I upgraded the cheapest keyboard on Amazon so you don't have to why so you don't have to
well howdy hey I'm happy or Tech and I get very angry at keyboards also yes that is Flex Seal
I'm pouring into my keyboard I'll explain later now the Story begins with a challenge Betty yes
this is Betty AKA switch and click a few months ago we challenged each other to build the best
gaming keyboard possible and let's just say what the heck just happened it did not go over well
but you're probably thinking what does this have to do with the cheapest keyboard on Amazon I'll
be back and I'll be budget well this is where I had an idea for Revenge I want you to upgrade the
cheapest keyboard on Amazon what is the cheapest keyboard on Amazon well well well it was at this
point that I realized I didn't think I'd get this far I frantically looked around on Amazon
to try and find the cheapest keyboard and I came up with this the Mage key60 aka the cheapest and
most popular now I'll tell you the price later but this is definitely the cheapest we could go
and also go custom oh did I mention we'll be doing some weird stuff oh yeah I can find weird stuff
and we'll be doing all of this in hopes to make the best possible budget keyboard from Amazon and
with that we were ready to start the challenge no I'm sure this is going to be super easy and
I'm definitely gonna win and there's gonna be no hiccups and my keyboard is gonna work really well
but little did I know when you're working on a really tight budget things might not work out
how you think they will and this is no exception hopefully you'll be able to learn from some of my
mistakes speaking of mistakes only 69 of you are subscribed Captain that's a pretty big mistake
now before we get into upgrading the keyboard
let's figure out what we have to work with first this is this is the mage
what Wizards I guess and it's the keyboard that now pops up more than any other when you search
mechanical keyboard on Amazon but I couldn't help but wonder why why is this thing popular like
none of the features stick out at a glance on the product page so I'll be taking a look at it closer
now as far as the accessories go in the Box I mean well wait actually that's kind of impressive
there's a bunch of accent keycaps this is a pretty good touch and maybe one reason why people like
it is because of that there's also a USBC cable which is surprisingly modern for a cheap keyboard
and some spare switches which we're going to talk about a lot soon now that's all fine and
dandy but nothing too luxurious oh wait there's a keycap and switch puller and now it's time for
the part that most of you are interested in the cheapest keyboard on Amazon and again I say that
there is cheaper keyboards but this is like the cheapest custom keyboard it's a bit of a loophole
but it's gonna work now coming in at 29.99 that was really hard to say the magiki 60 is basically
the same price as a dinner in Seattle so I'm not expecting much but I do see lights on the keycaps
so that could be interesting does this have RGB at a glance it looks like your average 65 keyboard
now I don't have Subway Surfers or anything to show you but if you're new to keyboards I'll
try and keep this as simple as possible now at a first glance this keyboard kind of just looks
like a normal keyboard but similar to a duck and a bear costume sometimes there's more underneath
the surface the case is unapologetically plastic it would not apologize I really tried to get it
to and it's got a mage ghee logo smack dab right in the center I will say this two-tone design is
more original than most 200 keyboards that I've seen lately so it's got that going for it and it
feels really cheap in the hand oh my God it's so light why is it so light now I'm used to picking
up heavy things don't take that out of context so when I pick this thing up I was it was it was
something I wager to say there is no form of weight or dampening in this keyboard like you
can't hear that it sounds Hollow but dear God I think it's gonna be a massacre inside yikes you're
probably wondering hippo if this is such a cheap keyboard why and how are you even gonna upgrade
it well generally if you buy a cheap keyboard and you put in just a little bit of effort into it you
can actually get it sounding way better than an expensive keyboard and I want to try that
here now let me clarify by expensive keyboard I mean like Razer or Logitech or something now you
see these switches you see how they're purple I'm really confused because I'm editor hippo here and
I looked back at the product page they don't sell a purple one but I can only assume that it went
out of stock after I bought them but it doesn't matter because these are really bad these are
otemu tactile switches I don't know the exact brand or specification but they sound very very
pinky basically what that means is oh no oh no this is gonna be bad you see those
two little metal ends there that means that the only switches I can replace this thing with are
otemu style switches a brand that I think personally doesn't make good switches at all also
I mean it's expected but the keyboard does not sound or feel great but I'll show you the sound
in a minute after I put down my nice Springtime desk mat from kinetic labs this is my desk map
by the way I have a line of three separate pixel art themed desk mats that I sell linked down below
