Keychron Q10 evaluate: all-aluminum Alice board

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Keychron retains doing it. Since we reviewed the Keychron Q2 in January 2022, it’s revamped the Q1 and launched 12 different Q-series boards, from an everyday outdated full-size right down to an ultracompact. There’s even an HHKB. However possibly probably the most unusual is the Q10: a 75 % Alice structure mechanical keyboard with a milled aluminum chassis. Like different Keychron Q-series keyboards, it’s a unbelievable keyboard for the worth, with a bunch of fanatic options at middling-gaming-keyboard costs. Like them, it’s for a sure kind of individual: somebody who sees a $200 keyboard and says, “How is that this so low cost?!” Think about that somebody break up a keyboard down the center, rotated every half barely, kinked the surface columns again the opposite method a little bit, and caught it again collectively. That’s Alice — named for the TGR Alice, a 60 % keyboard from Malaysian designer Yutski that ran as a 40-unit group purchase again in 2018 and impressed a legion of clones, imitators, variants, and spinoffs. Like different Alice boards, the Q10 just isn’t fairly a break up keyboard, and it’s not fairly an ergonomic keyboard. You’ll be able to’t management the angle or the tenting nor place the halves independently. They aren’t far sufficient aside to essentially preserve your forearms parallel to one another, shoulder-width aside. And the Q10, specifically, is a little bit tall. However it’s a little bit extra snug than a typical keyboard because it permits you to preserve your wrists at a extra impartial angle to your forearms. I really feel prefer it opens up my shoulders a little bit extra. It additionally appears to be like cool. The GoodInteresting and helpful layoutGreat really feel and soundEasy key remappingSouth-facing hot-swap PCBLeft quantity knobThe BadCheap-looking keycapsYou need to need a five-pound keyboard$200 both too costly or suspiciously cheapHow we price and evaluate productsFullmetal AliceFor $215 with keycaps and switches or $195 with out, the Q10 is, consider it or not, an absolute steal. The Q sequence is Keychron’s try to make an off-the-shelf mechanical keyboard really feel like a high-end customized, and it principally works — in case your imaginative and prescient of a high-end keyboard consists of phrases like “gasket mount” and “milled aluminum chassis.” My evaluate unit weighs 2244g, or simply beneath 5 kilos, with the inventory keycaps and switches. It’s meant to go on a desk and keep there. Keychron is following the keyboard group right here: most customized keyboards over the previous decade have been constructed from milled aluminum for just a few causes. Aesthetically: steel keyboards look good, heavy issues really feel high-end, they usually don’t slide round your desk while you kind. And virtually, the per-unit price of CNC-milled aluminum scales linearly, which is necessary should you’re solely making 50 or 100 of one thing for individuals who don’t thoughts paying lots of of greenbacks every. It’s solely prior to now few years that fanatic keyboard producers have gotten the dimensions essential to make plastic circumstances, simply as extra established producers began making milled-aluminum ones. The Q10 has a five-degree typing angle, which is snug, but it surely’s only a tad taller than I would really like.Like the opposite Q-series boards, it’s gasket-mounted: the swap plate sits on strips of squishy foam between the highest and backside frames. This provides the whole meeting a pleasant bounce: should you push exhausting sufficient on any key, you possibly can see all of the keys transfer downward en masse and bounce again up. Small silicone bumpers between the highest and backside frames forestall metal-on-metal contact, additional lowering vibration and eliminating the high-pitched ping that solid-aluminum circumstances usually have. There’s a layer of sound-damping foam between the swap plate and PCB. The switches are flippantly lubed, and the stabilizers are… much less flippantly lubed. These are all methods fanatics mod their keyboards to provide them deeper, fuller sounds and cut back high-pitched clacking or pinging. To place it one other method: to compensate for the truth that they’re milled out of strong aluminum. One other is the tape mod (or Tempest mod, after the man who popularized it). It entails making use of layers of tape to the again of the PCB to alter the sound profile. It’s low cost and simple, and it really works. I’ve accomplished it to a number of keyboards. The Q10 comes pre-tape-modded with a skinny sheet of “acoustic tape” in lieu of the layer of acoustic foam different Q-series boards have. With the inventory keycaps and Gateron Professional Purple switches, the Q10 feels and sounds nice. And I don’t even like mild linear switches. It’s not quiet, essentially, however a lot of the sound comes from the keycaps clicking in opposition to the swap plate. There’s no resonance or ping in anyway. Even the area bars — often the loudest keys on any keyboard — are fairly quiet, most likely as a result of they’re the scale of typical Shift keys. I personally don’t kind with sufficient power to really feel any bounce from the gasket mount — it feels about the identical as an built-in plate to me, to be trustworthy — but it surely appears to assist the sound profile, and it ain’t hurting something. The inventory screw-in PCB-mount stabilizers are okay. They’re generously however inexpertly lubed, and the backspace secret is louder than I’d like. If it have been my keyboard, they’re the primary issues I’d tweak. Nonetheless, by preinstalled stabilizer requirements, they’re fairly good.Alice goodThe Q10’s area bars are the scale of ordinary Shift keys. The 2 B keys are to accommodate individuals who kind fallacious, I assume.That is the primary time I’ve used an Alice board, and it took me virtually no effort to get used to. It helps that the structure is generally commonplace. Usually, the keys are the scale you’d count on them to be and about the place you’d count on them to be. The underside row could be the trickiest adjustment: there are three 1.25u modifier keys to the left of the primary area bar and a operate key to the precise of it. On the right-hand aspect, there’s one other area bar, then a solitary 1u modifier that, by default, acts because the board’s operate key. If you’re used to counting on these right-hand modifiers, you may need to get inventive. Happily, that’s all fixable: the Q10, like all of Keychron’s Q-series boards, is absolutely programmable utilizing VIA, a versatile and fashionable app within the keyboard group for customizing RGB lighting and key mapping. The Q10 consists of each Mac- and Home windows-compatible keycaps within the field and has a swap to toggle between two totally different units of layers, which you’ll be able to program independently. This can be a killer function for anybody who commonly swaps between Mac and Home windows as a result of it means you are able to do extra than simply swap the areas of some modifiers: you possibly can have utterly totally different layouts. What, simply me?I really like VIA as a result of I insist on placing keys in bizarre locations.The Q10 isn’t but within the official VIA repository, so I needed to obtain a JSON file from Keychron’s web site, import it into VIA, and toggle V2 compatibility within the settings menu earlier than I used to be capable of remap the board, however that’s fairly frequent and will finally be fastened (Keychron’s older Q-series boards are already within the official repository).Different featuresIf the caps lock, shift, and tab legends look nice to you, congratulations on being much less annoying than me.Until you go for the barebones model, the Q10 ships with Gateron Professional Purple (linear), Blue (clicky), or Brown (allegedly tactile) switches, in addition to doubleshot PBT keycaps in OSA profile. The keycaps are nice. They’re fairly skinny, and the modifier legends seem like they have been typeset in an actual rush, which is a disgrace on a board that’s in any other case fairly polished. However they’re basically free, they usually include Mac-style legends on the operate row.I say “basically free” as a result of the bare-bones model of the Q10 is just $20 lower than the model with switches and keycaps. It’s exhausting to search out 89 good switches for $20, a lot much less keycaps. Even in case you have a bunch of keycap units mendacity round (don’t choose me), they won’t have each key you want for an Alice board, so that you would possibly as nicely spend the $20. There’s a 1.75u proper shift key, which is frequent in aftermarket keycap units. The Delete secret is a row larger than it must be, and House is a row decrease (although you possibly can after all remap these with VIA), and there’s that column of 5 macro keys alongside the left-hand aspect. As is customary with Alice-style boards, there’s a second B key, one on either side of the break up. Some keycap units are beginning to embrace the second B, and you may cowl the area bars with commonplace 2.25u and a couple of.75u Shift keys in a pinch, however the Q10 remains to be a little bit tougher to cowl than a typical 75 % board. Keychron