Ducky Shine 3 Ultimate LED Backlit Mechanical Keyboard
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,643 words · ~8 min read
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hotspot shield service makes your internet browsing safer more secure and
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fully private click now to learn more welcome to a long overdue unboxing and
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review this is the ducky shine three and as with any unboxing we're gonna start
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with the box itself and the content so the first thing you find is cardboard
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and oh wait no there's actually a keyboard in here that'll be important
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later in all likelihood we've also got some accessories including but not
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limited to a wasd set of keycap
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replacements all right we've also got a keycap puller in order to apply said
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replacements if we're not happy with the black ones that are already on there we've also got a usb a2 mini b cable
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that's wrapped up in a nice little cable management thing happens to be gold plated although that doesn't really
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matter and we've got a replacement space bar if we don't like the snake graphic
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on the stock space bar last but not least so i guess we are limited to the
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things that i just found we have a registration thing for your warranty as
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well as a user's manual which you will need
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so the keyboard itself i mean what is there to say that every
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other reviewer in the world hasn't said about ducky the build quality is
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immaculate there's almost no flex to the thing whatsoever it is extremely heavy
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the keys have a very satisfying sound to them just like you'd
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expect with a mechanical keyboard but it's even better with a solidly built
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mechanical keyboard and of course there's the stuff that you can't see
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such as the dual layer pcb that's inside and the uv coated laser printed abs key
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caps so those are pretty darn good as far as keycaps go there are better ones
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out there but they're generally considered to be aftermarket options on
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the back of the unit we find four rubber pads so that it doesn't slip around on
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you as well as two little risers if you prefer to have a bit more of an angle to
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your keyboard we've also got cable routing options for the detachable usb
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cable so it can come out straight to the right or to the left whatever you prefer
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we also find our serial number on the serial number on the back as well as
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some dip switches more on those in just
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a moment all right so while this might not be the most user friendly way to
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implement different you know control changes what these four little dip
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switches do is they disable the Windows key so it doesn't have like a gaming
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mode button on the front you can actually do that with a dip switch on the back you can actually swap control
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and caps lock you can swap Windows and
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alt placements and if you want to to be
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adventurous you can put it into demo mode which might be more useful for
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shopkeepers and less useful for individuals who are buying the thing
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what demo mode does is it cycles through all the different lighting modes and
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stuff like that without actually any usb data going back and forth it just makes
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it take in power so it doesn't actually work in demo mode all right Linus it's a
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ducky so we know it's extremely well built but tell me about the features all
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right so it's available in either a 104 key or a 10k list that is to say without
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the number pad layout it's available in a variety of colors although we've only
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got blue here today so blue red green white magenta and orange for the led
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backlights and it's available in the kind of the standard for key switch type
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so that's brown red black and
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blue that nice clicky sound it has shortcuts for media keys although i
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think what ducky means by that is volume up volume down and mute because there's
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no play pause or or track skip or anything like that it also has and these
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are classic calculator computer email
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and internet shortcuts in the top right i actually kind of love that other than
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that most of the labels on the keys are just for controlling lighting and other
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advanced functionalities such as changing the repeat rate or how fast
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characters will appear when you hold down a key and changing the repeat delay
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or how long until repeating begins in practice a repeat delay above about 2x
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caused me to double press spacebar just while i'm typing but your mileage may vary on
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these very cool functionality there either way particularly for gaming
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overall the configuration is completely driverless but you will need the manual
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to set it up it's not too bad though i figured most of it out in about five
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minutes all right but that's just the regular features what about the lighting this is
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a shine well we'll start with the seven different modes which you cycle through
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by using function and f10
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number one which you just saw was a hundred percent on that self-explanatory
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you can adjust the brightness down here with the up and down arrows and function
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and that's about it in breathing you can use the arrow keys to adjust both the
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speed and the maximum brightness of the breathing effect the range is very wide
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and it should please pretty much anyone in wave mode you can adjust the speed
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and of the wave but not the actual brightness of the wave so that's what
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you can see right now and in snake marquee mode this one i actually quite
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like you can change just the speed of the snake but not the
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brightness and it crawls around on the keyboard like that in reactive mode you
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can change both the pressed and non-pressed brightness so you can either
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have the keys turn off and then fade back in as you type or you can have them
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be off and then turn on and fade away as you type i think this one and ripple are
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my personal favorites speaking of ripple both it and aurora are cool modes that
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send out patterns when you press on particular keys you can adjust the speed
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of either effect but only ripple can have the brightness adjusted so this one
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right here is aurora which always runs on full brightness so you can see it
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sends out horizontal waves now the space bar is a bit of a unique situation it
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only has uh or rather it has one blue
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led which matches the color of your keyboard and it has two RGB leds one on
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either side of the blue one so you can change the color effects of the space
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bar by using the insert home and page up
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along with function to achieve pretty much any color you could possibly want
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so it's r g and b and you can mix them
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in whatever way you find most pleasing or turn those ones off and then another
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option that you'll have by using the custom configurations here so let's go
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ahead and press function record one where we can turn on
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or off whichever keys on the keyboard we want so we can turn on
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everything let's say okay let's say for example you guys imagined so function
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record one let's say you guys imagined that i turned on everything except the
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space bar so i can either have that middle one illuminated or not
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illuminated and it's totally up to me whether to have it have some of the
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original color or none of it at all and then you can recall those by using so
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let's go ahead and stop recording by just pressing function cm1 or cm2 and
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that's on the f 11 and f12 keys now if you're anything
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like me and particularly the first time around if you get just overwhelmed at
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some point and you just want to go back to stock all you have to do is hold down
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both of the Windows keys for three seconds the keyboard flashes and boom
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you are back to factory settings and you can start tinkering again so the
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conclusion for this is pretty simple if you're looking for an extremely
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well-built keyboard that's available in a wide variety of configurations at
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least some of which you're bound to find pleasing and you want the best lighting
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features then i guess just go buy one with that said the shine 3 is not cheap
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it's well over a hundred dollars and given the spotty retail store
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availability you'll likely have to get it shipped to you so you're probably
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looking at a hundred and fifty dollar plus or minus investment it's probably
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going to last forever however so as long as you have the discipline to not run
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and buy more mechanical keyboards um it
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really is addictive then you may be able to justify the
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expense for the faster more satisfying typing experience that a mechanical
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keyboard provides and you can treat yourself to one that is particularly
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awesome as always guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you just
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like leave a comment let me know what your thoughts on mechanical keyboards in
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general and the shine 3 in particular and as always don't forget to subscribe
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