This wireless keyboard has THOCK! - Keychron K8 Pro
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
1,944 words · ~9 min read
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Do you ever wanna buy a nice wireless keyboard?
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One that you can customize with firmware
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and hot swappable keys and everything?
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The new Keychron K8 Pro has got
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just about everything you need.
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For those of you who don't know,
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Keychron's a keyboard company,
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and a lot of you in the comments are always saying,
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"'Hey, check out the Keychron, check out the Keychron,
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"'check out the Keychron.'"
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And you're right, I agree with you.
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I love Keychron, I think they're a great company,
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especially if you want something that's a little higher end,
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but still it's not enthusiast level.
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It's just a solid option,
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and it's someone that I typically recommend
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to my own friends for anyone who doesn't wanna wait
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six plus months for a group by the end.
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They've got a ton of features advertised on the box.
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They've got screw-in stabilizers, hot swappable,
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PBT key caps, I think they're double shot,
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via QMK and Bluetooth 5.1.
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Whoa, I love that sound.
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Cool, they've got a little guide here,
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an open source customizable keyboard
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for peak productivity.
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Ooh, okay, so yeah, here's our board.
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It's a TKL.
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Before we look at it any further though,
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let's take a look at what else is in the box.
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We have got
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a cable.
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Ooh, and they've got like a right angle connector.
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I actually wish more places did them
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because it's just a nice sleek look,
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especially, I think these guys have a side connector.
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Yeah, theirs is on the side,
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so that's gonna look great coming straight off of it.
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We've got a screwdriver, which is really teeny.
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We've got our other Windows keys,
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like Alt and Windows and stuff.
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This has got the Mac layout on it already.
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And key cap and switch puller.
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I think that's pretty much it.
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I think there's not a whole lot.
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And then an instruction book.
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Yeah, extra key caps, warranty, via.
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Oh, wow.
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They actually tell you how to use via though.
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A lot of people in the mechanical keyboard community
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love customization.
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And the fact that they've included this
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for anyone who hasn't used via before is kind of nice.
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Honestly, I wasn't expecting that.
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So here's the board.
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Well, the layout itself is fine,
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but I don't like this edge on the metal here.
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I would much prefer to honestly, at this point,
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remove this extra lip,
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but otherwise you end up with this like tray.
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I'd much rather that the housing came all the way up
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and covered all of this.
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So that you'd have like a metal layer
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that just goes right around here.
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It's an aluminum top.
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And then you've got a steel plate
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with the bottom being made out of plastic and it's fine.
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It doesn't really flex around
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because of all the metal in there.
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But if you're looking for like a much heavier build
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or something with like a bar on the bottom and all that,
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it's not gonna be quite at that level.
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2.865 pounds.
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So it's just shy of three pounds, which isn't crazy heavy.
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So you've got feet.
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I'm always a fan of feet, especially with two modes.
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You're gonna do the,
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big guys or the little guys for different typing angles.
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One minor quality issue that I'm not crazy about
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is you can see how there's like a connection here
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on each of the corners.
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So it's not one giant piece of milled aluminum for the top.
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You've got a Windows and Mac switch,
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and then you've got a BT off or cable.
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It's a little thick on bottom.
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That's because there's a big battery in here.
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And it's, I think 4,000 milliamp hours,
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which nets you something like a hundred hours
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on time if you've got the Bluetooth running and RGB on.
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So that's not bad.
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Like a hundred hours is quite a long time.
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Oh, I turned it on.
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Hey, look at all the RGB.
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Yeah, tab works.
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Turns the backlight on or off.
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If then Q cycles through modes.
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Sweet.
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As you can see,
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there's kind of a lot going on in this board
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and they've got a little ARM processor built in.
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That's probably to handle everything it's got going on.
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Like the RGB, the Bluetooth connection, the QMK firmware.
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One small issue on the key caps is they're not shine through.
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Which is fine for some people, but in the dark,
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it's actually a lot easier to type
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if you can see the light underneath your keys.
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The typing experience is not bad.
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These are just Browns, the new Gateron G Pro Browns.
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And I like them.
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I'm not crazy about them.
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I feel a little scratchy.
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I think they're pre-lubed,
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but could go for a heavier lube.
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Yeah, they're just Browns.
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One small thing to note that I completely forgot about
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until I took the switch off
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is it's all south facing RGB as well.
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So if you care about that,
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that's a big plus for some people.