sells just a few suitable keycap units on its web site, together with totally different switchplates, switches, fancy cables, and so forth.The Q10’s hot-swap sockets make it simple to alter out your switches, although among the cutouts are fairly tight.The Q10 has a hot-swap PCB with south-facing RGB LEDs, so you should use just about any MX-compatible switches and keycaps with out worrying about interference. (North-facing PCBs could cause points with Cherry-profile keycaps until you employ long-pole switches). Like my good friend Flo Ion at Gizmodo, I discovered that among the cutouts within the operate row are a little bit tight to squeeze a keycap puller or swap puller into, so I wound up taking the highest body off after I swapped switches or caps. Even should you depart the body on whereas swapping caps, it’s best to think about putting in switches with the body off, so you possibly can apply counter-pressure to the hot-swap sockets. It makes it simpler to seat switches and keep away from pushing the sockets off of the again of the PCB. Loads of folks, together with my editor, simply yolo it. It appears to principally work for them, however I bend lots fewer swap pins this fashion. Simply saying.You must set up switches with the body offKeyboards with quantity knobs are the massive factor proper now, and I actually like that the Q10’s knob is on the top-left nook as an alternative of the precise. It feels extra pure to me, a left-handed individual. The left macro column can be form of neat, and each the knob and the macros are simple sufficient to program in VIA. Loads of gaming keyboards have left macro columns, however they’re not as frequent on fanatic boards.What’s to not like?So what’s to not like concerning the Keychron Q10? It’s fairly tall: the entrance edge is nearly 20mm excessive. Should you relaxation your wrists on the desk while you kind, you would possibly want a wrist relaxation, relying on the scale of your arms and the peak of your keycaps. (Keychron sells one which’s curved to match the Q10, which I used for a pair days after which stopped utilizing). Should you hover like a correct typist, this can be a non-issue, however who does that?Like the remainder of Keychron’s Q line, there’s no wi-fi possibility. That’s nice. Bluetooth help on QMK / VIA boards is fairly wonky, and battery life is often horrible. On a five-pound board with a nonstandard structure, simple programmability is extra necessary. There are many first rate wi-fi boards on the market. That’s simply not what the Q-series is for.The board comes with a braided USB-C-to-C cable and an A-to-C adapter. It additionally comes with a keycap puller, swap puller, hex wrench, and screwdriver. They’re dinky however serviceable in a pinch, and it’s a pleasant contact that implies the keyboard is supposed to be messed with. The caps are, as I discussed, skinny. Do you are taking plastic?The Q10 is superb at being the factor it’s making an attempt to be: a solid-aluminum Alice-layout keyboard with a bunch of fanatic options. If you need a extremely heavy Alice keyboard, it’s virtually the one off-the-shelf possibility except for the 65 % Keychron Q8 and the Feker Alice75, which is 100 bucks dearer and has worse software program however does have Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz wi-fi. It’s a superb keyboard, however you actually need to need a five-pound gasket-mount keyboard. Should you don’t need a five-pound keyboard however do need an Alice board, there are just a few choices on the market. Epomaker’s website has just a few 65 % Alice boards, together with a gasket-mounted 65 % Alice package with a stacked acrylic case and VIA help. The one in-stock Alice with a knob on the left that I can discover is the Orange Boy Ergo, and it’s solely in inventory within the sense you could purchase the elements — you want a soldering iron for that one, and never only for the switches. That’s an important possibility should you love constructing your personal keyboards — which I do — but it surely’s the other of the Q10’s entire readymade vibe.As I used to be drafting this evaluate, Keychron got here out with the V8, a plastic model of the Q8, and there’s already a pre-launch web page for the V10. Like the opposite V-series boards, it loses the aluminum case and gasket mount — to not point out half the worth tag — however retains a lot of the different fanatic options of the Q sequence. Should you’re curious concerning the Q10’s structure however aren’t prepared for a $200, five-pound keyboard, that’s the one to look at.Images by Nathan Edwards / The Verge

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