here's a problem you've found the keyboard that you finally wanted but it's out of stock
or too expensive but what if I told you that if you mod this keyboard you'll save a hundred
dollars especially if you're thinking of buying a gmmk pro please stop watch this
video I can explain howdy I'm happy to Tech and let me show you some mods wait no no not
that mod not that mod no no not that mod no now one of my favorite budget keyboards was
the zoom 75 but there's a problem it's out of stock however this opened the doors to a new
competitor one that's actually like a hundred dollars cheaper what let me explain this is the
sense 75 and it starts at just 99 bucks but with a few mods you can turn this into this
but wait wait wait you're thinking hippo that's an improvement but that's not the same I could do
better well that's this one with the blue keycaps that you're looking at it's literally perfect but
in order to find the best value for you guys I'll be trying the full pre-built version and
also the Bare Bones version and on top of that all of the mods that I did cost less than 15 are
you kidding so yeah if you want to know how I ate my words and built one of the best 99
keyboards I've ever touched then go ahead and stick around speaking of sticking around go
ahead and stick around by hitting that subscribe button you can always undo it it's free now this
story starts with one keyboard but it's going to contain two and I'll explain that later and
this box is the sense 75 that was sent to me by this video's sponsor drop now you're probably
thinking ew hippo sponsor gross stinky but trust me on this one there's a reason I haven't done a
video on this board until now and it's not that they haven't tried to sponsor me before now as
you're looking at the accessories let me go ahead and start and say that this board originally cost
250 dollars for the full build and 200 for the Bare Bones that you're looking at right now now
I don't want drop to hate me forever but let's just say that was pretty bad value in my opinion
uh in my opinion but what if we just shaved a hundred dollars off of that and that's why I'm
here now with a temporary price reduction to 99 for Bare Bones and 150 for the full build this is
a screaming value and I'll explain why as we go on with the video this puts it cheaper than the
gmmk pro kikron q1 and at the same price as the mons geek M1 and did I mention it has RGB now I
did mention that if you mod this keyboard you'll save a hundred dollars and the reason why I say
that is because modding this keyboard makes it way better than all of those other keyboards
even well modded but I'll explain that later let's just talk about the keyboard for a second
the actual keyboard itself has a very interesting design they decided to go with an aluminum body
with this nice weight and there's translucent cutouts so you can get your epic RGB gamertime
on now the case itself does feel quite Hefty and decently premium the top case
has a paying reminiscent of the keychron q1 and the bottom half of kind of feels like a gmmk pro
now keep that sound that you just heard in mind that was the keyboard with no mods and we're gonna
make that a lot a lot better the disassembly of this thing is like literally the best I've
ever seen it's just a couple Phillips head screws that's the normal screwdriver if you're a normal
person and then it just pops right out you're then greeted by some of the world's flimsiest foam
which I'm glad that it's included don't get me wrong but what we're gonna be doing something with
that later now as I might have mentioned before maybe I mentioned this in my head the bottom case
is incredibly solid but the top case is a little bit blacksmithy also British viewers there's a
knob please don't get too excited please contain yourself please do not go comment I love your
knob hippo very good job on having a knob hipio definitely don't comment that British viewers
that'd be so cringe M now love it or hate it this board is a gasket mounted keyboard however the
gaskets that they use are incredibly interesting and they give this thing a very very pillowy feel
now it's not knock your socks off trampoline type of gas skit but it also doesn't have the harsh
bottom out that you might be used to with some cheaper boards also a great thing to see is that
they included a force brake mod already installed on the board this is a really good touch and a mod
that I was going to do anyways so I guess thanks for saving me time it basically reduces the metal
on metal contact and makes the board significantly less pinky now unscrewing the plate from the PCB
you get to see ooh plate foam already included this is a good touch and the standard aluminum
plate what I would really like to see from drop and I know you're listening or watching hi is a
default option to change the plate that comes with your order now they do offer alternative
