Keychron retains doing it. Since we reviewed the Keychron Q2 in January 2022, it’s revamped the Q1 and launched 12 different Q-series boards, from a common outdated full-size right down to an ultracompact. There’s even an HHKB. However possibly probably the most unusual is the Q10: a 75 p.c Alice structure mechanical keyboard with a milled aluminum chassis. Like different Keychron Q-series keyboards, it’s a improbable keyboard for the worth, with a bunch of fanatic options at middling-gaming-keyboard costs. Like them, it’s for a sure sort of particular person: somebody who sees a $200 keyboard and says, “How is that this so low cost?!”

Think about that somebody break up a keyboard down the center, rotated every half barely, kinked the skin columns again the opposite manner somewhat, and caught it again collectively. That’s Alice — named for the TGR Alice, a 60 p.c keyboard from Malaysian designer Yutski that ran as a 40-unit group purchase again in 2018 and impressed a legion of clones, imitators, variants, and spinoffs. 

Like different Alice boards, the Q10 will not be fairly a break up keyboard, and it’s not fairly an ergonomic keyboard. You’ll be able to’t management the angle or the tenting nor place the halves independently. They aren’t far sufficient aside to essentially maintain your forearms parallel to one another, shoulder-width aside. And the Q10, specifically, is somewhat tall. However it’s a little extra snug than a typical keyboard because it allows you to maintain your wrists at a extra impartial angle to your forearms. I really feel prefer it opens up my shoulders somewhat extra. It additionally appears cool. 

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For $215 with keycaps and switches or $195 with out, the Q10 is, consider it or not, an absolute steal. The Q collection is Keychron’s try to make an off-the-shelf mechanical keyboard really feel like a high-end customized, and it largely works — in case your imaginative and prescient of a high-end keyboard contains phrases like “gasket mount” and “milled aluminum chassis.” 

My evaluation unit weighs 2244g, or simply underneath 5 kilos, with the inventory keycaps and switches. It’s meant to go on a desk and keep there. Keychron is following the keyboard group right here: most customized keyboards over the previous decade have been constructed from milled aluminum for just a few causes. Aesthetically: metallic keyboards look good, heavy issues really feel high-end, they usually don’t slide round your desk once you sort. And virtually, the per-unit price of CNC-milled aluminum scales linearly, which is vital in case you’re solely making 50 or 100 of one thing for individuals who don’t thoughts paying lots of of greenbacks every. It’s solely prior to now few years that fanatic keyboard producers have gotten the dimensions essential to make plastic instances, simply as extra established producers began making milled-aluminum ones. 

Like the opposite Q-series boards, it’s gasket-mounted: the change plate sits on strips of squishy foam between the highest and backside frames. This provides your complete meeting a pleasant bounce: in case you push exhausting sufficient on any key, you possibly can see all of the keys transfer downward en masse and bounce again up. Small silicone bumpers between the highest and backside frames stop metal-on-metal contact, additional lowering vibration and eliminating the high-pitched ping that solid-aluminum instances typically have. There’s a layer of sound-damping foam between the change plate and PCB. The switches are frivolously lubed, and the stabilizers are… much less frivolously lubed. 

These are all methods fans mod their keyboards to offer them deeper, fuller sounds and cut back high-pitched clacking or pinging. To place it one other manner: to compensate for the truth that they’re milled out of strong aluminum. One other is the tape mod (or Tempest mod, after the man who popularized it). It includes making use of layers of tape to the again of the PCB to alter the sound profile. It’s low cost and straightforward, and it really works. I’ve executed it to a number of keyboards. The Q10 comes pre-tape-modded with a skinny sheet of “acoustic tape” in lieu of the layer of acoustic foam different Q-series boards have. 

With the inventory keycaps and Gateron Professional Pink switches, the Q10 feels and sounds nice. And I don’t even like mild linear switches. It’s not quiet, essentially, however many of the sound comes from the keycaps clicking in opposition to the change plate. There’s no resonance or ping in any respect. Even the area bars — often the loudest keys on any keyboard — are fairly quiet, most likely as a result of they’re the scale of typical Shift keys. I personally don’t sort with sufficient pressure to really feel any bounce from the gasket mount — it feels about the identical as an built-in plate to me, to be sincere — however it appears to assist the sound profile, and it ain’t hurting something. 

The inventory screw-in PCB-mount stabilizers are okay. They’re generously however inexpertly lubed, and the backspace secret is louder than I’d like. If it had been my keyboard, they’re the primary issues I’d tweak. Nonetheless, by preinstalled stabilizer requirements, they’re fairly good.

That is the primary time I’ve used an Alice board, and it took me nearly no effort to get used to. It helps that the structure is usually commonplace. Typically, the keys are the scale you’d anticipate them to be and about the place you’d anticipate them to be. 

The underside row could be the trickiest adjustment: there are three 1.25u modifier keys to the left of the primary area bar and a operate key to the best of it. On the right-hand aspect, there’s one other area bar, then a solitary 1u modifier that, by default, acts because the board’s operate key. If you’re used to counting on these right-hand modifiers, you may need to get artistic. Happily, that’s all fixable: the Q10, like all of Keychron’s Q-series boards, is totally programmable utilizing VIA, a versatile and standard app within the keyboard group for customizing RGB lighting and key mapping. 

The Q10 contains each Mac- and Home windows-compatible keycaps within the field and has a change to toggle between two completely different units of layers, which you’ll be able to program independently. It is a killer characteristic for anybody who often swaps between Mac and Home windows as a result of it means you are able to do extra than simply swap the places of some modifiers: you possibly can have fully completely different layouts. What, simply me?

