The World's Ugliest Keyboard
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,614 words · ~8 min read
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So this year at CES, the RGB craze was in full swing.
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Two years ago, it was keyboards.
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Last year, it was motherboards.
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This year, if you could hold it down long enough
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to slap an LED on it, it was RGB.
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Memory, SSDs.
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Someone's probably making RGB cables at this point.
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But the thing about the RGB craze
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is that it's very polarizing.
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Some people love it and some people hate it,
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which got me thinking,
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what if there was some way
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that we could tastefully improve RGB products
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so that nobody could dislike them?
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And then it came to me.
0:38
More bling.
0:49
If you haven't seen Nerd Sports yet, check it out.
0:52
All the episodes are available now for free
0:55
over at youtube.com slash channelsuperfun.
0:59
So for those of you who watched the intro
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and were wondering, what the hell is that thing?
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I've got the answer for you.
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It is the...
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Mechanical keyboard with LED backlight.
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Made in China.
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Though the manufacturer seems to be a little bit confused
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because this is clearly not a keyboard.
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What it actually is is a set of key caps
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for a mechanical keyboard.
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So we're gonna have to go to the Amazon page
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to get a little bit more detail here.
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Ah, here we go.
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Okay, so it's the E-Element PBT
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double shot injection key cap set.
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And it's available in the gold I showed you already,
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or, and yes, we bought both of them,
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this flashy silver set.
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And I gotta say, I was pretty impressed.
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I mean, PBT double shot injection.
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These are good quality key caps, at least on the surface.
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We haven't opened the box yet.
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And as long as you can get over the aesthetic
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for a full set, 25 bucks, that's a pretty good value.
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But of course, like fine wine,
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if you don't pair it with the right food,
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then you're just getting wasted in your sister's basement,
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complaining about whatever.
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Whatever it is that's hard in your life.
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So we needed to find ourselves a keyboard.
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And this one from G.Skill looks like a pretty good fit.
2:14
This is the KM570.
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It's got Cherry MX switches, in this case, browns,
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because yeah, dog, we're going for brown switches.
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It's got RGB backlighting on each key individually,
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and you can customize the lighting effects
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and all of that stuff.
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Oh yeah, did I mention these key caps do have Windows?
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So they have a lighting pass-through for the letters.
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And finally, it features a completely bog standard layout.
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Which is not great,
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if you like something customized
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about your keyboard experience,
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like macro keys or like, oh, I don't know.
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I can't think of too many things
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that I actually like changed about my keyboard.
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So if you really like short shifts or something like that,
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then it's not great for that.
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But it is good for being able to buy
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cheap key cap replacement sets
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and have some hope of them actually fitting.
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Okay, so all that's left now then
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is to open one of these bad boys up.
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Here's my knife.
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And wait, we still have to choose which one, gold or silver.
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So you guys let me know in the comments below
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which one you want me to put on.
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Quick, you've got five seconds, go vote.
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Who are we kidding?
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There's no way to vote, this isn't live.
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All right, let's go ahead and open up the gold one here.
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I realize I'm risking accidentally slashing
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our dbrand skinned gold background,
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but I don't think we've ever been tempted
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to use it before anyway.
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So I'm not gonna stress you.
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Oh wow, this would have been a lot better
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to keep in the plastic than I would have been able to.
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That would have been faster, yep.
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No one gets mad at me for cutting towards myself.
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You realize that yes, I am under the knife,
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but the force is being applied in this direction.
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See, now I'm cutting towards myself.
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Totally different.
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Okay, so here we go.
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And we're done.
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You hear that sound?
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That's the sound of a knife.
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That's the sound of a knife.
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That's the sound of a knife.
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That's the sound of a knife.
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That's the sound of an upgraded keyboard.
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Now, there are a few things we still need.
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I overlooked that this keyboard does actually have
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four extra keys in the top right,
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but I had a brilliant idea.
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At least I think it was brilliant.
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I'm gonna grab the arrow keys from the silver one
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and add just a little bit more flare.
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So mute can be volume down.
5:00
That's right.
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Volume down can be left arrow, which is here.
