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$150 For a Full Custom Keyboard!!! - Keychron Q1 - YouTube

Channel: ShortCircuit

[0]

- So I love keyboards.

[1]

I love mechanical keyboards.

[2]

And Keychron's pretty cool.

[4]

And they sent us the Q1,

[6]

which is their new 75% line.

[7]

It's got a badge up top.

[9]

I think you can change that for a rotary knob encoder

[11]

if you really want to.

[12]

And then the other big thing about it

[14]

is it's got these new Gateron Phantom switches,

[17]

which, I don't know, maybe they're cool,

[19]

maybe they're not.

[21]

But apparently they're better for RGB.

[23]

Only problem is they're color specific,

[26]

so if you want the blue ones, I hope you like clicky's.

[29]

The blue ones are clicky,

[30]

the reds are, I think linear, yeah,

[33]

and then browns are just tactile.

[36]

Oh, this one's open already. Sweet.

[38]

That's always good.

[40]

Quick start guide. Ooh.

[42]

Okay. So we've got just the standard stuff.

[44]

Here's a switch puller.

[46]

Here's a key cap puller.

[47]

You probably already have a lot of these already.

[52]

There's an Allen key.

[52]

It's probably for opening it.

[54]

What's this? Please be gentle,

[56]

and make sure to align the pins with the socket properly.

[58]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to bend pins,

[59]

but it's also pretty easy to just bend them back

[61]

if you, you know, jam it in there by accident.

[65]

User manual.

[66]

Ooh. They give you some 3M tape.

[68]

Can always use more 3M tape

[70]

for sticking stuff to other stuff.

[72]

Oh yeah.

[73]

Oh, that's nice and heavy.

[75]

I already like it. (laughing)

[78]

So, this is the fancy custom LTT1,

[80]

we got our own little badge,

[81]

and it's in like orange and white.

[86]

This is the...

[88]

The browns?

[89]

So there's three different switches.

[91]

They're these new Phantom switches

[92]

that are a little transparent, I guess.

[95]

So they make your RGB shine through a little differently.

[97]

The RGB in this board is south facing,

[101]

which is neat.

[102]

It's usually it's usually north facing,

[103]

or at least most of my keyboards are north facing.

[105]

- [Jono] What does that mean?

[106]

- It means that the RGB LED is on the bottom of the switch,

[108]

instead of on the top.

[110]

Flex is like nothing.

[111]

Like it's, you know, it's aluminum. That's fine.

[114]

Yeah, there's the little switch right there

[116]

between Windows and Mac.

[119]

So that's cool.

[122]

The bottom rubber feet are okay.

[125]

I would have liked having those little flippable ones

[127]

so that you can change the height or angle

[130]

depending on what your typing preference is.

[132]

So these Phantoms switches also come pre-lubed,

[135]

which I think is new for Gateron, they're usually not.

[138]

So it's just another nice little touch

[140]

that you're paying for.

[141]

Yeah, so the stabilizers are screw in.

[143]

I don't know if they've been lubed, but they sound okay.

[147]

They don't...

[148]

They rattle like a little bit,

[149]

but it's actually not that bad.

[151]

So you can probably just get some dielectric grease

[153]

and grease those up yourself if you really wanted to.

[156]

- [Jono] What kind of grease?

[157]

- Dielectric.

[159]

You can... (laughing)

[162]

Yeah, so I like lubing and filming switches and stuff.

[166]

Let's take a look and see what this one is.

[168]

I bet you it's the Browns.

[169]

Yeah, I actually prefer

[171]

when the case gives me a little bit more playroom.

[174]

Like it looks,

[175]

It looks great.

[176]

I like how every key goes right up to the edge, visually.

[179]

But then when you're trying to take them off,

[181]

if you want to start on a side, it's kind of a pain.

[182]

So usually you have to like start with the middle one.

[184]

Yeah, it's the Browns.

[185]

Yeah, so there's not much to see on the switch itself.

[188]

It's basically your average switch.

[189]

There's no side clips,

[191]

but the whole thing is hot swap.

[193]

It looks like there's room for side clips in here.

[195]

So yeah, it looks like

[196]

you can use pretty much any switch you want.

[198]

Hold on, I got some.

