Review on 💻 Keychron K8 Tenkeyless Wireless Mechanical Keyboard for Mac: White Backlight, Bluetooth, Multitasking, Gateron Blue Switch, Type-C Wired Gaming Keyboard for Windows by Juston Alonso

Call it 3.5 stars. I originally bought the Aluminum/RGB K2 but found it had three downsides. Pros and cons of K2: + Compact but still with a full-size "laptop" keyboard. The far right column with the arrows Lighting/PgUp/PgDwn/Home/End/Right is more reminiscent of an HP Spectre, the aluminum frames give it weight, and the build quality is completely lacking on the K8 — I could get used to that on the K2. Layout, other than regularly switching back and forth between multiple keyboards and having the "Light Effects" button in the top right corner where Del is usually, always resulted in a circus light show, or at least required extra time on a regular basis. The idea behind touch typing is to never look at the keys. I'm blind too so I don't look at the keys anyway. The K2's right shift key is also less than 2U wide, with the right control key directly below it, adding another layer of necessary thought when pressing the Shift+Control combinations commonly used in word processors. The PgUp button on the K2 that I received had a trigger, meaning it fired within 1mm of being pressed, well before any tactile feedback; so that particular block would come back anyway. - While I liked the aluminum side panels, it really isn't that much; the floor is plastic. I didn't want RGB, but Alum wasn't offered without, so the extra $20 wasn't necessarily worth it. The all-plastic, white-backlit K8 has the following pros and cons: Fully ergonomic layout with traditional spacing between button group functions, above the arrow group, and around the six-part navigation bar. + The extra width of 1.5 inches or so doesn't really seem like much. My guess is that the keyboard is now a bit wider than most people's knees. However, it works great on my lap, which is my usual use case (as a blind person, I can just leave the i-device next to me). .- Virtual Assistant button does not invoke Siri on IOS/iPadOS.- A major downside for me is that the device looks and feels like a DIY prototype. The frame is a non-textured plastic shell with switches mounted on an aluminum plate. There is a quarter inch gap between the top plate and the base of the ABS keycaps. This is the coolest thing I've ever seen to be honest. In addition, any spilled liquid contains the liquid completely. There are no drainage holes. Not to mention dog hair and dust. If it wasn't for the protrusion on the edge, I could have blown something out. However, now I will take the caps out for cleaning too often. Note that the aluminum version also has a recessed area under the six block block and between the function key clusters. You urgently need to add a dedicated hotkey like FN + [Backlight] to toggle the backlight on and off. Pressing FN+L+[Light] for six seconds will lock the current light show, but understand: the light lock doesn't work because their light show-loving customers kept texting them that they couldn't figure out how to do it. to turn the backlight back on! Although it's just a white LED, it bounces, flashes, walks, explodes and dances just like the RGB version, allowing you to cycle through over 30 options before going off again. The only solution is to block the least stupid lighting option. On the device I received, some of the external keys have a different sound/pitch: space, tab, caps lock, and the last two also wiggle back and forth like they're not properly stabilized. With all the different sounds, typing is quite a percussion section. I bought 4 mechanical keyboards and three of them (two Keychron, one Cherry) had a small problem with one or more switches right out of the box. But I like the keyboard. What appeals to me about KeyChron is the toggle switches for Mac/PC and USB/Off/Bluetooth, rather than using hard-to-remember shortcut keys or microswitches. As is the detachable USB-c cable. I've actually read reviews from people complaining about the included charging/data cable. Get any cable you want. As a switch I have K2 with brown and K8 with blue. The blues sounds much nicer and clearer, and the click sound effect is less high-pitched to my ears than my Cherry keyboard with Cherry Blues. Brown Gaterons don't give much tactile feedback at all - I only notice that when I think about it. Otherwise they just feel wobbly. I love Gateron blues. After buying a Cherry keyboard I was so disappointed that I turned around and bought an IKBC with crisp switches which I really liked. But K8 with the blues can be just as satisfying. Of course, I'm not taking it to a coffee shop, to a meeting, to a Zoom conference, or to get a job as a court clerk! I learned to type on a manual typewriter, then switched to an IBM Model-M spring-loaded keyboard. , of which I still have one! But I'm still not a mechanical keyboard fetishist. The scissor-switch keyboards on flagship laptops (Thinkpad, HP Spectre, XPS 13, Apple if they don't quite ruin the good stuff) are pretty satisfying to me as a writer. I'm a writer, not a typist, so I spend most of my time thinking. I've never experienced tiring or speeding up while typing on a mechanical keyboard. However, I like the keystroke and features of the keychron boards. Here's hoping the BT module doesn't fail, which seems to be the reason for all those Bluetooth mechanical keyboards, both Keychron and IKBC.