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 an everyday previous full-size right down to an ultracompact. There’s even an HHKB. However possibly essentially the most unusual is the Q10: a 75 % Alice structure mechanical keyboard with a milled aluminum chassis. Like different Keychron Q-series keyboards, it’s a implausible keyboard for the value, with a bunch of fanatic options at middling-gaming-keyboard costs. Like them, it’s for a sure kind 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 % 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 shouldn’t 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 actually 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 an ordinary keyboard because it helps 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 seems to be cool. 

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

My evaluate unit weighs 2244g, or simply beneath 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 comprised of milled aluminum for just a few causes. Aesthetically: metallic keyboards look good, heavy issues really feel high-end, and so they don’t slide round your desk once you kind. And virtually, the per-unit price of CNC-milled aluminum scales linearly, which is necessary in the event 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 size 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 swap plate sits on strips of squishy foam between the highest and backside frames. This provides your entire meeting a pleasant bounce: in the event you push exhausting sufficient on any key, you’ll be able to see all of the keys transfer downward en masse and bounce again up. Small silicone bumpers between the highest and backside frames forestall 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 swap plate and PCB. The switches are calmly lubed, and the stabilizers are… much less calmly lubed. 

These are all methods lovers 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 simple, and it really works. I’ve achieved 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 Crimson switches, the Q10 feels and sounds nice. And I don’t even like mild linear switches. It’s not quiet, essentially, however a lot of the sound comes from the keycaps clicking in opposition to the swap plate. There’s no resonance or ping by any means. Even the house bars — normally the loudest keys on any keyboard — are fairly quiet, in all probability as a result of they’re the scale of typical Shift keys. I personally don’t kind 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 trustworthy — but it surely 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’s louder than I’d like. If it have 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 virtually no effort to get used to. It helps that the structure is usually customary. Typically, the keys are the scale you’d count on them to be and about the place you’d count on them to be. 

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

The Q10 consists of each Mac- and Home windows-compatible keycaps within the field and has a swap to toggle between two completely different units of layers, which you’ll program independently. This can be a killer function for anybody who usually 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’ll be able to have utterly 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 capable of remap the board, however that’s fairly widespread and may finally be mounted (Keychron’s older Q-series boards are already within the official repository).

Until you go for the barebones model, the Q10 ships with Gateron Professional Crimson (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 have been typeset in an actual rush, which is a disgrace on a board that’s in any other case fairly polished. However they’re basically free, and so they include Mac-style legends on the perform row.

I say “basically free” as a result of the bare-bones model of the Q10 is barely $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 when you’ve got a bunch of keycap units mendacity round (don’t choose me), they may not have each key you want for an Alice board, so that you would possibly as properly spend the $20. 

There’s a 1.75u proper shift key, which is widespread in aftermarket keycap units. The Delete secret’s a row increased than it must be, and House is a row decrease (although you’ll be able to after all remap these with VIA), and there’s that column of 5 macro keys alongside the left-hand facet. As is customary with Alice-style boards, there’s a second B key, one on either side of the break up. Some keycap units are beginning to embrace the second B, and you may cowl the house bars with customary 2.25u and a couple of.75u Shift keys in a pinch, however the Q10 continues to be somewhat tougher to cowl than an ordinary 75 % board. Keychron sells just a few appropriate 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 use just about any MX-compatible switches and keycaps with out worrying about interference. (North-facing PCBs may cause points with Cherry-profile keycaps until you employ long-pole switches). Like my good friend Flo Ion at Gizmodo, I discovered that a number of the cutouts within the perform row are somewhat tight to squeeze a keycap puller or swap puller into, so I wound up taking the highest body off once I swapped switches or caps. 

Even in the event you go away the body on whereas swapping caps, it’s best to contemplate putting in switches with the body off, so you’ll be able to 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 principally work for them, however I bend lots fewer swap pins this fashion. Simply saying.

Keyboards with quantity knobs are the massive factor proper now, and I actually like that the Q10’s knob is on the top-left nook as a substitute of the fitting. It feels extra pure to me, a left-handed particular person. The left macro column can be form 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 widespread on fanatic boards.

So what’s to not like in regards to the Keychron Q10? It’s fairly tall: the entrance edge is sort of 20mm excessive. For those who relaxation your wrists on the desk once you kind, 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 normally horrible. On a five-pound board with a nonstandard structure, straightforward programmability is extra necessary. 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, swap 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 excellent 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 % Keychron Q8 and the Feker Alice75, which is 100 bucks dearer and has worse software program however does have Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz wi-fi. 

It’s a excellent keyboard, however you actually must desire a five-pound gasket-mount keyboard. For those who don’t desire 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 % Alice boards, together with a gasket-mounted 65 % 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 that you could purchase the elements — you want a soldering iron for that one, and never only for the switches. That’s an incredible choice in the event you love constructing your personal keyboards — which I do — but it surely’s the other of the Q10’s entire readymade vibe.

As I used to be drafting this evaluate, 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 value tag — however retains a lot of the different fanatic options of the Q collection. For those who’re curious in regards to 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