[201]

Lets throw like a tangerine in there.

[204]

Everyone likes the tangerines for some reason.

[207]

Cool. Yeah, all right.

[208]

You can fit basically whatever you want in there.

[210]

Let's take a look at the other ones.

[211]

I actually really want to see the blue one.

[213]

That's what I'm most excited about.

[214]

I'm not excited about the blue switches.

[216]

I hate clicky's.

[217]

But I bet you it feels really good,

[218]

even if it doesn't sound really good.

[219]

Oh, before we do that.

[220]

So you get some replacement screws for the bottom,

[223]

and they come in this nice, like brassy kind of color.

[226]

And then you get some extra key caps of course,

[228]

as per usual.

[230]

So if you want to swap between Windows and Mac.

[234]

Yeah, there's like a Windows key option.

[235]

Oh yeah, so this one actually came with Mac keys.

[238]

There's command and option, and stuff.

[239]

Super.

[241]

This is cool. I love when they always come

[242]

with like little extra ones.

[243]

Gotta love the orange penguin.

[245]

So yeah. But the...

[246]

What I'm really curious about is

[248]

they offer not only, like a coil,

[252]

but it's got aviator connectors on it too.

[255]

That's this...

[256]

So the aviator connector has this metal doodad here.

[259]

And so what you can do is you just line up the pins.

[262]

There we go.

[263]

And then you screw it closed.

[264]

Cool. So it is purely aesthetic.

[268]

Some people like them, some people don't.

[269]

- [Jono] But it's so cool.

[270]

- Yeah, it's so cool looking.

[272]

Basically, this makes it so that,

[274]

say you plug your keyboard in, right?

[276]

Where's the port on this one? Right here.

[278]

Say you plug your keyboard in,

[280]

and then you wanna just disconnect it,

[281]

but you don't want to have to reach

[283]

all the way back into your computer case

[286]

to like actually fully plug it out,

[289]

you can just unscrew this, pop it open,

[293]

and then leave that guy there.

[294]

Okay, let's look at the other ones.

[296]

Oh, that is heavy though.

[297]

That is nice.

[298]

See how much it weighs.

[299]

3.68 pounds. That's pretty good.

[302]

It's not super heavy.

[302]

I've felt like heavier keyboards.

[304]

Like if you get some of the really big custom boards

[307]

with the CNC plates can be like 5, almost 10 pounds.

[310]

Like I think my friend's keyboard

[311]

is like seven pounds or something stupid. (laughing)

[314]

So they also sent us,

[315]

I mean, we'll show you the other boards too,

[316]

but they also sent us a bunch of different key cap sets.

[318]

I'm not going to open all of these,

[319]

I'll just open a couple of them.

[320]

But they've got them all on their website,

[321]

so you can go and check 'em out before you buy them.

[324]

What I'm curious about though,

[325]

is how they've packaged them.

[327]

Oh yeah, this is nice.

[329]

Oh.

[330]

Yeah, so these will fit on any switch.

[332]

They're just your typical key caps,

[334]

they'll go on any cross pattern switch.

[336]

So yeah, we've got switches and a switch opener.

[339]

It's this fancy one from Gateron.

[340]

Oh, it's not blue!

[342]

Man, I was like, actually really excited

[344]

that this would be the same

[345]

kind of like pale blue on the box there.

[347]

That's fine. This thing looks cool.

[350]

- [Jono] Aw.

[351]

- It looks great. Yeah.

[352]

It's 25? So this is $25.

[354]

That's not bad, actually.

[355]

I honestly might pick one of these up.

[357]

These are the blue clicky's.

[359]

You can obviously tell.

[360]

They do feel good.

[362]

I actually really like this.

[363]

I think it's maybe a little much, extra on the packaging.

[367]

Like do they really need to house them in all these

[369]

instead of just a little bags? I don't know.

[371]

Yeah. So it's like $15 for 35 switches, which is fine.

[375]

Normally they can run anywhere from like 50 cents

[377]

to like a $1.10 or a $1.20 per switch.

[380]

Cool, so now that we've got these out of the way

[382]

and before I show you the other keyboards,

[383]

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[386]

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[410]

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[417]

Another black one.

[418]

I wonder if they only sent us black ones.

