- So I've been using this really cool, pretty looking
sexy mechanical wireless keyboard for the last
few months and I've had literally hundreds
of comments from people being like,
"Bro, what keyboard are you using?
I want one."
So, today, I'm finally revealing the mystery.
This is a comprehensive review of the IQUNIX F96.
Hey, friends, welcome back to the channel.
If you're new here, my name is Ali,
I'm a doctor working in the U.K.
And on this channel we explore the strategies
and tools to help us live healthier, happier,
more productive lives.
Now, the keyboard is one of the most important tools
in our productivity arsenal and if you're anything
like me, i.e. a massive nerd, you probably spend
more time interacting with your keyboard
than you do with your friends and family.
So, it's kind of a big deal that we get the right keyboard
because it's really important for our physical,
mental, spiritual and emotional health.
I've been using this IQUNIX F96 wireless mechanical
keyboard for the last few months.
They sent it to me for review purposes
and I liked it so much that I emailed them,
being like, hey, you know, can we do some kind of
deal, arrangement thing here?
So, if you click the link in the video description
you can get a 5% discount on their website
and I'll get a bit of a kickback as well.
So if you want to spend a load of money
on a fancy-ass, wireless mechanical keyboard,
this is one option out of many.
It's the one that I've been using personally.
Anyway, in this video I'm gonna talk about
these various things and, as usual,
we'll start with upfront conclusion
to save you time if that's all you want to hear.
And then we've got time stamps in the video
description and in the pinned comments,
you can skip around the video if you feel like it.
So, upfront conclusion, I love this thing.
It sounds really good.
(keys clicking)
It looks really pretty.
I've had hundreds of comments of people being like,
oh, that keyboard looks amazing.
Where did you get it?
Like, what is it?
So, I think it just adds such a nice, colorful
splash of personality vibe to my otherwise
somewhat sterile desk set up.
And, actually, I've also got the Apple Magic keyboard
which I still sometimes use if I want to,
if I want to Zoom call or something, and I don't,
I want to not make noise or if my housemate Molly
is asleep from a night shift, then I will kind of,
be a bit considerate and not do this kind of --
(keys clicking)
But, like, the sound is just, like, the thing
that sells it for me.
It just makes an absolute joy to type on.
And, yeah, it's expensive.
Check it out.
Link in the video description.
5% discount, blah, blah, blah.
But I think it's worth it, personally,
because a keyboard is, like, the one thing
that we interact, like, I interact with my keyboard
more than I interact with my mouse,
because obviously, because I'm not a clicker,
because, you know, only noobs are clickers,
as they say.
So, I just use the keyboard for everything
and so if it's a nice and that's, like, good for me,
so, yeah, I love it.
That was my upfront conclusion for whatever that's worth.
Let's now talk about the design.
Now, so, this is, it's a full size keyboard.
We've got the numpad.
We've got, I've gone for the coral, the coral version.
Which is sort of this blue with this orange,
kind of, fluorescent orange type pink thing.
And, yeah, as you can see, there's a slight gray
to the color of the keys, except the keys
that are blue have the accent color as, like,
the text color and it's kind of the other way around.
I just think that it's a very, kind of, classy aesthetic.
And, before, I was all about, you know,
let's have, like, a sterile, minimalistic
Apple style keyboard.
But then when I started using this thing
and started thinking, like, it's just looks
really cool on everything, like, you know,
have a look at the overhead shot.
I like, these days on my thumbnails I just have
the keyboard off to the side.
I would have the product in the middle.
And look at that, that scene just looks really cool
because we've got this colorful keyboard
adding personality.
Whereas when we don't have it, it would just
be a bit sterile.
So, honestly, like, the looks really sell it for me.
So, I just love the design of this thing.
In terms of weight, it's quite bulky.
Like --
(bang)
Like, it feels really, really beefy.
And when I'm typing, like, it never, sort of,
moves around.
Like --
(keys clicking)
It's just, it never moves.
It's a very, kind of, solid product.
And so, yeah, I just love everything about the design.
We've got this USB-C charging port thingy at the back.
We've got these feet at the bottom.
And we've got, kind of, the brand name,
F96 IQUNIX, and it's got these, kind of,
feet that stick out from the bottom
that sort of rest it at this nice, slightly elevated angle.
Which just makes it really comfortable to type on
for extended periods of time.
Let's talk about the sound now.
Now, like, full disclosure, I know absolutely nothing
about mechanical keyboards so I didn't really
know anything about the cherry red, cherry blue,
versus brown color switches.
This is the cherry red version.
Because I thought cherry red, or cherry pink,
whatever it's called, I thought that sounded cool.
And here is what it sounds like.
In fact, you know what, I'm just going to do a typing test
on ten fast fingers.
So let's record my screen.
All right, let's go for it.
(keys clicking)
150 words per minute, not too bad.
It's not my best.