plates like this Palm plate that we're going to be using however plate preference changes the board's
sound and feel a little bit so it'd be nice to kind of change that before you buy the board
anyways now we'll talk about these stabilizers later but let's get on to the fun part now
some of you that are fans of the hippiotech channel know that I am completely unhinged
[Music]
and this is no exception this is the hippo mod the mod where I take present seal and make my keyboard
sound amazing with it this is incredibly similar to a PE foam mod but way more unhinged speaking of
unhinged hippo here I'm Gonna Leave hippo to do that while we take a look at the other keyboard
in this video now this is my second Challenge and something that I didn't originally expect
to include in this video it just turned out so good that I kind of had to this is the 150
dollar oh 179 because it's the white version fully built version I asked them why the white
was more expensive apparently because it's an e coding or something it's just more expensive to
manufacture I don't know you guys for simplicity's sake I'm just gonna say it's 50 more just pretend
I have the black one for 50 more it gives you dcx keycaps and a full set of switches which could be
seen as a very good value as the dcx keycaps are already expensive on their own but to me there's
an issue that's kind of apparent and it's the holy Panda X switches that come pre-installed
now the switches themselves they feel pretty decent the keycaps feel nice I've always liked
dcx keycaps not as much as dice of PPT but but this gave me an idea what if I try and mod the
fully built version to see if it's actually a good value if you like those simple keycaps also
the board comes with an included tape mod that is pretty cool so the first step was using the
included tape mod on the back of the PCB and then it was time to return to my pillow Arc yeah it's
pillow review time with hippiotech and on this episode I'm reviewing this pillow with old footage
of me laying on the pillow and ripping it apart oh God no hippo no no so early in my channel I
discovered that filling keyboards with pillows is actually one of my favorite ways to mod them this
is basically like memory foam and I find it's better than a denser foam when the case itself
is actually pretty decent quality but I'll talk about that mod later when we go back to the first
keyboard I still had one idea up my sleeve also these are the holy Panda X's by the way they're
a tactile switch kind of like the original holy Panda I honestly have not used them enough to give
a solid concrete feedback opinion on them I'm also not tactile switch gang so if you like tactile
switches they're a fine tactile switch they've got a pronounced bump I don't like them as much as the
original holy pandas they sound a little bit pinky stock they really need Lube so I have a solution
that means I will not need to take this keyboard apart I'm gonna take my trusty five dollar Super
Lube oil and just put a couple drops on each side of the sliders now this is what I like to call the
very lazy drip Loop mod and Nola please please Nola please Nola please I love you you are not
helping thank you very much okay and this is what I like to call the very Nola please the lazy drip
Lube mod now as you can very clearly see here I'm putting one drop on each side of the slider okay
you can't clearly see anything except nulls but get out of here I do this to each switch and it
takes about 30 minutes to lube a whole board instead of four hours by taking everything
apart now it's definitely not as good as cry talks and God dang it Noah okay Nola just time
Vortex me back to press and Sealand so let's go back to the present seal mod as I mentioned
before it's basically like a super cheap way to do a PE foam style mod at least bored sound wise
but you should be incredibly careful doing this at home as this creates a ton of static electricity
and you could potentially zap your PCB this is not condoned by drop this is simply a mod that
I like to do and I've never had issues with it but you might at home so be careful you could
just spend ten dollars for the PE foam from drop however this should give the board that
marbly Poppy amazing sound that I personally really enjoy then with a little bit of magic
I put the clip and stabilizers back in which by the way for me on one board were really good on
the other board they were a little bit rattly but I'll adjust that later and then I put my
palm plate back on and it was time to move on to the switches now as I mentioned before in
the video I kind of want to find a replacement for the zoom 75 as I can't recommend it anymore
as nobody can buy it and what switches did I use in the zoom 75 well the 45 mirandy switches from
wuche Studios this gave the board a really poppy thucky marbly sound that I didn't need to hand
