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A Keychron has always been a great introduction for friends that want a good home desk setup without too much fuss.

I have stuck with the System76 Launch keyboard but I basically always consider Keychron first when looking.



I'd consider another Keychron (my first mechanical since a couple of AT and PS/2 Model M and variant devices I had years and years ago) and I like some stuff about it and definitely like the price, but would look for a model with a few differences next time and probably skip Keychron if I couldn't get all of these fixed in one of their boards:

1 - Longer battery life (I have a bluetooth + plug-in model). The battery life is crazy-low, even when not in use and the lights are turned off. I keep it plugged in all the time, as a result. I don't really get why it can't last, idle, about as long as a game controller does (many weeks! And those don't have much space for batteries).

2 - No light pattern button. That thing exists only to accidentally hit and switch it away from "gently and evenly lit" which is one of the very-few non-insane patterns available. Brush it by accident, there goes a minute or so of your time getting it back to something that's not trying to look like a disco ball. And it's right on the corner, so you will hit it by accident when moving the keyboard around or reaching for something just past it. Easily my least-favorite thing about the board, despite how bad the next item is.

3 - Mine has a kind of tray-design around the edge, resulting in about a 1/8" lip, that looks very cheap to assemble (so that's nice, lower price) but means it collects EVERYTHING out of the air and is a pain in the ass to clean. It also makes it look kinda like someone's 3D printed hobby project. Like it's an ugly keyboard, both because of the design and because it's visibly collecting dust and hair just a few days after its last keys-removed full cleaning.


You can remap/disable all light shortcuts using web app https://launcher.keychron.com/#/keymap


I disabled the lighting on my Keychron Q1 Max due to the battery drain. With it on (on the lowest glow possible), it would barely last a week. With it off? I go literal months without charging it back up, and it's used wirelessly 100% of the time, both via Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz.


I have a K2, and you can lock the lights with some key combination I don't remember and am too lazy to look up.


Oh, wow, it's fn + L + Light Effect Key (long press for 3s). Thanks for the tip!

A full list of key combinations for the K3 (which I have) is at https://www.keychron.uk/blogs/news/k3-key-combinations - alter the url to suit your model, but most of them appear to be the same.


Same on my K8. It’s holding down something and the light buttons.

It’s a godsend, all I want is dim-ish blue lights, but I’d keep coming back to it doing rainbow patterns and flashes that I’m sure some people love but I find really distracting.


I recently bought a Keychron, but I'm not wildly enthusiastic yet. It's very thick; much thicker than the 2002 Dell keyboard it's replacing. And the key press feels very spongy. I suspect I might prefer clacky keyboards after all.


Yeah I would certainly only recommend a hotswap model, even if someone isn't into keyswitches that much, they still probably have a preferred feel that they want to go for.




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