WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.290 (board clapping) - I don't know how people do it with one hand. 00:00:03.290 --> 00:00:06.910 Okay, when this arrived at the office, Tyler brought it up to my desk and he thought 00:00:06.910 --> 00:00:11.470 that someone had sent us a big chocolate bar because this box is so cool. 00:00:11.470 --> 00:00:15.120 This is not a chocolate bar. This is instead one of the coolest keyboards 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:18.800 that I've ever felt in my life. But the box makes it look like candy 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:23.880 'cause it's called the Candy Bar keyboard, specifically, this is the Candy Bar premium, 00:00:23.880 --> 00:00:27.319 and it's actually a kit that you use to build the keyboard. 00:00:27.319 --> 00:00:34.100 This box is awesome. It actually has nutrition facts on the back. 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:37.120 How sweet is that? So you've got, it says the Candy Bar is protected 00:00:37.120 --> 00:00:41.960 by a one-year warranty. It has 62 switches because the size is 40%. 00:00:41.960 --> 00:00:47.380 It's a 40% keyboard. That's a very small layout, smaller than a 10 keyless. 00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:50.780 Although this one does have a num pad, but only 40% of the size. 00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:55.170 Ingredients include a CNC milled and anodized aircraft grade aluminum case, 00:00:55.170 --> 00:00:58.170 FR four glass reinforced epoxy laminate copper, 00:00:58.170 --> 00:01:01.430 brushed aluminum switches of your choice and lots of love, baby. 00:01:01.430 --> 00:01:05.620 What a cool and cute box. (grunting) 00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:10.840 Oh look at that, and it's got this nice gold foil kind of box on the inside 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:16.487 from, of course, The Key Dot Company. It has a nice (sighs) 00:01:16.487 --> 00:01:19.363 (box flipping) a nice fit (sighs) feel that? 00:01:20.490 --> 00:01:26.900 We're gonna be here all day just playing with this. What I have in this box is not what you would receive 00:01:26.900 --> 00:01:31.250 if you ordered this, okay? As a bonus, they sent us this awesome keyboard, 00:01:31.250 --> 00:01:34.780 which normally comes disassembled, and you put it together yourself. 00:01:34.780 --> 00:01:39.050 Which is a great gateway drug, if you're trying to get your foot into the door 00:01:39.050 --> 00:01:44.530 of the enthusiast mechanical keyboard community. But we didn't have time for that, so the nice guy there, 00:01:44.530 --> 00:01:49.970 he actually put it together for us. So I'm about to pull out a keyboard 00:01:49.970 --> 00:01:51.370 that is completely assembled 00:01:56.890 --> 00:02:02.370 in pink. It is a striking looking board for actually lots of reasons, 00:02:02.370 --> 00:02:05.770 kinda a lot to take in, starting with the color. 00:02:05.770 --> 00:02:09.530 There are multiple color options, of course, we have to get pink, 00:02:09.530 --> 00:02:12.860 which is actually called Hubba Bubba, because Linus loves pink. 00:02:12.860 --> 00:02:16.330 Other options include Laffy Taffy, Mint Chip 00:02:16.330 --> 00:02:19.627 and black. Very nice. 00:02:19.627 --> 00:02:24.180 And then another thing that's weird is the num pad on this one is on the left, cause this is the lefty layout, 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:29.040 but you can get it with it on the right too. Then there's the split space bar. 00:02:29.040 --> 00:02:32.120 Now this is another thing that's optional when you're putting this all together, 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:36.800 depending on the key caps you get and everything. But I like that because I think it's more ergonomic 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:40.210 to use your strongest digits, to do a lot of the heavy lifting 00:02:40.210 --> 00:02:44.320 like space bar and backspace. I just, backspace is way up there. 00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:48.630 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, 00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:53.190 it's not even the look that catches you off guard, it's actually the weight. 00:02:53.190 --> 00:02:56.930 This thing is like a weapon, man. The whole thing is aluminum. 00:02:56.930 --> 00:03:01.180 It's crazy. This is the candy bar premium package, 00:03:01.180 --> 00:03:04.600 with a full aluminum case and plate inside. 00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:07.980 And you could just kill a man with this thing. It's insane. 00:03:07.980 --> 00:03:11.480 3.62 pounds, what is that in sensible- 00:03:11.480 --> 00:03:16.750 1,642 grams. And it's a 40% keyboard, that is crazy. 00:03:16.750 --> 00:03:20.680 There's a ton of keyboards that just crack 1,000 grams. 00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:24.040 This thing is like three times heavier than most keyboards, 00:03:24.040 --> 00:03:27.400 insane. Like if this were a cheapo keyboard like we see 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:32.120 in some of the roundups that we've done in LTT, it would be like 500 grams and you'd be able to bend, 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:35.430 you can't bend this at all. It's metal. (piece hitting table) 00:03:35.430 --> 00:03:40.870 Oh God. (laughs) That actually brings me to a, 00:03:40.870 --> 00:03:45.100 a thing I have to disclose here, which is you may have seen in my little typing test 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:49.000 that I was kind of avoiding hitting the space bar key, and that's because 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.730 they're not really going on there very well. And they don't sound as good. 00:03:52.730 --> 00:03:55.790 Like here's a normal key, (key clicking) 00:03:55.790 --> 00:04:01.623 very crisp and consistent. And then we get to the space ones, (key clicking) 00:04:02.809 --> 00:04:05.392 (key clicking) 00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:11.720 they're all different. And so here's why, these are prototypes. 