they're in stock at only 24.99 they also look really good by the way look you're looking at
it you remember the duck in a bear costume or bear in a duck costume yeah so this keyboard has lights
but they weren't RGB they're just blue just blue lights I guess that's still better than nothing
which some really expensive keyboards don't even have any lights now here's what it sounds like
now if I show up to the challenge with a keyboard that sounds like that Betty is going to ruin me
even if she just like spat on the keyboard it would still probably sound better so I'm gonna
need to mod it and the first step to modding it is gonna be taking the keycaps off with a little
bit of magic see I'm a mage two ghee take that now as I mentioned before these switches are not very
good now I could take them apart and Lube them all by hand one by one but all the supplies would cost
like 20 to 30 bucks and the time would be like four to five hours so I've got something else
up my sleeves I think ultimately these switches just don't feel good enough to sink any time into
or money into and that's kind of the moral of the story here now at least this keyboard is hot swap
meaning I can take these switches out without needing to desolder them as if it was soldered
in then I would throw this in the garbage however there is a big problem with the hot swap PCB as
I mentioned earlier and I'll talk about that more later but it's gonna it's gonna cause some issues
foreign speaking of issues don't look at any of these spoilers for what's to come in this
video do not look at the spoilers now I have a few ideas of how I'm going to upgrade this thing and
most of them involve dampening it to make it sound deeper and thalkier and wow there was nothing in
there at all completely Barren Wasteland alright so there's literally only three pieces to this
keyboard now this empty bottom housing part of the case is gonna be the biggest trouble here
because it's incredibly Hollow and made out of plastic it's gonna be reverberating and bouncing
around and the sound I'm going to be getting from it is not very good I mean additionally
the feel won't be very good because it's so Hollow now there's also this top plate bit which all of
the switches slot into and usually a keyboard will come with foam in between this and the PCB
however this doesn't so I'm gonna have to come up with something more creative are you ready for me
to start my villain Arc now I've been wanting to do this for a very long time so let me grab
my Flex Seal liquid rubber I have genuinely no idea how this is going to make a keyboard sound
but it's basically a liquid silicone and silicone dampening is very very good however I have like
a week to build this keyboard and this takes a day or two to set so I'm gonna have to cut
some Corners here as I still have to edit this video I'm just gonna generously pour this into
the case and try and fill up all of the gaps making sure I don't accidentally fill it too
much because that would be really bad if you did that I also had another idea and
this Harkens back to one of my original Amazon keyboard modding videos of coding
the whole entire top plate and a layer of this liquid rubber AKA Flex Seal thank you Phil Swift
putting chili sauce on a sunburn this isn't really the best solution but I think this is gonna dampen
it a little bit or maybe at the very least it's going to distract you from Betty's build so you
don't vote for that and while I wait 24 to 36 hours for the Flex Seal to dry dear God that's
gonna be rough it was time to go switch shopping now I was the most excited for this part of the
video as I wanted to buy a bunch of switches from Amazon however I quickly realized that
oh they're not gonna work with the board what I would say is damn near every switch that I
normally go to for a budget keyboard does not work with this budget keyboard why well the PCB does
not support five pin switches and on top of that it doesn't support switches that have that big of
pins so I went through my whole switch collection very frantically to find some backups that might
work now I found these gamma K bumblebee switches and they kind of suck and then I found the zako
Sakura switches that really just didn't spark that much joy I tested them out side by side and I was
trying to figure out what's gonna work the best and ultimately I think I found the right choice
but I'll talk about that in a second next it's time for a mod that I really don't recommend now
this is the part of the video where I say do not try this at home now I've done this mod a lot in
the past and I call it the hippo mod and generally I wouldn't do it on this type of keyboard with
the weird hot swap sockets but Madison on Amazon said that she did and it made the keyboard sound
amazing and Poppy so Madison I'm gonna listen to you and if this backfires you're getting
it speaking of getting it the Flex Seal had not properly cured yet and is still squishy however I
have completely ran out of time for this keyboard build if you can't tell by how frantic I'm getting
so at this point it was time to just bite the bullet and build the keyboard squishy Flex Seal
or not now so far the Flex Seal is like three dollars if you take the amount of Flex Seal that
I use the press and seal is like three dollars so the mods are pretty low entry and pretty
affordable so far now with the board screwed back together it was time to put in the switches the