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Oh, man.
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Yes.
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Volume up can be right arrow, which is here.
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No, which is here.
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Yes.
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And memory, because this keyboard is programmable,
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can be this bad boy right here.
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Volume up, which I think I said before.
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Okay, so last two things we're gonna need then
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are a keyboard or a computer to plug this bad boy into
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and this cloth, which you'll be keeping next to your keyboard,
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which you'll be keeping next to your keyboard,
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from now until forever,
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if you want it to retain its gorgeous, like new shine.
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Here we go, moment of truth time.
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Is it going to be beautiful?
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Oh, oh, oh, it's awful.
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If that is not the world's most amazing keyboard,
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I really and truly do not know what is.
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Holy Christ.
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Crap.
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Oh, man, let's get it all dark and intimate in here.
6:18
Oh, okay, well, now it's just completely dark.
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Okay, how about that?
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How's that?
6:23
Okay, so now we've got the software installed
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and we'll have some footage overlaid
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of all the different profiles you can do.
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You can do solid colors.
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They've got some different effects.
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There's like a raining effect, ripple effect, wave effect,
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all kinds of good stuff.
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And you know what the most amazing part of all of this is?
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All this, this can be yours for less than $100.
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How long it'll last, that we don't know.
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Theoretically, double shot keycaps last pretty much forever.
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But what I noticed is that, well, what Luke noticed,
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he's actually our keycap expert,
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is that the thin foil coating over the top
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is actually not that durable.
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So it might not last for that long,
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but it'll look amazing in the meantime.
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Actually, Luke, come on over here.
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Thoughts?
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Perfect.
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Other than the scratches,
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I actually don't think that they could have made
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better looking keycaps.
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And the fact that they made it
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so the light comes through, impeccable.
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They're being completely sarcastic, right?
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Yes, I actually hate it.
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Those are actually the worst looking keycaps
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I've ever seen in my entire life.
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Okay, Ed?
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They are amazing.
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Okay, so there you have it.
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Have we achieved our goal of making RGB less polarizing?
7:42
No.
7:42
No, we have not.
7:44
But we had an awful lot of fun doing it.
7:47
So today we're talking about iFixit's latest
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7:53
It's been completely re-imagined.
7:55
You've never seen tools like this before,
7:57
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8:01
You've got the new 64-bit driver kit,
8:03
which is held in with magnets, which is amazing.
8:07
And a bunch of other tools that are wider in variety
8:10
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8:12
These pry tools that are pretty much impossible to break.
8:16
So whatever kind of project it is that you want to work on,
8:19
iFixit's got you covered.
8:21
You go over to their website,
8:22
you look at their fantastic step-by-step guides,
8:25
you head over to their store,
8:27
you buy their tools, which have a lifetime guarantee,
8:29
and you are pretty much set to start saving yourself money
8:33
by fixing things yourself.
8:36
And if you want to save a few bucks,
8:38
all you got to do is head over to iFixit.com slash Linus,
8:42
and use code LTT at the checkout
8:44
to save five bucks on your purchase of $10 or more.
8:48
So thanks for watching, guys.
8:49
If you just liked this video, hit that button.
8:50
If you liked it, hit the like button, get subscribed,
8:52
maybe even consider checking out where to buy.
8:55
I mean, you don't have to buy this.
8:56
You could buy something else.
8:57
The keyboard's really nice.
8:58
I don't know about the key caps.
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That's on you, but some people will like it.
9:02
We've got that linked in the video description.
9:04
You can buy it on Amazon.
9:05
Also linked down there is where you can buy cool shirts,
9:07
like the one that I'm wearing,
9:08
as well as our community forum,
9:09
which you should totally join.
9:10
Now that you're done doing all those things,
9:11
you should probably watch Luke's
9:14
ultimate key cap replacement guide,
9:16
where he goes through in much more detail
9:18
how to find not just shiny gold ones
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for just standard layout keyboards,
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but all kinds of different types of key caps
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to change your typing experience,
9:27
as well as to change the aesthetics of your keyboard
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in a way that you personally will find pleasing,
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because I'll admit, this is not for everyone.