00:04:11.720 --> 00:04:15.870 And since they sent this board to me, they've retooled it and fixed this issue. 00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:20.870 But basically like this one has like plastic in here 00:04:21.520 --> 00:04:25.270 just to keep it on there because it doesn't quite sit right. 00:04:25.270 --> 00:04:30.160 And it's a little bit askew as you can see, but I don't think that will be an issue 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:33.480 for people who buy this. It's not like these things are just flying off, okay. 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:36.880 But that's a good opportunity for us to check out what's underneath them. 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:41.340 These are tangerines. They're a linear switch that just swept the category 00:04:41.340 --> 00:04:44.430 in our recent blind key switch challenge video. 00:04:44.430 --> 00:04:50.120 And for good reason, they're just like the smoothest switch in the game. Now of course, these switches and these key caps 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:55.570 do not come with this keyboard, but they are optional additions that you can get. 00:04:55.570 --> 00:04:58.700 And I recommend them, they're awesome. But let's pop a couple more key caps off 00:04:58.700 --> 00:05:01.950 so we can start to get an idea of what it would look like 00:05:01.950 --> 00:05:05.430 if you did buy this, instead of having them send you 00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:09.380 a completely built one. So I'm gonna start by taking off the enter key 00:05:10.930 --> 00:05:12.370 because that lets us see 00:05:14.810 --> 00:05:17.303 this pink aluminum plate below. 00:05:18.770 --> 00:05:24.530 And you can also see this black screw right here. That's what's holding the plate to the PCB. 00:05:24.530 --> 00:05:26.543 And if I take out one of the switches, 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:30.623 you can see the PCB under there. 00:05:32.280 --> 00:05:35.280 That is a matte black PCB. 00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:41.320 And there's actually some white silk screened on there. And the white is just instructional stuff 00:05:41.320 --> 00:05:45.070 to help you build it. It literally says like this side up. 00:05:45.070 --> 00:05:50.170 So it's a really a great beginner board if you've never ordered any kind of kit like this before, 00:05:50.170 --> 00:05:54.030 and you wanna try your hand in putting it together, this is really an easy one to do it with. 00:05:54.030 --> 00:05:59.140 So you're given an empty case like this, some standoffs that you put the PCB on, 00:05:59.140 --> 00:06:03.480 then you put on the plate with these screws that I showed you and then you put in the switches 00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:06.353 and they're just kale hot swap sockets. 00:06:07.196 --> 00:06:11.043 So it's real easy, the keys like this just plop right in. 00:06:12.727 --> 00:06:16.970 And that's a standard, so there's lots of lots and lots and lots of different key switches that'll fit in there. 00:06:16.970 --> 00:06:22.650 And then you get your key caps and of course you get whatever color you want and you can just totally customize 00:06:22.650 --> 00:06:27.220 a board that you think is wicked. Oh, and then after you're done assembling it, 00:06:27.220 --> 00:06:31.910 you're not quite done because you actually need to program the layout that you've chosen. So you know, see on this one, 00:06:31.910 --> 00:06:34.940 the arrow keys are all broken up and weird, but it doesn't have to be like that. 00:06:34.940 --> 00:06:39.160 You can put the key caps wherever you want. And then you program that QMK firmware 00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:42.810 and flash the firmware on the board to do whatever you want it to do. 00:06:42.810 --> 00:06:48.040 It might sound a little daunting, but it's not that hard. There's lots of tutorials and tools to use online. 00:06:48.040 --> 00:06:51.850 These key caps that are on here are dye sublimated key caps. 00:06:51.850 --> 00:06:56.790 So they won't fade. They won't get shiny from the grease on your hands. 00:06:56.790 --> 00:07:00.070 And these actually are a pretty good color match as well. 00:07:00.070 --> 00:07:06.560 And one of the things that's not included in the box are these stabilizers. These are GMK screw-in stabilizers. 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:10.580 They are designed to the cherry spec and they are sold separately. 00:07:11.656 --> 00:07:15.810 And finally, though there is a USB-C port for a cable, 00:07:15.810 --> 00:07:19.340 there is not one in the box. Kind of a drag, 00:07:19.340 --> 00:07:23.957 but that's another thing that you can customize. You can get a nice curly cable or something cool. 00:07:23.957 --> 00:07:27.763 So now you'll notice on the website that you get these through group buys, 00:07:27.763 --> 00:07:33.450 and right now it's closed. But I'm told that there's gonna be more stock in April 00:07:33.450 --> 00:07:38.410 and that it shouldn't really be affected too much by the global pandemic right now. 00:07:38.410 --> 00:07:43.415 So if you're interested in this kind of thing, I recommend checking it out on their site and really, 00:07:43.415 --> 00:07:49.220 you really gotta feel it to believe it. They're very cool, if you've got the cash 00:07:49.220 --> 00:07:53.210 to dabble in this hobby. (keys clicking) Very nice, 00:07:53.210 --> 00:07:58.566 nice gift idea, too. (keys clicking) You know, like your your dad has everything already. 00:07:58.566 --> 00:08:00.193 (keys clicking) He doesn't have one of these, 00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:04.970 probably like the Laffy Taffy one. So thanks for watching ShortCircuit today, guys. 00:08:04.970 --> 00:08:09.040 If you like this kind of stuff, subscribe, and if you like enthusiast keyboard stuff, 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:13.090 let us know in the comments because we almost never cover this kind of stuff on any of our channels. 00:08:13.090 --> 00:08:15.033 So if you want us to dive deeper, 00:08:16.811 --> 00:08:20.493 sound the alarm. Let us know. 00:08:22.820 --> 00:08:23.670 See ya next time.