Flex Seal helped a little bit with the hollowness but there was still one big issue the stabilizers
yeah they're really bad so I got a hobby syringe in Permatex Dielectric grease and I'll have
everything I use in this video linked down below by the way this is my number one method for lazy
lubing stabilizers you just shoot some Dielectric grease into them and it makes them sound and feel
quite a bit better if they're bone dry it also saves you the time of taking them apart and it's
very affordable but okay the switches the switches after trying all those switches earlier I decided
to go with the Leo bog v3s now these might look incredibly boring but they're actually a very very
good switch basically what I look for in a switch is how cheap are they and these were 25 for a
hundred 25 bucks for a hundred switches on top of that they were incredibly well Factory lubed which
you'll hear in the final sound test they also felt very smooth did I mention that before they're a
linear switch and no scratch no ping they're also only a 40 gram spring so these are really
a good switch for me they fit all of my personal preferences which is what you should look for when
you're building a keyboard for yourself preference now what wasn't preference is the amount of
pressure that I had to put installing these no you're not getting out of this with magic hypia
because of the sockets putting these in required so much force that I'm worried I'm going to break
something now is there a chance that these aren't actually compatible with this board's PCB possibly
but my thumb hurts you guys don't even know that my thumb hurts please say thank you for using
your thumbs hippo in the comments say Thank you Mr thumb anyways after about 30 minutes of thumb pain
I already had all the switches in and my final verdict on these switches I'll just I'll give
it to you they're very good if you're looking for super super cheap switches these are better than
most that I've tried now for the keycaps it's a bit more interesting and this is definitely
going to be a very preference based choice now the keycaps that came on the board are totally okay
they're just not going to be that great for sound or feel and these keycaps are a mess oh my God
coming in at 26.99 or a little bit cheaper than the whole keyboard these keycaps are dice up PBT
and they are honestly very very good for the the price for reference premium keycaps are usually
70 to 120 U.S so these come in a lot cheaper and they still give you that nice keyboard aesthetic
look without the keyboard aesthetic price good old some gazen back at it again with the cheap
keycaps now if you look at this this keyboard it looks kind of nice now I'm not gonna lie it kind
of looks nice but I can't even imagine what Betty is up to she said she's good at doing weird things
and that terrifies me I think in total I've put about 50 into upgrading this keyboard and I guess
we're gonna see if I got fifty dollars worth of value oh yeah also in the background is one of my
other desk mats that I sell uh link down below but I couldn't help but get a feeling like all
that Force I was putting on the switches is maybe messed something up like maybe it's not gonna oh
wait it lights up hey it lights up that's pretty good yeah okay wait false alarm the switch isn't
working maybe it's a different switch um none of the switches are working none of the switches are
working no no no no no no no no uh yeah for legal reasons I had to mute the audio on that
clip but look look at Nola she's trying to cheer me up yay thank you Nola um so yeah the keyboard
doesn't work now I'm not sure if this is Madison's fault for telling me I should press and seal it or
maybe it's my fault for Flex Sealing Twitter maybe it was the switches or something but it doesn't
work as a keyboard and ultimately that means it's garbage but maybe this is just a fluke for me and
you at home would have no issues modding it so I'll still hold on for my sake for the challenge
foreign so how is the challenge overall I enjoyed it I think Amazon actually has
a lot of good things nowadays whereas it used to not yeah I think there's a lot of potential
with Amazon but there's also a lot of potential to mess up and to spend way more money than you need
to okay let's do the grand reveal in three two one um no spoilers you have to go watch Betty's
video thank you very much I'll start I'll tell you about my keyboard um it doesn't work why why
doesn't it work I don't know but to my credit my keyboard didn't need to work to win the challenge
so it was time to put a poll out for you guys to vote on to see who made the better keyboard this
was judged on looks and sound so I'm really just hoping I can bring it home and cheat my
way to the finish line now Betty the number one thing you're probably wondering is who won yes
now somebody won with 74 of the votes all right I feel like you're stalling here and that's somebody
probably got lucky or like maybe it was a fluke or oh you you need something oh
geez sorry I oh sorry one second oh man oh man somebody's a loser you won the challenge [Music]
Doc it's all you're the best keyboard upgrader of 2023 buddy congratulations
everybody go subscribe to switch and click on YouTube and check out her video where she
built a better keyboard than me so I upgraded the cheapest Q so you don't have to I'll be
I'll be sound tested what it sounds like before and after and congrats to Betty