This is me making my way down to the shops at like 10:30 at night because a couple of
people in the Australian mech community noticed that there was a mechanical keyboard on sale
at Kmart, which is a discount department store. I think it’s struggling in the US, but here
in Australia, it’s like top tier stuff. This isn’t a video that I planned, so it’s
pretty scuffed and won’t be long, but I felt like doing this, and taking one for the
team.
I didn’t know if they had any in stock, but here they are. 3 of em on this pretty
sad looking display. I’m actually surprised they got this in stock over other stuff that’s
missing here. But anyway, it’s 39 bucks, which equates to around this many USD. So
pretty much as cheap as you can get for a mechanical keyboard.
And RIP to this box, it looks like someone wanted to try out the switches and annihilated
it. Honestly I probably coulda got this discounted if I asked.
But looking at the box, it does look pretty generic.
Opening up the box we get our little guide. And then the keyboard itself. No wrapping
or foam or anything. Just pure keyboard.
First impressions, it feels undoubtedly cheap, but it is a cheap board, so that’s how it
is. It’s pretty light for a keyboard of this size, coming in at over 800g. And there’s
a bit of flex to it because it is an all plastic construction which is very rare on a modern
mechanical keyboard. Out of all the boards I’ve checked out on the channel, I think
just 1 other board was like that.
And more interestingly, it’s actually curved. I can even spin it. There’s a bow to it,
so the sides are higher than the middle. Not by a whole lot, but you notice it straight
away.
Plugging it in, and it lights up in a bunch of colours. It doesn’t have actual RGB LEDs,
but just this fixed colour array, but there’s a couple of effects and stuff at least.
The design itself is very basic and clean. It has a floating key design, so the switches
are slightly exposed and the top plate is what the switches are mounted to. And yep,
again, this is all made from plastic, rather than aluminium or steel, and you can tell.
The keycaps though are double shot, so the legends are another piece of plastic and won’t
fade away which is nice. But they are thin, and there’s just all these little things
that make it so cheap feeling. So the legends, some are centred, but most seem to be going
towards the right. The keycaps are all jagged looking. The lock indicator sticker thing
wasn’t stuck on straight.
Turning the board over we have some flip up feet, and spots for rubber, but no rubber.
A small sticker, with a big space. There looks to be attachments for a wrist rest, but that’s
a fine omission.
We have an ISO enter key, which we don’t use here in Australia. But not a true ISO
layout.
But at the end of the day, we do have the good old mechanical keyswitches. These are
unbranded blue switches, and here’s how they sound.
Super loud keyboard. The blue clicky switches are as you’d expect. Just like Outemu blues,
nice and clicky. But with this hollowy thin plastic case, they’re even louder. And this
thing is crazy pingy adding even more sound to it. So if you’re keen on having an ultra
loud keyboard, I guess it has something going for it. But the switches, they feel absolutely
fine, and are great. Can’t fault them.
Now to the stabs. For the most part they felt and sounded fine, besides the right shift.
They had little to no rattle. But what legit surprised me was when I took off a cap and
saw this. No stabs. Like this is a first for me. There’s just like these shallow holes,
and these stems bits just hit it. And even more surprising is that it’s actually not
bad. The bottom out is clean and sharp, and of course has no rattle. You can make them
rock to each side, but in actual use, it’s no problem at all.
However on the spacebar and right shift, there are wires, and the right shift is beyond terrible.
Let’s open this bad boy up. There’s a bunch of Philips head screws under some caps,
and one on the other side of the board.
Alright so the bottom plastic enclosure is actually fine. It’s pretty standard, there’s
ribbing along the bottom surface, and notice that there’s no curve. But unfortunately
it uses plastic standoffs, and 2 of them were already broken from the factory. So the screws
were just screwed in too far.
And here we can really see the curve now without the bottom piece. Not sure exactly why it’s
like this, but again, it’s just plastic. Whereas 99% of other mechs have steel or alu
mounting plates.
And yeh just more cutbacks. The USB cable is just soldered straight onto the PCB. Usually
you’d have a removable connector there. But at least all the solder joints are nice
and clean.
And that’s the Anko full mechanical gaming keyboard from Kmart. I know that this board
won’t be applicable for 95% of you, but this like unseen here in Australia. To have
some big discount department store, and that being Kmart selling some mechs like this where
you can actually physically pick it up and bring it home, it’s an actual occasion.
And amazingly it’s out of stock at a bunch of stores. Too bad that it’s straight up
the worst mech I’ve personally tried out. And you know me, I’m all for budget mechanical
keyboards. I think they’re super important, as they’re the most accessible to most people,
because of course mechanical keyboards are expensive. And I often believe that if that’s
what you can afford, then go for it. But with this, yeh. Get something else, like the Kogan
mech for the same price. Or save like 10 bucks more and you’ll get something soooo much
better than this. Straight up no elitist here, it’s just that it actually is not a great
board, and there’s so many other boards out there that are better for the price.
For those who actually picked this up. Gg. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
But hey, it has mechanical keyswitches, so it is still a mechanical keyboard.
I gotta give it to Kmart though, they did for some reason stock this stuff, and I enjoyed
my little adventure.