The Q10 isn’t but within the official VIA repository, so I needed to obtain a JSON file from Keychron’s web site, import it into VIA, and toggle V2 compatibility within the settings menu earlier than I used to be in a position to remap the board, however that’s fairly frequent and will finally be fastened (Keychron’s older Q-series boards are already within the official repository).

Except you go for the barebones model, the Q10 ships with Gateron Professional Pink (linear), Blue (clicky), or Brown (allegedly tactile) switches, in addition to doubleshot PBT keycaps in OSA profile. The keycaps are high-quality. They’re fairly skinny, and the modifier legends appear like they had been typeset in an actual rush, which is a disgrace on a board that’s in any other case fairly polished. However they’re primarily free, they usually include Mac-style legends on the operate row.

I say “primarily free” as a result of the bare-bones model of the Q10 is simply $20 lower than the model with switches and keycaps. It’s exhausting to seek out 89 good switches for $20, a lot much less keycaps. Even you probably have a bunch of keycap units mendacity round (don’t decide me), they may not have each key you want for an Alice board, so that you would possibly as effectively spend the $20. 

There’s a 1.75u proper shift key, which is frequent in aftermarket keycap units. The Delete secret is a row increased than it should be, and House is a row decrease (although you possibly can in fact remap these with VIA), and there’s that column of 5 macro keys alongside the left-hand aspect. As is customary with Alice-style boards, there’s a second B key, one on all sides of the break up. Some keycap units are beginning to embrace the second B, and you may cowl the area bars with commonplace 2.25u and a pair of.75u Shift keys in a pinch, however the Q10 remains to be somewhat tougher to cowl than a typical 75 p.c board. Keychron sells just a few suitable keycap units on its web site, together with completely different switchplates, switches, fancy cables, and so forth.

The Q10 has a hot-swap PCB with south-facing RGB LEDs, so you should utilize just about any MX-compatible switches and keycaps with out worrying about interference. (North-facing PCBs could cause points with Cherry-profile keycaps except you employ long-pole switches). Like my pal Flo Ion at Gizmodo, I discovered that among the cutouts within the operate row are somewhat tight to squeeze a keycap puller or change puller into, so I wound up taking the highest body off after I swapped switches or caps. 

Even in case you go away the body on whereas swapping caps, it is best to contemplate putting in switches with the body off, so you possibly can apply counter-pressure to the hot-swap sockets. It makes it simpler to seat switches and keep away from pushing the sockets off of the again of the PCB. Loads of individuals, together with my editor, simply yolo it. It appears to largely work for them, however I bend quite a bit fewer change pins this manner. Simply saying.

Keyboards with quantity knobs are the large factor proper now, and I actually like that the Q10’s knob is on the top-left nook as an alternative of the best. It feels extra pure to me, a left-handed particular person. The left macro column can be sort of neat, and each the knob and the macros are straightforward sufficient to program in VIA. Loads of gaming keyboards have left macro columns, however they’re not as frequent on fanatic boards.

So what’s to not like concerning the Keychron Q10? It’s fairly tall: the entrance edge is nearly 20mm excessive. For those who relaxation your wrists on the desk once you sort, you would possibly want a wrist relaxation, relying on the scale of your fingers and the peak of your keycaps. (Keychron sells one which’s curved to match the Q10, which I used for a pair days after which stopped utilizing). For those who hover like a correct typist, it is a non-issue, however who does that?

Like the remainder of Keychron’s Q line, there’s no wi-fi choice. That’s high-quality. Bluetooth assist on QMK / VIA boards is fairly wonky, and battery life is often horrible. On a five-pound board with a nonstandard structure, straightforward programmability is extra vital. There are many first rate wi-fi boards on the market. That’s simply not what the Q-series is for.

The board comes with a braided USB-C-to-C cable and an A-to-C adapter. It additionally comes with a keycap puller, change puller, hex wrench, and screwdriver. They’re dinky however serviceable in a pinch, and it’s a pleasant contact that means the keyboard is supposed to be messed with. The caps are, as I discussed, skinny. 

The Q10 is superb at being the factor it’s making an attempt to be: a solid-aluminum Alice-layout keyboard with a bunch of fanatic options. If you need a very heavy Alice keyboard, it’s virtually the one off-the-shelf choice except for the 65 p.c Keychron Q8 and the Feker Alice75, which is 100 bucks dearer and has worse software program however does have Bluetooth and a pair of.4GHz wi-fi. 

It’s a superb keyboard, however you actually should need a five-pound gasket-mount keyboard. For those who don’t need a five-pound keyboard however do need an Alice board, there are just a few choices on the market. Epomaker’s web site has just a few 65 p.c Alice boards, together with a gasket-mounted 65 p.c Alice equipment with a stacked acrylic case and VIA assist. The one in-stock Alice with a knob on the left that I can discover is the Orange Boy Ergo, and it’s solely in inventory within the sense which you can purchase the components — you want a soldering iron for that one, and never only for the switches. That’s an excellent choice in case you love constructing your individual keyboards — which I do — however it’s the other of the Q10’s entire readymade vibe.

As I used to be drafting this evaluation, Keychron got here out with the V8, a plastic model of the Q8, and there’s already a pre-launch web page for the V10. Like the opposite V-series boards, it loses the aluminum case and gasket mount — to not point out half the worth tag — however retains many of the different fanatic options of the Q collection. For those who’re curious concerning the Q10’s structure however aren’t prepared for a $200, five-pound keyboard, that’s the one to observe.

Pictures by Nathan Edwards / The Verge