[420]

Actually, yeah it is, right?

[421]

That's the short circuit thing.

[423]

- [Jono] Yeah! Oh that's dope. - Yeah.

[425]

So it's great they sent us an LTT one.

[426]

Now they sent us a short circuit version as well.

[429]

I love this custom badge.

[430]

I don't know what you can get for options,

[433]

but I know that you can customize

[435]

a lot of the rest of the board.

[436]

You can even order a bare bones kit

[438]

that is basically just like the PCB, the case, the foam,

[441]

you have to order the switches and the key caps

[443]

and everything else separately.

[444]

It's actually pretty fun putting these together.

[445]

I would very much recommend getting a bare bones kit,

[448]

especially if you already

[449]

have your own switches and key caps.

[451]

I do love the color scheme.

[452]

This like, light blue with the purple.

[455]

But yeah, I want to see if they sent us

[456]

a different aluminum housing.

[460]

Ooh. Yeah, this is that space gray.

[464]

Yeah, I actually really like

[465]

this kind of off-white, yellowish tinge to it,

[468]

within like the gray on gray

[469]

and the LTT badge up there.

[471]

It looks great.

[472]

It's like just tactile enough that you feel a bump.

[476]

Go by your preference.

[477]

Don't let Keychron tell you what to do.

[479]

Do whatever you want.

[481]

That's the beautiful thing about mechanical keyboards,

[482]

it's all preference and style,

[484]

and whatever you want to do.

[485]

It's an expression of yourself.

[487]

Here, we'll try out the browns

[488]

that all the keyboards came in.

[489]

(keys tapping)

[493]

Ugh. 100.

[494]

Yeah. Lame.

[495]

Kay, well whatever, went better than the Wooting.

[497]

Yeah, that was terrible. 90 words a minute.

[499]

If you lube and film your switches,

[500]

you don't need to film them,

[501]

filming is like a whole extra step

[503]

that you don't really have to do.

[505]

But if you lube and film your switches

[506]

they'll sound and feel better, typically.

[508]

So these are Double Shot ABS key caps that come with it.

[511]

They feel good. I prefer ABS myself.

[514]

But again, it's all kind of feel and preference.

[516]

My one complaint though,

[518]

and maybe it's just because these key caps are so opaque,

[521]

but I hardly notice the RGB on this board.

[524]

Like from the overhead, I can't even see it really.

[527]

Like I see some minor, minor lighting around the side,

[530]

and I was actually really hoping to see more of that

[532]

because one of the things they mentioned

[534]

for these Phantom Gateron switches

[535]

is that since they're that more transparent housing,

[538]

the light will shine through differently.

[539]

So like the Browns are supposed to look like coffee

[542]

when white light is through them.

[543]

The blue is like this is blizzard color,

[546]

or something like that.

[547]

And then the reds are meant to look like lava or something.

[550]

It's a really nice glow

[552]

that I was actually really excited for,

[554]

but you don't see that here.

[556]

And you can get software for this

[558]

to customize both the board

[561]

and how the keys are laid out,

[562]

as well as the lighting itself,

[564]

you can customize all that to your heart's content.

[566]

Like here, let's switch this with one of my Kiwi.

[568]

But yeah, so it's lighter.

[570]

Like, it's minimal,

[572]

but you can see how the light

[573]

shines through this even better.

[575]

So I think that, you know,

[576]

you might like the way the brown feels a lot more.

[579]

That being said,

[580]

I do think that the red and the blue

[582]

let the RGB shine through a little more, which is nice.

[585]

Make your own switches, yeah.

[587]

I make my own cables.

[588]

I should just make my own switches, right? Come on.

[590]

Yeah, regardless of preference though,

[592]

I think this is a pretty good keyboard,

[593]

and I would totally recommend this.

[595]

So you can get the bare bones kit

[597]

if you've already got switches and key caps for 150,

[599]

that's even better.

[601]

But then if you don't yet,

[602]

and you want to spend a little extra money, like $20,

[604]

you can get it with everything included.

[606]

Overall, the Keychron Q1,

[609]

I really like it.

[611]

I think that if you're looking for a new keyboard,

[614]

it's a solid option

[615]

if you don't wanna build yourself.

[617]

Thanks for watching.

[618]