If you’ve watched nearlucid reviews before, you know we don’t like to exaggerate things.
So trust me when I say that this board blew me away.
This is the QK65, a new budget keyboard from Owlab’s sister company Qwertykeys. This board
was sent to us for review, but as always that will not affect our statements in any way.
There doesn't seem to be any retail packaging yet, so this is just the shipping box.
Inside we have some V2 owlstabs. We also have a braided coiled cable.
It doesn’t look incredible right now, and I’m not sure if this is because of the unprotective
packaging. I would always recommend using your own cable, but if you need one, it will do. The
last thing before we get into the board stuff is this included screwdriver, and some extra screws.
Now let's open up this included carrying case. I find it kinda strange that the budget boards I
have more often include a carrying case than the more expensive ones. Here are our rubber feet,
two different types of gaskets, soldered PCB and PCB foams, and hotswap PCB and PCB foams.
Next in this pocket are our 2 plates, white POM and black aluminum.
Lastly our board itself, which is plastic wrapped and very snugly fit into the case.
Like, really snug.
The plastic wrap will be replaced by a proper PET bag in the group buy units.
Inside here is our case foam, and a very thick silicone sheet.
This is much like the silicone piece in the nk65, and is meant to help with any hollowness or ping.
So the QK65 has a pretty ordinary spec list. It’s a gasket mounted compact 65. Both hotswap
and soldered are offered, and neither have daughterboards. The hotswap layout can only swap
to stepped caps, which is objectively the best caps, and the solder layout can do stepped caps,
split left shift, split backspace, ISO enter and 7U bottom row.
There are a healthy amount of options with this board. For the case you can choose between silver,
black, blue and gold, black and gold, ewhite and gold, ewhite and black,
ewhite and purple, and black chroma. Plates offered are polycarbonate, pom,
aluminum, and FR4. The last 2 have flex cuts. Of course, the QK65 has QMK and VIA,
and the typing angle is 7.5 degrees. One additional thing I'd like to cover is that
you have the option between two types of gasket socks, these larger rubber pieces that slide over
the entire area on the plate, and these smaller pieces that only slide over the ends of the plate,
which are usually called gasket socks. And of course, the most important part,
the board sits at a whopping 150 dollars. Think about that for a second. 150 United
States dollars for everything you get! I don’t even know how they do it.
Let's move on to the build. I’ve of course opted for the hotswap PCB, and in here are
the owlstabs lubed with 205g0 and XHT BDZ. We’ll put in some plate foam, our pom plate,
And in here go raeds lubed with 205g0.
I’m going to do most configs without the PE foam so you can get a better reference
for how the board sounds stock. If you want to learn more about the PE
foam mod and how it affects sound, you can check out our video on it in the top right.
Now let’s go back to the case. Deceptively, this golden stainless steel
bottom piece is actually not the bottom case. There is actually a separate black layer inside
with another set of screws. After we unscrew this inner bottom, we have access to the inside.
So now I'm going to apply the gasket socks to the plate, and put the inner assembly into the case.
And… it doesn’t want to sit all the way down. The plate foam seems to be a bit big,
sticking out on the edges and preventing the gaskets from touching the case.
So I'm going to have to manually pluck out the parts that stick out with tweezers.
Qwertykeys suggests that you instead push the foam inward instead of removing some,
because the inner assembly is designed to have a really airtight fit. However,
I don’t think there would be a huge difference, especially since it's on the outer edges.
After this, everything looks good, so we can screw the black bottom case back in,
And our stainless steel weight.
Now we can install these bottom rubber feet which are held in with buttons instead of adhesive.
This makes it much easier to rebuild your board, since you don't have to tear off adhesive feet.
On top goes gmk space cadet 2.
Let’s take a listen.
So
it actually does sound really solid. PE foam sound is PE foam sound, but the sound without
it is pretty decent too. The prototype PE foam was a little bit harder to install,
because some of the cutouts were missing. The group buy units should have these cutouts.
I would get rid of the silicone pad and use the case foam instead,
because it's super muted with it. Case foam takes care of any hollowness the board has anyway.
The long white gaskets in my opinion sound more dull and higher pitched than the gasket socks.
For the most optimal sound personally I would recommend using the case foam, plate foam, PE
foam if you want, and gasket socks. Of course this may also be affected by switch and plate choice.
The feel is where I’m probably going to disappoint a lot of you. This board is on the stiffer side,
even without the silicone pad or case foam. There's two things that I think cause this.
The first is that there isn’t a daughterboard, so when you press down near the usb area, the
outlet is preventing flex. The other thing is that there just isn’t a lot of room inside the case,
since there are 2 bottom pieces. The extra space had to go to the bottom steel weight,
and even though they kept these two bottom pieces thin, there is still a loss of room.
The design is definitely on the understated side. Top and side profile are pretty basic, with the
side profile having an angled indent and a slight edge near the back. The back has the stainless
steel bottom weight piece. This curves inward and continues on the entire bottom of the board.
There is no branding whatsoever on the outside. Every external edge of the board is fileted,
which is really great to see on something so budget friendly.
Like I mentioned before, the only screws on the outside are hidden under these rubber feet,
making for a very clean overall look. The design has an interesting
characteristic to me. Usually, budget board designs always LOOK like budget boards,
one way or another, but the QK65 seriously looks a lot more expensive than it really is.
Same here with the material quality. Anodization is very smooth and consistent, and there aren’t
any scuffs. However, there are some invisible cost saving measures. The first of which is the inside
of the weight piece. It isn’t colored. Taking it apart for the first time and seeing this kinda
shocked me a little, because I’m not used to this level of corner cutting being so obvious.
The second is that the inner bottom case, the one that you have to open to get to the board,
is cast aluminum instead of machined aluminum. This means the overall quality is lower,
and it might feel rougher. Ultimately, neither of these matter,
since they don’t show on the outside of the board. But it is interesting to see what Owlab
has done to achieve such an incredible price for something usually much more expensive.
The last time I was this excited by something was when staebies were released.
But what about the zoom65? Well, it has a smaller aluminum weight instead of stainless steel,
and of course, no beautiful chroma option. The base price is 30 dollars higher,
although it does include keycaps and switches, so it could be argued as a better value.
I personally think the design of the QK65 is more premium,
but both are great options at the end of the day. The price tag of the QK65 is almost a no brainer,
and the customization makes it a great entry for many into the hobby.
The QK65 is definitely going to be a board people are going to remember for a while.
And that's all I have for you today. Thanks for watching this episode of nearlucid.
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