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A lot of people don't like
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north facing RGB
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because they find it doesn't shine
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through everything as well.
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So you can get this fully assembled
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with just a white backlight
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using one of any of the three switches that they offer.
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And it's, you know, it's your stereotypical
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like red, blue, or Brown Gateron options.
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That's 89 bucks.
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That's a good deal.
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Now that being said,
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this one's got the aluminum frame
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and it's got a full RGB backlight.
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So this one is 110.
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Getting something like this at 400, $110
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is just such a better buy,
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at least in my opinion,
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than going with like,
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Corsair or Logitech or Razer
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or anyone else who is like a more major name brand,
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gaming brand,
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who's making their own mechanical keyboard.
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Those guys are kind of catching up a little bit
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in terms of features like hot swap
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and adding foam and stuff to the board,
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but they're still not there.
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Like I'll never tell someone to buy a Corsair board.
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I'm sorry, Corsair.
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I like a bunch of your products.
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I just don't like your keyboards.
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It's okay.
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It's okay.
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Love Fox standards.
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.
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This one, the more expensive one,
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does have a nice layer of silicone on the bottom.
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We saw the same thing in that mountain board
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was a big layer of silicone on the bottom.
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And I'm wondering if we're honestly going to start seeing
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more enthusiast boards that are like full kits
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come with a big silicone layer for the base.
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And then you've got some foam under the PCB, I believe,
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and screw in stabilizers, which is really nice.
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If you do want to change them for,
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if you have your own like just cherry style stabilizers,
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you can do that.
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The quality on them is okay.
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They're probably not clipped or lubed or anything,
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but like, it's not bad.
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It's pretty cool keyboard.
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I really like it.
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And we should probably plug it in and try typing on it.
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125, 100%, that's pretty good.
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In terms of length for our banana for scale,
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it's basically your average TKL length,
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which I don't know the exact centimeters,
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but it's like one and like a half banana.
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It's almost a full-size keyboard, but 10 keys less.
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So the keys, like the regular keys are fine,
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but the space bar makes a very distinct,
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like it is actually a pretty distinct thock.
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And I noticed it every time I would hit the space bar
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when typing on this test.
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I'm very torn on.
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I love the way the space bar sounds.
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I just kind of wish the rest of the keys
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sounded more like it as well.
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It's just the way the stabilizers are lubed
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and stuff probably.
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Okay, so download, show design tab, on, load my JSON file.
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JSON V2, cool.
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We've got like four layers that we can alter.
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They're already kind of preset a little bit, but it's sweet.
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You can just like reassign keys to whatever you want,
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make up a bunch of macros and lighting and stuff like that.
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Oh, and there's a bunch of presets too,
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like media, macro, special, QMK lighting.
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You can use all of this stuff or just go full custom.
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I don't bother usually personally, but it's there.
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It's an option for anyone who wants a good wireless keyboard,
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who wants a good mechanical, hotkey keyboard,
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who wants a good mechanical, hotkey keyboard,
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hot swap wireless keyboard with QMK and VIA functionality.
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This is like basically it.
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They're saying it's the world's first.
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I don't know if that's 100% true.
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I haven't really been able to find anything else
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that's comparable to that point
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where they've got all the same features.
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So yeah, maybe.
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Honestly, if they can do that,
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then I hope that we see more of them down the line
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from both Enthusiast Boards and other companies,
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because I have respect for all these other companies.
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I just wish that they would kind of keep up
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with the times a little bit better,
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especially at $110,
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especially if you don't need a numpad,
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and especially if you need Bluetooth.
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And it works with Windows and Mac, no problem.
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Just out of the box.
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You know, there's a little switch on the side.
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This thing just, it just does it all.
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I love this thing.
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I would change the key caps probably.
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I would probably change the switches as well.
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That's not hard when you've got hot swap.
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Like it's great.
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I really like it.
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I don't want one,
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but I wouldn't be unhappy if someone gave it to me
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for a Christmas gift or something like that.
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Like it's great.
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There you guys have it.
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That's the K8 Pro from Keychron.
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Really nice keyboard.
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I think it's a great value for the price.
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And if you want to check out any other short circuits,
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check out the Logitech one I did on the pop keyboard.
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That was a lot of fun.
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Not the best keyboard, but you know,
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it was an aesthetic and they went for it
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and they kind of nailed it.
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So check it out.