Like, I think objectively, my typing speed
is very slightly slower on this than it is on,
for example, the Apple Magic keyboard
or my iPad Pro Magic keyboard.
Just because I think that the fact that this has
more key travel and you have to, kind of,
press it a little bit harder means that you are
shaving, at least I am, I'm shaving a few words per minute
off my typing speed.
Like, on the iPad and Magic keyboard, the first time
I did the typing test I got 154 words per minute.
But, still, 150 words per minute,
don't think anyone's going to say no to that.
I'll be doing a video later on where I talk
about tips for how to type fast
and like an absolute productivity grease monkey.
But that should hopefully give you an idea of --
(keys clicking)
what this sounds like.
It's really annoying over Zoom calls,
it's really annoying for other people in the house,
but right now it's locked down.
I'm on my own.
It's great.
I fricking love the sound of this thing.
Okay, next, let's talk about the lights.
And to really show you the lights, I'm gonna
turn off the lights.
And I'm gonna drawn the curtains.
And so hopefully everything's kinda gone dark.
But, basically, this has some really cool RGB color options.
You don't have to go for the RGB, kind of, lighting version.
It's a bit more expensive if you do.
But I've gone for it, because it's kind of cool.
So, let's turn the backlight on.
And now, we're gonna get the manual out
because this, this is the manual.
It tells you, sort of, what, essentially,
what key combinations you have to press to get
the different, different lighting settings.
So I just always have that to hand.
So, let's see.
(keys clicking)
So this is mode number one.
If I type.
(keys clicking)
So you see the lighting,
it sort of comes out and,
from whatever key that you type on.
So that's kind of cool.
We can also change the, the color of the keys.
So we can make it yellow.
Green.
Blue.
Purple.
Pink.
We've got a multi-colored one as well.
So, yeah, whatever sort or color you want
for your set up, let's go with blue for now.
Let's see, what else have we got?
FN, nope, FN shift to change the mode.
Hello.
Okay so this is an entirely back lit mode.
So that's another thing that we can do,
if you are inclined to be this tacky
when it comes to keyboards.
What's the next one?
Oh, hello.
Look at that.
Now it's flashing, is it, and if I press something?
Now we've got the rainbow effect
going all throughout the keyboard.
Now we've got this sort of ripple kind of,
wavy kind of effect if you're into that sort of thing.
Now we've got this subtle kind of glowy type effect.
Which, again, is not influenced by the keys that I type.
Now we've got this sort of thing.
Where the wave kind of, the wave of light,
and the wave of depolarization goes across
the keyboard and back again.
And it's sort of, is it changing color?
No, but if I wanted to I could change
the color of it.
If I want to have it on, I usually
have it completely off because it kind of drains
a bit of battery, which is kind of annoying,
but if I were to have it on, this would
be how I'd have it on.
Typing random stuff.
Because now, like, when you hit the key, it --
(puffs)
Sort of lights up from that.
And this is just, like, really fricking cool.
This was like a big reason why I got this,
you know, I got the RGB version of this keyboard
when they emailed me because I was like,
I would love to be able to have these kind of lights.
It's kinda cool at nighttime.
I'll be honest, I don't usually have them on
because they do drain battery.
Let's talk about the feel of the keys now.
So --
(keys clicking)
It's sort of hard to say.
So, if I compare it against the Magic keyboard.
Which is, I suppose, the other keyboard that I use.
These --
(keys clicking)
There's very little key travel.
And you can hear what this sounds like.
(keys clicking)
Whereas this --
(keys clicking)
There's significantly more key travel
and that is, I suppose, sort of, the main
thing when it comes to the feel of the keys.
They feel very, like, when you hit a key
it, just, like, feels really good.
And I apologize that I'm not an official
reviewer of mechanical keyboards
so I don't know how, I don't know what terminology
you're supposed to use to describe the feel of keys.
But the main thing I would say is that
when I need to, for example, plan a video
or type out long emails or do anything
that involves lots of typing, this is the keyboard
that I go to.
I could go to this one, I could go to my iPad Pro
Magic keyboard, I also have the old Apple keyboard
somewhere, but this is the one that I go to
because the feel of the keys just makes me
more, encourages me more to write stuff.
To type out stuff.
And I think that's valuable because most of
the stuff I do on the internet
and making money on the internet revolves around
typing a load of stuff.
Like planning videos and things.
So that is sort of what they keys feel like.
Let's talk about charging now.
Annoyingly I can't actually find the cable
that comes with this but it's a USB-C cable.
Because this is a USB-C port.
It's a braided sort of nylon-y feeling cable.
It feels, like, quality and stuff.
The really annoying thing about, you know,
this is one of my gripes with it.
Is that you can't charge it with a USB-C data cable.
You can only charge it with a USB-C power cable.
So my charger for the iPad and for the MacBook,
it doesn't work on this, annoyingly,
you have to use a specific power thingy.
