In the next few years of the cherry shaft monopoly, the domestic mechanical shaft surpassed in one fell swoop, and achieved comprehensive crushing in terms of cost performance, feel and durability. At least now the key circle is the same as smart phones, supporting domestic products is not only a sentiment, but also a price for product power.
As for the "how to roll" keyboard can be played more than the smart phone, most people may feel that the volume is bound to bring low prices, but the current custom culture has a strong wave of output, personalized needs have long covered the players' attention to the price.
Speaking of which, the small partner who has not yet started the mechanical keyboard can close the web page, which is a big pit and it is really not recommended that everyone step on it. Now the 200 starting Kaihua axis can first try a water, or the advanced point of the 300 ~ 500 mainstream Jia dalong / TTC axis of the adult keyboard is very good, far better than the Cherry keyboard experience is much better.
If you haven't closed the page yet here, then believe you're interested in customization?!
If I suddenly mention Keychron, maybe you'll be stunned. This brand is a maverick brand in the domestic key circle, and the popularity of foreign countries is much greater than that of china, so there is really no need to follow the domestic keyboard circle all the way.
Why mention Keychron when it comes to customization? Whether the environment is there or not, Keychron has launched three customized models in the last six months: Q1 (75% matching), Q2 (65% matching), Q3 (80% matching). Q series as a customized selling point supports separate kit purchases, and many players can already be seen sharing their own customized full set on the Internet.
The price of the whole set (with shaft + keycap) is more than a hundred more expensive than the kit, if the shaft body, keycap or user who does not want to toss it is recommended to go directly into the full set, the price-performance ratio is actually very good at this level.
The Keychron Q1 is suddenly nearly twice as expensive as the predecessor K series, and when the CNC all-aluminum fuselage, Gasket structure, and Jiadalong Phantom series shaft body are added, it seems that such pricing makes the "thousand-dollar aluminum lump" become reasonable.
Kyo Tokyo made Q1 custom mechanical keyboard knob version aluminum alloy enclosure QMK open source mac/win dual system Stellaron Phantom plug-in shaft Black gray ¥999 purchase
I found that Keychron posted a lot of pictures on the Internet, there were not many graphic reviews, and the content of this Q series was even less, so I would start from the box.
There is nothing special about the packaging of the pure black world box, and the line drawing of the whole English with the model is still confusing whether it is a domestic licensed product. When receiving it, there was an impact on the box, so it was good to protect it properly inside, otherwise the aluminum shell would bump, and no one wanted to see it.
Q1 In addition to the Gasket kit version, there are two versions of the finished product to choose from: nameplate version and knob version. For players with strong hands-on ability, even if it is not a hot-swappable knob, it can still be changed later, so you don't have to worry about the version.
The only thing that needs to be done is that the finished version has cut the aviation plug in the accessories, after all, the customized wire is a more personal side than the shaft body. After asking customer service, I learned that there is no support for separate post-matching (buy together to think about cheaper). The rest of the accessories, along with the tools, are all armed to the teeth, which seems to be the first time on a mass-produced custom keyboard.
From the perspective of product layout, the Q series is orderly, the Q1 & Q2 key layout is more in line with personalization, Q3 began to return, it seems that Q4 will most likely be a 108 key standard layout. To be honest Q1 & Q2 I like very much, the former is more Win, the latter is more Mac, because they are equipped with arrow keys and Del keys, daily use is not a big problem.
As Keychron's first all-aluminum keyboard, the CNC all-aluminum alloy shell of the fuselage is very exquisitely made, the anodized surface treatment, and the feel is quite delicate. As a volume product brand involved in the field of customization, the process and details that should be there, Q1 basically met all my expectations before getting started. Speaking of color matching, there are three options (black, blue, gray), and the V1 non-knob version also provides white and green colors, which are quite good-looking. Combined with the shades of the keycaps and two jumping keys as the finishing touch, it belongs to the simple and attractive style.
Flipped to the back, the flat and nameless plaque is properly customized, and there is not even a brand logo, which directly pokes at the aesthetic of my unscrupulous party. It is precisely because of the "too perfect" back that the Q1 does not have the inclination adjustment function (fixed 5.2 degrees). The initial angle basically meets most code word needs, but the feeling of "others have me and I don't" is always less meaningful.
Eight gold screws can easily achieve the upper and lower shell disassembly, four round non-slip foot pads are not large, the height of the pad is not outstanding, personally suggest that the follow-up can be replaced.
On the side of the fuselage is a variety of cyberpunk, capable tough guy styles, each chamfer, folding angle has been arced, and the problem of shelf hand is non-existent. Looking at the picture alone, I can't feel that Q1 is heavy, anyway, take it out of the box to do a good job of mentioning the weight of cola (more than 1600 grams), otherwise the aluminum alloy leaves bumps, which makes people feel painful for a while.
In order to make the kit products rebuilt, it is necessary to consider more compatibility, and the only open-left corner area of the whole machine is the Type-C interface and the dual system toggle switch. It is indeed friendly for blind exercises, but these two do not have to be plugged and switched frequently after all, and are slightly moderate in design, and do not show the spirit of personalization.
Eight hexagonal screws can be separated from the upper cover by unscrewing, and there is no plastic snap, but the screws can be customized instead. After opening and directly separating, the PCB version and the positioning plate fixed noise-cancelling cotton sandwich, the Gasket structure has preset Poron gasket, under the PCB placed a single layer of 4mm silenced cotton with a plastic sheet base. I have paid attention to the early version of the double-layer silencer cotton, some people have proposed to affect the feel, perhaps the official directly revised the version.
