Keychron K4 (CH, Wireless, Cable)

Keychron K4

CH, Wireless, Cable


Question about Keychron K4

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Stufy

2 years ago

Is it possible to try out different mechanical keyboards somewhere? I don't want to buy a pig in a poke.

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martin.matthias

2 years ago

I can simply describe my experience with the K4: Positive: Super heavy and massive, cool colour scheme reminiscent of the Revox equipment of the 80s. Bluetooth built in. Negative: The cursor keys, as well as "Home" and "End" are impossible to find blindly, especially the latter two. The firmware is completely dumbed down, you have to click through 16 useless ridiculous animation modes if you ever accidentally hit the corresponding button in the upper left. Only the upper half of the keys is illuminated. The key switches that are installed by default have this cheap sounding bright clicking noise (the exact opposite of an Apple Mac Plus keyboard), maybe this can be fixed with the separately orderable Kailh Choc Brown switches. The keys are simply painted grey transparent plastic with the appropriate characters lasered off, but they've lasted what feels like years now with no visible signs of wear. That's just the problem when you need a niche layout like the CH keyboard layout. The only really correct mechanical keyboards with CH layout (double shot key caps) are those from Logitech and then there are the Group-Buys from kbdfans (search term "GMK SWISS ADDON KIT"). Everything else are such abbreviations as the laser-engraved keycaps from Keychron, which exist for niche layouts because no expensive tools have to be made for them like for the double shot caps. It's just one of those Venn diagram problems. You can try them out at the Mediamarkt, or you can find a hackerspace where fans of mechanical keyboards hang out.