar sounds

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vastly different from the rest of the keys, but because this is such a subtle,

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nice and low deep kind of thock, it sounds like it complements it instead of

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having that like >> [music] >> high-pitched hollow spacebar sound. Oh,

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actually, I want to check the spacebar and I want to see if it's got anything inside. It does. Ah, I knew it. It's got

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just a couple of little foam inserts here just to help it with the hollowness

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that most spacebars experience. And again, yeah, they've got this big insert

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[music] for the plastic to actually fit on here nicely.

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I told myself I wasn't buying any more keyboards. I really did.

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>> [laughter] >> But this is like this is perfect. The

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colorway fits me perfectly. I love dark blue. It could fit on my desk. I like a

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65%. I love that the ceramic looks and

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feels so good. I like how shiny it is. Like it looks plastic shiny. Like

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And I wasn't lying to you. It's only 220 bucks if you buy it on Kickstarter. 230

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regular price if you miss out on that. I think when I first bought my ceramic

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keycaps, they were I mean they're keycaps, but I think that was like 150

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bucks by themselves or something. It was expensive. And yeah, those felt more

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premium than the Q16 HE, but if the quality went up, I expect the price

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would as well. And the best part is at that $220 price, you're getting

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everything. Same with the 230, you're getting your keyboard fully assembled, keycaps, switches, everything. So, you

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don't have to spend 200 bucks on a board and then, you know, another 80 bucks on

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switches and 50 to 150 on keycaps after that. You're set. Yeah, it's 8 kHz. We

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tested it. It definitely pulls at 8 kHz. And on top of that, the latency is super

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good. I think the max we saw was like 1.47 milliseconds, which is for a max

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number, like that's great. And they've even got their own version of Snap Tap called Rapid Trigger. It'll reset right

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when you take your finger off of it. And if you're pressing two keys at the same

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time, it'll take the input from the deeper one. So, if you're resting your

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hand a little too heavily, but you know, this key is definitely actually being

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pressed and the others are just kind of being pressed, it'll actually take the input that you want. This thing's got

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pretty much everything I'm looking for. And I don't need another 65%, so I'm

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probably not going to buy it personally, but if they make the same keyboard in

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like a 104 key full size board, maybe a weird condensed layout, I could be

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enticed. And I could also be enticed to watch another video from ShortCircuit,

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like the Pixel keyboard. That thing's not the Flux, but it's close enough.

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Will the Flux ever come out? Probably not.

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Who the Flux knows? >> [laughter] >> That was pretty good.

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Goodbye.