And so I've got this random red one from Amazon.
This is like some Amazon basics one.
And this one would work to charge it
because it's just a, a power cable,
and I connect this to the power cord.
If I were to connect this to my laptop it wouldn't work
because it's not, it can't be charged over
a data connection or something stupid like that.
It's kind of annoying, it took me a while
to figure that out, but I guess it's a small price
to pay, and I just kind of plug this in the mains
and then plug it into the keyboard and then it works.
So any USB-C cable will work for it, it's just,
it can't be, it can't be data that goes through
it has to be power only.
I'm not really sure why that is, I'm sure they
could have changed it, but yeah, that's the slightly
annoying this about the charging.
In terms of battery life, like, if I have the
lights enabled, then I had to charge it every
three or four days.
Which is quite annoying.
Like, it was actively annoying to have to charge this
every three or four days.
So I'd be switching to this.
And then I realized, like, two months into owning
this keyboard that I can just disable the back light
and now, like, I disabled the backlight, like,
I don't know, three months ago
and I haven't had to charge it since
just because it's not run out of battery.
So I don't know what the actual battery life is.
But, in, like, three months I haven't had to charge it.
Once I disabled RGB lighting.
So, if you're a fan of these, like, fancy RGB colors
then you'll have to charge it a little bit more often
but I'm, I don't usually have them enabled,
therefore I don't charge it very often.
Final few things, so I've got the version
that does have a numpad.
I'm not sure they have a version without,
but to be honest, I never really use the numpad.
It's kind of helpful if I'm typing in a lot of numbers
or if I'm doing a lot of data entry.
I don't really do that anymore.
I've got a team of people who, kind of, work for me,
who can now do data entry if I need them to.
So, honestly I don't really use the numpad for a lot.
But, I don't know, it just makes it look a bit more
beefy having a numpad than not having a numpad.
Then in terms of Windows and Mac compatibility,
so this is control, Windows and alt.
So this, kind of, the design is for Windows keyboards.
But, when you have a Mac, alt becomes command,
which makes sense because that is where command
would be, and then the Windows key becomes alt.
So, like, it's super easy to use as a Mac user,
but it is a keyboard that is designed more for Windows
so you won't see a command key.
You will see there's a Windows old setup.
But if you, like, if you've got the muscle memory
of how to operate a Mac keyboard,
you just kind of know you've got command,
you've got alt, and then you've got shift and control.
Blah, blah, blah.
Like, it works absolutely fine.
You don't have an FN key on that side.
You have an FN key on this side.
So, that's something you might want to keep in mind.
If you need to look down and see where command is
on the Mac then maybe this keyboard's not for you
but if you've got the muscle memory
then it's absolutely fine.
And, finally, let's talk about the price.
Bear in mind, if you click the link in the video
description, or use the coupon code Ali at check out,
you will get a 5% discount, or whatever that's worth.
But, let's look at the pricing.
So, the basic wired version is 199 dollars.
If you go wireless, it's 229.
100% if you're spending $200 on a keyboard,
please spend the extra $30 to get it wireless
because it's just so nice having a wireless keyboard.
It's just absolutely sick.
I cannot image going back to a wired keyboard.
If you want the backlight, it's another $20.
I mean, I went for it because they were giving
it to me for free, but to be honest,
even if I was buying this, I would have gone for
the backlight just because my old Magic keyboard
I was using from the age of 14 up until the age of 25.
I went 11 years with a single keyboard
and, like, you know, this is spending $250
over an 11 year period, I mean, like, I really
couldn't care less personally, but, you know,
you might have a different preferences.
And as I said, I went for the cherry red.
I'm not really sure what cherry brown and cherry blue
are supposed to sound like, but I thought cherry red
sounded cool so that was the one that I went for.
So, yes, it's a bit steep.
For me, I think the expense is justified.
Would I spend $250 on a keyboard?
Yes.
Would I spend $500 on a keyboard?
$500 would be the price point for me where I would think,
okay this had better be a very compelling keyboard.
Whereas $250 I think, well, you know, my Airpods
were $250 and I use my keyboard ten times more often
than I use my Airpods.
So, personally, I think it's worth it.
But I totally get like you really do not need to spend
$250 on a keyboard, like, it's not gonna make
you any happier in life, it just --
(keys clicking)
Makes you feel more like a badass when you're typing on it
and it annoys people that you live with.
So that is what I'm going to say on price.
So yeah, that's the IQUNIX F96 keyboard.
If you wanna buy it, please do use the link
in the video description.
You get a 5% discount and I get some kind of kickback
as well, so if you wanna support my coffee addiction
then this is great.
If you enjoyed this video I'm gonna make a video
about how I type so fast and that'll appear
over there once I film it.
Or if I haven't filmed it yet, then click here
for a playlist about my favorite apps on how to
be more productive on a Mac, on a computer,
or whatever, see you in the next video.
Bye bye.