A new Keyboard

Research

I started on Amazon to figure out what keyboards I could get for somewhere under $100. I wanted it to be Bluetooth (with USB as an option of course) and have backlit keys. Beyond that, I didn't have any other real requirements that I was looking for. Almost all of the keyboards that matched those few criteria ended up being "mechanical keyboards". I have used keyboards since somewhere around 1982, and of course many of those were mechanical in the day, but I hadn't used a modern mechanical keyboard. I tend to keep to the membrane type ones because they are often more compact and quieter. Mechanical keyboard often go hand-in-hand with the super-clicky switches, and while they might be nice to type on, they are loud as hell, and I know everyone in my house would kill me if I was doing that all day.

In my searches, two keyboard manufacturers kept coming up, Keychron, and Royal Kludge. So after days of randomly searching for things, I had narrowed it down to these two.

I like a full keyboard, but the truth of the matter is that I don't really use the numeric keypad all that much. While it's nice to edit a lot of number data, I don't really do that all that often. Since I wanted this to be wireless, I thought it should be smaller. I was drawn to the 70%-75% keyboards initially. But typically, they are missing a cursor movement key (like "insert", which again, wouldn't be a big loss, but sometimes it was home that was missing. That I use all the time and couldn't really live without that). Also, every often the "~`" key (the left of the number 1 key) was moved to some other spot on the keyboard. As a UNIX user, that key is actually used quite a bit, and I don't want that to live anywhere else. So that was another thing that shifted me to what I then learned was a 80% or TKL (ten keyless) board. Essentially a full keyboard except for the numeric keypad. All of this lead me to the Keychron K8 on Amazon. What I would later learn, is there was a keychron k8 pro (which I never really found on Amazon) that had everything I was looking for.

The K8 Pro

So here is what the K8 had that I was looking for

• ☑ 80% ten keyless keyboard
• ☑ wireless (Bluetooth)
• ☑ USB
• ☑ backlit
• ☑ QMK open firmware
• ☑ Customizable switches and keycaps

There were only 2 keyboards on Keychron that matched all of that. The K6 pro and the K8 pro. Any of the other keyboards that had most of the things were missing wireless and QMK. The K6 pro was not available when I ordered, and also is missing the "~`" key location and cursor control keys (honestly, it's also QMK-based, so I could probably turn the escape key into a "~`" key, since I use caps lock as an escape. And home/pgup/pgdn are probably really the only ones I need, I still chose the K8 pro)

The Royal Kludge keyboards had a few things going for them. One being they have an additional 2.4GHz wireless adapter and I have seen claims that the 2.4GHz wireless adapters are faster and more reliable. In my opinion, my computer already supports Bluetooth, why would I take up a USB port with an additional dongle that only works for the keyboard? If I needed super-dependable speed of typing, I'd just plug in the USB, and technically lose the same amount of USB ports.

One of the biggest things that was missing from basically every other choice was the QMK firmware. I am using kmonad to emulate QMK layers currently, and it works well, but you have to reset it any time you change keyboards or connection (laptop->USB->Bluetooth). I just want my keyboard to do the layers directly. I also might choose to use that light bulb key for something different. Since I'm not switching between RGB patterns, I might like to use that key for something else. I don't know what yet, but at least I have that option, and nothing is written in stone.

I'm sure anyone who has spent 10 seconds looking at this site is like "Ok, I've seen you complain endlessly about nearly everything on this site, surely you have something to complain about with this keyboard right?". Well you are right, and please don't call me Shirley.

There is really only one thing I could change about the keyboard if I could, and that is the weight.

The keyboard is extremely solid, and well made; But, this thing is heavy. It's almost 3 pounds. If you use it on a desk like a normal person, you would never know. But since I think that a wireless keyboard shouldn't be tied to such limitations (and because my "desk" is currently my kitchen table) I use the keyboard on my lap. And 3 pounds on our lap all day actually is quite heavy. Not the end of the world, I just wish it was a bit lighter.

It has a 4000MAh battery in it, which I am assuming is where a hefty amount of that weight is coming from. So the good news is that the battery life is pretty long. I've only used this keyboard for a few days at this point, so I haven't had to charge it yet. But in that time, I have lost no discernible battery life as reported by hitting "FN+B".