Structurally, the sandwich cotton can reduce noise and improve the feel, but for custom players with picky hand feelings, Q1 has not yet reached the final form. Factory default rebound can only be said to be OK, I think the first need to solve the cavity sound problem of some keys (especially the space bar). After all, Q1 is just a customized kit, the metal cavity itself is very prone to noise, which can be "in order to save costs" by the manufacturer, or it can be regarded as deliberately leaving a backdoor to let the player continue to toss.
At this point, I didn't think that this was suitable for users who could not accept the tossing and turning, and it was obvious that it could be improved without changing, which was too violent. Factory yellow box preset 4 Poron gaskets, I myself disassembled the back pad in addition to the top F key area of the other 3 red boxes (accessories are attached to 8, the tube is enough), after installing the hollow sound and resilience has been improved.
G Pro series as the current Jiadalong main shaft body is mature and stable in all aspects, in the Q1 finished keyboard to provide three kinds of switch options: Jiadalong G Pro blue shaft, Jiadalong G Pro red shaft, Jiadalong G Pro tea shaft.
I started with the G Pro Blue Shaft, because of the greater trigger pressure requirements (60±15 grams), combined with the Gasket blessing to use the paragraph on the all-metal keyboard is excellent, especially in terms of pressing feel. In other aspects, Jiadalong has done factory run treatment, the axis is stable, the bottom is solid, the rebound is followed, and it belongs to the more comprehensive choice of the volkswagen shaft body. The large key PCB satellite axis has screw reinforcement, and the smooth pressing feel is not much different from the single key, and the consistency is high.
Considering the price of Q1, choosing the Volkswagen axis is also one of the ways to save costs, and if you want to play with personality, you still have to go to other axes. Of course, the price and feel are not one-to-one correspondence, pro-test axis can really approach the understanding of "finger horse killing chicken" in everyone's heart. Q1 supports full key shaft body hot swap, support the common three-foot shaft or five-foot shaft on the market. Customization is a step-by-step slow update to gradually get better after playing, Q1 as the basis to provide sandwich silencer cotton and bottom noise reduction cotton, greatly alleviate the noise, keep different axis bodies on the same keyboard to highlight their own key (or sound) characteristics, so that the shaft change experience does not reduce points.
The Q1 knob version offers a slightly different keyboard: OSA height, PBT material, two-tone injection molding, non-transmitting light, ball cap design (the first Q1 is an ABS keycap). The arc on the front of the button contrasts with the fuselage, and the back has fewer burrs and properly handled water spouts. If you have personalized needs for high light transmission, it is recommended that you can engrave PBT keycaps on the OEM side such as Polar Day and Qinghong.
As for the small details, in addition to the regular F and J blind key design, there is also a blind key design in the direction, which needs to be praised!
The upper lamp position belongs to the product of the times, and most of the direct placement of patch lamps in the era of PCB integration adopts the lower lamp position scheme, and the Q1 is the same. From the perspective of the user's daily sitting posture, it can be seen that the current lighting mode can only be used as an atmosphere light auxiliary when the screen light is turned on. If you pay special attention to lighting effects, you can only replace the transparent or side engraved keycaps.
V2.02 firmware version default lighting mode 13 (Fn +Q/A), brightness 12 (Fn+W/S), adjust the light color / hue (Fn + E / D), saturation add or minus (Fn + R / F), light speed plus or minus (Fn + T / G), the lighting function is self-evident.
I have 3 different views on Whether Q1 does not support wireless three-mode: First of all, whether the characteristics of all-aluminum metal have an impact on wireless connectivity, I think it is not a problem, there are also aluminum lumps that support three modes on the market; secondly, the customized culture of AVIC plugging is a very important part, compared to wireless demand, personalization should be placed in front; finally, the three-mode can leave some space for the follow-up Q series.
As a "complement", Q1 provides the daily need for full key position no punch, as well as custom keyboard commonly used QMK firmware scheme are supported (QMK select Keychron/q1/rev_0101). Improve stronger customization attributes, the use of system switching + Fn key to achieve 4 key logic layers, players through the open source software VIA to achieve a series of high degrees of freedom for keyboard layout, shortcut keys, backlighting effects and so on.
The main play VIA is the real door to customization, and the playability is self-evident, and only after playing can it be known. My knob version is different from the normal version of json files, due to the more encoders, so pay attention to import. (Firmware package I asked customer service to get, the latest firmware package currently updated to April 5th)
Q1 as a ready-to-use mechanical keyboard product, combined with pricing, I think there are only three small drawbacks that can be nitpicked: single mode, non-adjustable height, socket design. The evaluation of the customized set that is considered to be assembled is enough to achieve a high score of 85. The main body itself has a large room for improvement in the cavity sound and large key moistness, and the shaft body keycap itself has a super high degree of freedom replacement option.
Now that I have been in Q1 for nearly a month, the solid aluminum alloy base + Gasket structure makes me completely stop wanting to use the traditional mechanical keyboard, and the solid and stable feeling of typing is more handy after tuning. Keychron uses the mass production mode to play the spirit of customization, and there are very few who can directly start a full set within a thousand yuan. As a player who has just entered the custom pit, Q1 can be regarded as an excellent pacesetter, with a better psychological anchor, in the follow-up tossing process will know which is better or worse.