Yo, Happy New Years ish to you all. Hope you’ve been well. And today we start the year with the
super popular Keychron Q1, which was I dunno, from like the first batch of protos I think, so
I’ve had this forever. And that kinda sums up 2021 for me, admittedly it wasn’t great,
I have a lot to catch up on, a lot of people to make amends to, so for everyone else that
uses New Year’s as an excuse for change, I’m in the same boat too. So let’s have a big one hey.
There’s been quite a few changes to the Q1 since this, so we won’t do an outright review. And since
this is mine, and they made an effort to include my blue logo, let’s just have some fun with this.
I was given the assembled version in Space Grey, however you can get the barebones one which
doesn’t come with keyswitches or keycaps. The board that I have here was known for
let’s say 3 main things. First of all, the super solid starting price
of $150 USD. Its extreme typing flex. And of course the major metallic ping.
Out of the box, it’s not bad at all. The anodised finish is decent, bit of uneveness
on the bottom with its vast surface area. Nice 75% form factor which was definitely the thing
at the time, and they’ve since released a 65% version of this. It feels solid in the hands,
has a good amount of heft to it with an all alu design, no external weights.
There’s an OS switch on the rear for Windows and Mac, and the USB type C port next to that.
And yeh, just a real solid no frills gasket mount keyboard,
with again, a whole lot of plate movement.
Let’s have a quick squiz at the new changes on the newer knob version of the Q1.
Gateron G Pro Switches instead of Gateron Phantom, which
I think is purely a move to a clear switch housing. They list double gasket design
which is basically adding silicone in between the 2 metal pieces to reduce ping
A new microcontroller. Thicker bottom case to again help with ping. Steel plate instead
of aluminium, not sure I agree with that. The board absolutely does not need to be heavier.
I reckon it’s just a cost thing. Sharper corners to fit more keycaps, nice. No more coiled
aviator cable, fair enough because it wasn’t great, but the board is 10 bucks more anyway.
Alrighty, let’s take it apart and have a closer look.
Here’s the top aluminium piece, and as said this is a gasket mounted keyboard.
There’s a small daugherboard for the USB C port and OS switch.
On the badge version you can take this off and do whatever, even put another switch there. The
newer knob version will of course have a knob. But it was nice of them to put my logo there,
albeit off centre.
Here’s the PCB and plate. It uses Gateron hotswap sockets,
meaning that you can change out switches without
any soldering work. Therefore it has a completely fixed layout, and there is ISO available.
My plate here is made from good old aluminium, but has since changed to steel.
And all around we have quite shallow tabs that have the very very soft gaskets installed, which
are quite tall, but narrow. You can also see that there is foam in between the plate and PCB.
And finally the bottom aluminium piece. Mine has this really thin piece of foam. However they’ve
since included more foam which is optional for you to use. Originally, it was all about flex, so
they gave it a lot of depth to allow for that to happen. We can see that the gasket pieces sit on
the raised sections here, so as you can imagine, there is indeed quite a lot of space in there.
Okay, let’s get to the garage and do some sketchy DIY stuff.
Did you know that you can strip ano with oven cleaner spray? It’s pretty cool,
I’ve only done it a few times, costs close to nothing and is way easier than sanding.
And look at it, it’s actual magic. That being said, I’m not a professional, I don’t know
what I’m doing, if this is bad for alu, let us know, don’t follow me. But it’s still magic.
My goodness white looks super crisp hey, so good. Keycaps I have by the way is Domikey
Single Chip which I borrowed from my very good friend at Mountain Keyboards here in Australia,
link below, sus out his store, he’s an absolute legend. And I chose this set
mainly because of the blue logo badge, and yeh, we’re making the keyboard around that.
First idea I had was to try some hydro dipping with spray paint. I had some
normal hardware store stuff, and I just went for it. Of course I did some testing,
which honestly kinda looked promising, but look at this.
I gave it a few goes, but it just wasn’t going on well.
It would be too gooey, or solidify too quickly, or break apart too easily,
stuff like that. And it just wasn’t working out, I was so bad at it. But there’s a lot
of variables involved too, temperature and humidity being the big ones with painting.
