The jelly epoch was legendary.
Marking the emergence of the PE foam mod, it boasted a stunning and unique design and
a very interesting marbly sound.
But, it’s obsolete.
The secret sauce - the small sheet of foam above the PCB - ended up being the reason
for this sound, and was implemented into nearly every budget build conceivable, replicating
the Jelly sound with ridiculously low price points.
However, Owlab has taken the Jelly back to the drawing board, adapting its same qualities
and reimagining them for the modern era.
Let’s get into the unboxing.
The unboxing experience is kinda crazy.
The box opens like… this, immediately revealing this white and gold carrying case.
But let’s take a look at the accessories first, which are in this bottom drawer.
First up is a non flex cut POM plate, non flex cut hotswap PCB with plate foam and PE
foam, and a flex cut hotswap PCB with the same foams.
Now let’s open the case.
First up here are board accessories, including two different types of gaskets, an extra daughterboard,
extra screws, a thank you card, and bottom feet and paddles, which we’ll talk about
later.
We’ve also got some screw-in stabilizers.
Finally is the board itself, which comes with this nice microfiber sheath.
Let’s take a look at the specs.
Jelly Evolv is a gasket leaf spring mounted 75% keyboard.
We have 4 hotswap PCBs and 1 soldered PCB.
Two of the hotswap PCBs are for 6.25U bottom rows, the other two are for 7U bottom rows,
and each bottom row layout has a 1.2mm flex cut and 1.6mm non flex cut version.
All hotswap PCBs only support stepped caps lock.
The soldered PCB is 1.6mm non flex cut and supports stepped caps, split left shift, 7U
bottom row, 7U bottom row without a blocker, ISO enter, and split backspace.
Also of note is that the Jelly Evolv omits one key of the nav cluster in favor of an
engraving, just like the Jelly Epoch.
Both of these have daughterboards and utilize QMK and VIA.
For plates, we have POM, polycarbonate, FR4, and aluminum, with FR4 and aluminum having
flex cuts.
And for colors, we have a few set choices, including e-white, black, red, silver, green,
cream, purple, and pink.
all of these have specialty chamfers, which we’ll see in a bit.
I’m a little sad the darker red from the Jelly Epoch isn’t returning.
Lastly, the Jelly Evolv will start at 420 dollars.
In the flex cut PCB are the Owlstabs lubed with 205g0 and BDZ.
I’ll add on plate foam, the POM plate, and in here go Oak switches.
These are light tactiles that are factory hand lubed.
With the switches in we get to take a look at, yet again, another gasket shape.
We went from jackets to socks to dumbbells to… nipples?
Anyway we have a softer light gray set and a harder dark gray set, and I’ll go with
the softer set.
With the inner assembly done, we can get to the case.
To open this up, all we have to do are press in the paddles on the sides and lift up.
These simply secure the top case in place with tension.
Now I can connect the daughterboard, set the gaskets onto the leaf springs, and reinsert
the top case.
Now we can install GMK white on black.
While the original Jelly Epoch was built around the PE foam mod and is largely attributed
to the mod’s inception, the past few years have shown that the mod affects many boards
in largely the same ways, resulting in incredibly similar sound between boards of vastly different
price points.
So the Jelly Evolv was built for a much less foam-dependent sound signature.
While it definitely does a much better job at this, it’s still far from perfect.
Oaks, for one, actually sound great.
But of course, the sound of light tactiles isn’t something for everyone.
In hindsight, they aren’t a really good switch for testing the acoustic headroom of
the board and are definitely more oriented towards an interesting feel.
The volume is definitely there, although there could be a little more liveliness.
And because we used the flex cut PCB, I have no doubt the non flex cut PCB could deliver
in that area.
Surely enough, weaker-sounding switches like lubed tangerines don’t fare so well in this
board, and end up sounding pretty plasticky even with plate foam.
Lubed alpacas definitely fare better, but are still kinda lame, and I’d assume all
the legacy JWK recolors will generally play out the same way with the flex-cut PCB.
But to be honest, the flex-cut PCB isn’t really even necessary.
The board has a ton of both flex and bounce, and quickly bottoms out with a firm press.
It's even visible with heavy typing.
And because this is done through leaf springs, it ends up feeling springy instead of mushy.
Implementing leaf springs was a really good decision to allow significant inner assembly
movement, and the ESD sheet is entirely necessary.
The thing is, I’m not really sure if the gasket choice is really going to affect much
because of both the presence of the leaf springs and just how thin the gaskets are.
And I wonder if adjustability for the leaf springs would be a possibility later down
the line, similar to how it was implemented in the AM Compact Touch.
But other than that, the plate and PCB you choose will be the main factors in the flexibility
and bounciness of the board.
The design is both a homage to the original Jelly Epoch, and also something entirely new.
On top, we, of course, have our side accent badge and the jelly engraving.
This time around, we also have a very reflective chamfer, which is gold in this specific colorway.
The top region still has the sandwich-style case structure, which can be seen from all
sides, and the staple of the original Jelly Epoch, the stunning side profile.
Here we can see a sliver of the large bottom weight, as well as our top case release paddle.
And it actually looks really empty under here, because it actually is.
The screw points are visible here, and if you look from the back, you can actually pretty
clearly see the daughterboard’s PCB.
This deconstructed look is something we haven’t seen before in the past, although it is very
interesting to see how Owlab envisioned the successor to the original board.
And just like the original board, this area has RGB, which is a lot brighter than last
time and also pretty visible from the side.
The bottom shows the clear separation between the lower case and upper case regions, and
also our inset weight, with very stylized text.
The weight comes with a sort of protector, but it makes a weird outline around the text,
and since the weight is inset anyway, I’d just take it off.
With the design covered, let’s take a closer look at the paddles.
These are a surprisingly secure and very easy way to implement a truly screwless assembly.
We can see that they’re literally just plastic bits that bend to allow the case to separate
from the rest of the board.
This is similar to the catch ball mount we saw introduced in the matrix corsa and implemented
in the Jris 75, except it’s much cheaper to manufacture and is integrated into the
exterior design.
What allows it to be secure are these tabs near the bottom of the top case that help
hold it in place.
While the catch ball mount is super adaptable to most boards, I’m not exactly sure if
this system will see other uses, as it’s pretty intrusive on the design as a whole.
Nevertheless, it’s an excellent implementation of a truly screwless design and a highly clever
merging of design and functionality.
As for the price point, my Jelly Epoch cost $390, so with the Jelly Evolv being upwards
of $400, there was a little bit of a price hike.
But as a premium product, this isn’t a bad deal.
The coating quality is excellent, as expected, and overall, the Jelly Evolv truly feels like
a spiritual successor to the Jelly Epoch.
It manages to implement new engineering practices, improve upon existing features and aspects,
and revamp the design all while staying faithful to the original.
I’d expect nothing less from a board bearing the Owlab name and the successor to a board
that started a revolution.