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(board clapping) - I don't know how people do it with one hand.

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Okay, when this arrived at the office, Tyler brought it up to my desk and he thought

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that someone had sent us a big chocolate bar because this box is so cool.

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This is not a chocolate bar. This is instead one of the coolest keyboards

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that I've ever felt in my life. But the box makes it look like candy

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'cause it's called the Candy Bar keyboard, specifically, this is the Candy Bar premium,

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and it's actually a kit that you use to build the keyboard.

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This box is awesome. It actually has nutrition facts on the back.

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How sweet is that? So you've got, it says the Candy Bar is protected

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by a one-year warranty. It has 62 switches because the size is 40%.

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It's a 40% keyboard. That's a very small layout, smaller than a 10 keyless.

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Although this one does have a num pad, but only 40% of the size.

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Ingredients include a CNC milled and anodized aircraft grade aluminum case,

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FR four glass reinforced epoxy laminate copper,

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brushed aluminum switches of your choice and lots of love, baby.

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What a cool and cute box. (grunting)

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Oh look at that, and it's got this nice gold foil kind of box on the inside

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from, of course, The Key Dot Company. It has a nice (sighs)

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(box flipping) a nice fit (sighs) feel that?

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We're gonna be here all day just playing with this. What I have in this box is not what you would receive

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if you ordered this, okay? As a bonus, they sent us this awesome keyboard,

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which normally comes disassembled, and you put it together yourself.

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Which is a great gateway drug, if you're trying to get your foot into the door

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of the enthusiast mechanical keyboard community. But we didn't have time for that, so the nice guy there,

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he actually put it together for us. So I'm about to pull out a keyboard

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that is completely assembled

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in pink. It is a striking looking board for actually lots of reasons,

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kinda a lot to take in, starting with the color.

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There are multiple color options, of course, we have to get pink,

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which is actually called Hubba Bubba, because Linus loves pink.

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Other options include Laffy Taffy, Mint Chip

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and black. Very nice.

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And then another thing that's weird is the num pad on this one is on the left, cause this is the lefty layout,

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but you can get it with it on the right too. Then there's the split space bar.

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Now this is another thing that's optional when you're putting this all together,

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depending on the key caps you get and everything. But I like that because I think it's more ergonomic

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to use your strongest digits, to do a lot of the heavy lifting

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like space bar and backspace. I just, backspace is way up there.

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I don't like reaching up there with my pinky. It's just a waste. But when you have this thing in front of you in person,

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it's not even the look that catches you off guard, it's actually the weight.

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This thing is like a weapon, man. The whole thing is aluminum.

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It's crazy. This is the candy bar premium package,

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with a full aluminum case and plate inside.

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And you could just kill a man with this thing. It's insane.

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3.62 pounds, what is that in sensible-

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1,642 grams. And it's a 40% keyboard, that is crazy.

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There's a ton of keyboards that just crack 1,000 grams.

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This thing is like three times heavier than most keyboards,

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insane. Like if this were a cheapo keyboard like we see

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in some of the roundups that we've done in LTT, it would be like 500 grams and you'd be able to bend,

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you can't bend this at all. It's metal. (piece hitting table)

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Oh God. (laughs) That actually brings me to a,

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a thing I have to disclose here, which is you may have seen in my little typing test

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that I was kind of avoiding hitting the space bar key, and that's because

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they're not really going on there very well. And they don't sound as good.

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Like here's a normal key, (key clicking)

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very crisp and consistent. And then we get to the space ones, (key clicking)

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(key clicking)

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they're all different. And so here's why, these are prototypes.

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And since they sent this board to me, they've retooled it and fixed this issue.

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But basically like this one has like plastic in here

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just to keep it on there because it doesn't quite sit right.

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And it's a little bit askew as you can see, but I don't think that will be an issue

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for people who buy this. It's not like these things are just flying off, okay.

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But that's a good opportunity for us to check out what's underneath them.

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These are tangerines. They're a linear switch that just swept the category

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in our recent blind key switch challenge video.

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And for good reason, they're just like the smoothest switch in the game. Now of course, these switches and these key caps

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do not come with this keyboard, but they are optional additions that you can get.

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And I recommend them, they're awesome. But let's pop a couple more key caps off

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so we can start to get an idea of what it would look like

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if you did buy this, instead of having them send you

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a completely built one. So I'm gonna start by taking off the enter key

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because that lets us see

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this pink aluminum plate below.

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And you can also see this black screw right here. That's what's holding the plate to the PCB.

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And if I take out one of the switches,

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you can see the PCB under there.

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That is a matte black PCB.

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And there's actually some white silk screened on there. And the white is just instructional stuff

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to help you build it. It literally says like this side up.

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So it's a really a great beginner board if you've never ordered any kind of kit like this before,

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and you wanna try your hand in putting it together, this is really an easy one to do it with.

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So you're given an empty case like this, some standoffs that you put the PCB on,

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then you put on the plate with these screws that I showed you and then you put in the switches

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and they're just kale hot swap sockets.

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So it's real easy, the keys like this just plop right in.

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And that's a standard, so there's lots of lots and lots and lots of different key switches that'll fit in there.

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And then you get your key caps and of course you get whatever color you want and you can just totally customize

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a board that you think is wicked. Oh, and then after you're done assembling it,

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you're not quite done because you actually need to program the layout that you've chosen. So you know, see on this one,

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the arrow keys are all broken up and weird, but it doesn't have to be like that.

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You can put the key caps wherever you want. And then you program that QMK firmware

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and flash the firmware on the board to do whatever you want it to do.

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It might sound a little daunting, but it's not that hard. There's lots of tutorials and tools to use online.

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These key caps that are on here are dye sublimated key caps.

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So they won't fade. They won't get shiny from the grease on your hands.

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And these actually are a pretty good color match as well.

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And one of the things that's not included in the box are these stabilizers. These are GMK screw-in stabilizers.

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They are designed to the cherry spec and they are sold separately.

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And finally, though there is a USB-C port for a cable,

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there is not one in the box. Kind of a drag,

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but that's another thing that you can customize. You can get a nice curly cable or something cool.

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So now you'll notice on the website that you get these through group buys,

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and right now it's closed. But I'm told that there's gonna be more stock in April

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and that it shouldn't really be affected too much by the global pandemic right now.

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So if you're interested in this kind of thing, I recommend checking it out on their site and really,

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you really gotta feel it to believe it. They're very cool, if you've got the cash

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to dabble in this hobby. (keys clicking) Very nice,

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nice gift idea, too. (keys clicking) You know, like your your dad has everything already.

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(keys clicking) He doesn't have one of these,

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probably like the Laffy Taffy one. So thanks for watching ShortCircuit today, guys.

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If you like this kind of stuff, subscribe, and if you like enthusiast keyboard stuff,

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let us know in the comments because we almost never cover this kind of stuff on any of our channels.

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So if you want us to dive deeper,

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sound the alarm. Let us know.

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See ya next time.