Keychron as a custom keyboard brand in the overseas custom keyboard circle has a high reputation, its products with high appearance, sufficient materials, simple design and excellent Mac compatibility known, a variety of product videos in youtube, B station also has a high playback volume, the degree of popularity can be seen. In September 2021, the brand products are also introduced into the domestic sale by jd.com's own brand Jingzao, the Keychron-Q1 of this review is a 75% matched keyboard under Keychron, using CNC all-aluminum fuselage and Gasket structure, and equipped with The Phantom series shaft body of Jia dalong, and then follow the author to see how this keyboard performs.
Packaging & Accessories:
The outer packaging adopts pure black gift box packaging, the front side provides the keyboard model, line drawing, and the back is the keyboard features are listed and introduced, and equipped with a color display map, which is convenient for users to quickly understand the product layout and characteristics. The packaging volume is large, it looks simple and atmospheric, or very good, the inside of the package uses a double-layer structure, and added a high-density EVA sponge as a protective structure, which can avoid the keyboard bumping and damage.
Accessories provide quick start instructions, user manuals, shaft body promotional cards, USB type-C spiral plugs, replacement keycaps and other conventional accessories, the inner layer of the package also provides key pullers, shaft pullers, cross screwdrivers, hexagonal wrenches, cushioning feet and replacement screws for modification. The attachment content is still very rich, which also brings more DIY playability to this keyboard.
Appearance & Details:
Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum customized mechanical keyboard adopts 75% rowing, 82 key layout, while meeting the daily input needs, the number key area and some function keys are deleted, further reducing the size of the fuselage and reducing the occupation of desktop space. The fuselage adopts CNC all-aluminum alloy shell, the surface adopts anodized treatment, and the delicate frosting process has excellent performance in the texture and touch of the fuselage. The fuselage adopts a silver and gray color matching style, and the keycaps with gray and white colors look simple and clean, or very pleasing to the user's attention. The fuselage lines are tough and capable, and the wider border is more in line with the aesthetic preferences of the current key circle users, and the overall appearance performance is still quite brilliant.
The four corners of the aluminum alloy fuselage are treated with rounded corners, which can avoid the sharp metal corners from causing harm to the user, and the daily movement and adjustment position are more friendly. The all-aluminum fuselage material is also very thick, the total weight of the fuselage can reach more than 1600 grams, and the thickened aluminum alloy base also makes the percussion feel more solid and stable, which can bring users a better input experience.
Although it adopts a streamlined matching scheme, this keyboard also provides a wealth of shortcut keys for users to bring greater convenience to daily use, and the shortcut key part provides functions such as brightness control and multimedia control. Depending on the operating system, it can also implement functions such as task view and call file manager, which is still very friendly for daily use by users.
This keyboard supports Win/Mac OS dual system, and the accessory also comes with the corresponding replacement keycaps, which is convenient for users of different platforms to replace freely according to personal preferences. The INS button in the upper right corner can be replaced with a personalized nameplate, which can better meet the needs of users to highlight their personality.
A USB Type-C data interface is provided in the upper left corner of the fuselage, and on the right is a toggle switch for switching system support. USB Type-C interface has a high popularity in the current situation, when the cable is damaged, or need to temporarily replace the computer, users can easily find a compatible cable to use. The surface of the wave switch has added anti-slip grain, which has a better tactile recognition performance and can be easily used under blind operation.
The Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum customized mechanical keyboard adopts the upper and lower shell structure design, and the bottom shell is slightly smaller than the structure of the upper cover. The surface treatment of the bottom case is very flat, and four round non-slip foot pads are provided in the four corners to ensure that the keyboard is placed firmly on different material surfaces and is not easy to slide, while avoiding the wear of the bottom shell. The bottom shell adopts the inclination design of the front high and low back, which can reduce the pressure on the hands and wrists when the user uses, and has a good comfort for long-term use.
The bottom case is fixed with 8 hexagonal screws and the upper cover, which is more convenient to remove. The bottom provides two layers of 4mm silencer, and with the internal gasket structure, the user can adjust the softness of the hand according to personal preference. The Gasket structure reduces the resonance of the hard connection and has better hand feel and hearing performance. Sandwich cotton is added between the positioning plate and the PCB, and the cushioning gasket is also added to the edge of the positioning plate, which can effectively reduce the cavity sound and noise that occur during tapping, and make the percussion sound more pure and pleasant.