lube the switches because they came lubed from the factory so I'm gonna rip them out one by one
next I'm just going to install the switches and I think I forgot to mention that this board has
a hot swap PCB which is fantastic because it means that you won't need to solder or
desolder if you swap your switches next I'm just going to use a little bit of magic and
boom all of the switches are installed and I definitely didn't forget the plate foam
now this is a certified do not try this at home moment this is the dumbest thing
that I've ever done but I also do this a lot so definitely don't try this at home I just
peeled the switches off of the PCV and uh put the phone back on we're gonna have to
test the PCB later to make sure that it works yeah just make sure you remember the foam okay
then with a little bit of aggression I put this whole thing back on and bada bing bada
boom the switches are installed now next I did actually kind of want to see what the base foam
is going to do so I'll put that in for now but I'll be swapping it out later and you'll see
why also I forgot to mention that this board does have via support So if I accidentally
broke a socket or something I can rebind any of the keys and software and it's super easy
and yeah if you're wondering why there's two yellow switches it's because I ran out of the
Morandi switches please go comment two yellow switches if you're cool enough to watch this
anyways for the keycaps now because I wanted a direct comparison like I mentioned before I took
the keycaps from the zoom 75 as well these were the some gazen keycaps and I don't think they sell
them in blue anymore but hey look did I mention you can replace the knob with other customizable
knobs that's pretty cool look this one's cool also I guess if you want a set of keycaps that's very
similar in Vibe you could get an mt3 profile from drop.com because they're my sponsor I'll shout
them out there you go now this board is completely Nola approved as she sits here next to it so cute
I was literally just filming this and then she decided to go sit next to it that was the cutest
thing ever I had to go give her some kisses for it because she was just being the best and then
she just kept sitting there I was like oh my God you're just still gonna keep sitting there that's
awesome but it was time to check back in on the second keyboard good old hippo decided to put on
gloves because getting Lube all over his hands is incredibly gross and he was ready to finish
up the mods on the thing now as I did this simple little super Loop mod I couldn't help but notice
that the board was just kind of getting better and oh oh my God newsflash lubing switches makes them
sound and feel good now as I mentioned before I did actually go back and fill the other keyboard
with the pillow foam because I was so genuinely impressed as to what it did with the first a
good comparison would be polyfill that Scott AKA keyboard put in his you can check out his
video as well but I love how it's really light and fluffy and then kind of packs down yet still keeps
a little bit of airiness it's just a good mod but you're probably wondering hippo you said this is
better than the gmmk pro you said this is better than the kikron q1 well yeah if you're watching
this in the future and the price stays at 99 for Bare Bones and 150 ish for full build then with
these mods I'd argue that this board can be better than those I've done similar mods on the kikron
and they sound basically the same now listen to this you even if you buy the fully built option it
is still a hundred and twenty nine dollars cheaper than the fully built gmmk Pro The Bare Bones is
only 36 bucks but you could spend that 36 bucks on the mods the switches the keycaps ETC I can't
even compare it to the zoom 75 because you can't even buy it anymore but it is a pretty similar
experience for roughly a hundred bucks cheaper in my opinion this board ended up sounding incredible
and the feel is pretty nice too with the gaskets also look I took it on a little photo shoot around
my house this is my poison dart frog bavarium please leave a comment if you want a video on that
so yeah if this sale is temporary then I recommend you go out get one soon drop please keep the sale
going please I know you're watching this just keep the sale going keep it going don't stop it don't
hate yo keep it going okay guys there I tried to be a champion for all of you to keep this board
cheaper so please go leave a like And subscribe If drop doesn't sponsor me ever again you know
why this probably made them just a little bit mad just a little bit not too mad just a little bit
leaving you with all of the sound tests then I'll then I'll have them all labeled so make
sure you watch all of them to support my YouTube algorithm overlords and let
me know what you think do you think this is a comparable substitute for the boards I mentioned