So I did more research, and apparently Montana paints were decent for this, so I went ahead
and copped some of those. Really cool paints, a huge range and the spray was really nice.
And it was definitely a lot easier, it wasn’t really breaking apart as bad,
but I was still getting some bubbles, it was a bit gooey, and like overlap and stuff.
For sure with another go or two I woulda got better, but I did let it dry and it just
looked ugly. Wayyy over the top, really bold, which totally clashes with the keycaps as well.
Soooo, in that case, I gotta tone it down a bit.
I kept having to prime the board when I messed up to start again,
and the grey primer actually looks pretty good. So, you know what, let’s stick with primer.
Obviously that’s not gonna be enough though.
I thought about what else to do to spice it up, without going too crazy,
and that’s where splatter paint comes in. I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but there’s
always a first time for everything. So once again, this is totally totally not a tutorial.
And for the final touches, to my friends in counting. I know it was a while ago,
but congratulations, I’m proud of all of you, despite all the clownery, and the likes of
Cujo roaming around. We made it, and here’s to many more to come.
And to fill the void here on the bottom, I promised my Canadian buddy Keebworm that I’d
put him on. Check him out on Twitch, does a bunch of keyboard builds, absolute legend,
keen for that 1k giveaway mate. And lastly, something that expresses positivity and life,
I have a good mate who lives by this, and has recently
excelled in this, so I hope this board is a ‘stunner’ to you too.
Alright let’s put it back together.
We’re gonna mimic their new double gasket thing on ours, since we don’t have it.
Super common mod, I think I saw Wildcat the GOAT do it a while ago amongst others.
So let’s do that, but I couldn’t be bothered to go out and buy something, so I have these
poron foam pieces meant for stabs, which I got from mechstock here in Australia.
And here it is, my own live a little / TaeKeyboards Keychron Q1. It’s actually not bad,
like I'm genuinely not disappointed in how it looks. It’s not perfect or anything,
but It’s so much better than what I was able to dip. I wouldn’t mind trying it again though,
just gotta do it better, and hopefully get more favourable weather and all that, but
I’m happy that it led to this anyway.
I feel that there’s a decent balance between the keycaps
and the case. Again this is Domikey Single Chip. So good to see another manufacturer
put out some decent Cherry profile keysets, although from what I’ve seen,
I don’t know if things have changed, but they’re a bit more saturated than the renders. So this set
is actually really bold and vibrant, so that’s why I think I needed that grey to bring it back down.
The splatter wasn’t too bad for a first attempt. I didn’t even really practice to
be honest, just yolo’d it. Decent variation, probably woulda liked a few a more streaks,
got one ugly blob on the bottom, but overall,
not too bad. Any imperfections we can just put it down to character.
Alright, let’s give it a quick listen. And this is using the included
Gateron Phantom Reds which are factory lubed.
Bad news first, there’s still some ping. I didn’t want to chuck more foam in, but
it’s definitely reduced it quite a lot. Tapping on the case doesn’t do anything
anymore. It’s mainly the mods and the corners a bit. So definitely add some
sort of tape in between the alu pieces if you have the older version of the Q1.
Beyond the ping, it’s a surprisingly pleasant keyboard to type on.
On mine I chose to keep the flex, so not extra foam. It’s not particularly
thocky, or clacky. Just nice and dampened. With more foam,
that’ll change, and I’m sure there’s a heap of videos and sound tests that you could check out.
The stabs are pretty good too. They come pre-lubed. But as usual
when it comes to the spacebar, there is some tick.
And that’s the Keychron Q1 - very early edition. It’s been a really popular board,
and strongly recommended by a lot of people, and I agree. It’s a really good value keyboard,
there’s not much that can directly compete with it. The obvious one is the GMMK Pro. Feel and
sound is a personal thing, but for most people, the Keychron will provide a nicer experience.
There’s also the Akko MOD 007, which looks really nice, but I haven’t eeb nable to try that yet.
And remember, there have been various changes to the board. So make sure to
sus that out if you’re interested. If you’re in Australia check out
Switchkeys for the Q1. And I’ll have all the links in the description.
Thanks again for watching guys, I’m always so grateful for the support
over all this time. As said at the start, I really want to make this year a lot better.
And I pray that it will be better for you too. Bless.