This keyboard is equipped with a double USB Type-C interface spring navigation plug, in order to facilitate the user's use, but also an additional USB interface adapter, convenient for users without C-port equipment to use. Although the material of the braided wire is wear-resistant and durable, it also makes the overall texture of the wire somewhat hard, and the spring structure also makes the wire more neat and beautiful on the desktop, with the all-aluminum fuselage, the style is very in place.
Keycaps & Shafts:
Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum customized mechanical keyboard is equipped with Jiadalong's phantom series shaft body, providing phantom red, phantom blue and phantom tea three shafts for users to choose, the author got this keyboard using phantom red shaft. Phantom red axis adopts linear hand feel scheme, trigger pressure 45gf, total key stroke 4mm, trigger key stroke 2mm, with the factory run process processing, light and smooth feel, stable and solid bottoming, rebound is also more followed, with excellent shaking control, can bring users a better knocking feel. The big key position adopts the PCB satellite axis, the screw fixing method, has better stability, the feel performance is more crisp and clean, the pressing is smooth and stable, and the hand feeling performance of the big key position is still very good.
This keyboard supports the full key position of the shaft body hot swap scheme, support the common three-foot shaft, five-foot shaft, for most of the commercially available shaft body has a good compatibility performance, users can replace the shaft body according to personal preferences, very convenient. Combined with the sandwich silencer cotton and the bottom silencer cotton, it can also filter out the fine noise generated by the percussion very well, bringing a better user experience.
The keycap part is matched with a set of ABS two-color injection molding keycaps, OEM height scheme, does not support light transmission. The overall workmanship and details of the keycaps are still very good, the water inlet and burr treatment are very clean, and there is no obvious bending and damage. The keycaps are delicate and smooth to the touch, the feel is excellent, and the two-color injection molding process also makes the keycap characters more clear and durable, and the anti-wear performance has also been greatly improved.
Keyboard backlighting:
The Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum customized mechanical keyboard adopts a lower light position scheme, with opaque keycaps, and an intuitive lighting experience can also be seen from the user's point of view. The keyboard has a variety of built-in lighting mode, users can change the switch through the combination of keys, but because the shaft body cover is opaque, the main color of the light color is also red, the color performance is still somewhat unsatisfactory, but the user who minds can replace other transparent top cover shaft body after arriving. The overall brightness of the lights is a little darker, but it is enough to meet the daily lighting gameplay and key recognition in dark environments. The lighting part provides light effect switching, color switching and dynamic speed adjustment, and the functionality is still very complete, and the user can easily and quickly adjust the light.
Usage test:
Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum customized mechanical keyboard adopts a single-mode wired connection scheme, and supports a full-key no-flush solution, which has a good stability performance for daily office use or game use, which can effectively prevent key conflicts from affecting operation.
Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum custom mechanical keyboard adopts the QMK firmware scheme commonly used by custom keyboards, and provides 4 key logic layers in the fuselage, corresponding to win and Mac OS two different operating systems, providing the basic layer and FN key combination layer. Users can also compile their own key logic layers that conform to personal usage habits according to their personal usage habits. The dynamic key value modification software VIA has also adapted to this keyboard, and users can easily adjust key settings, key macros and other functions through graphical software, which is still very convenient.
Although this keyboard adopts the popular Trash structure, but because the bottom double layer of silence sponge also makes the keyboard feel less "soft", users can get better hand performance by removing a layer of silence sponge. The easy to disassemble fuselage structure and highly customized fuselage configuration also bring higher playability performance to this keyboard, and users can modify and adjust the keyboard according to their personal needs, which also better reflects the true meaning of "customization".
summary:
Keychron-Q1 all-aluminum customized mechanical keyboard has been officially released in Jingdong for a period of time, also provides a 75% knob Q1 V2 version, users can choose to buy according to personal needs, and three color matching styles and a variety of shaft body matching schemes also provide users with more options, it has a delicate body processing, outstanding color matching style, and highly customizable playability, like users may wish to pay more attention to it.