Keychron Q10 evaluate: all-aluminum Alice board

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 regular old full-size all the way 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 worth, with a bunch of fanatic options at middling-gaming-keyboard costs. Like them, it’s for a sure sort of individual: somebody who sees a $200 keyboard and says, “How is that this so low-cost?!”

Think about that somebody cut up a keyboard down the center, rotated every half barely, kinked the surface columns again the opposite method a little bit, 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 isn’t fairly a split keyboard, and it’s not fairly an ergonomic keyboard. You may’t management the angle or the tenting nor place the halves independently. They aren’t far sufficient aside to essentially hold your forearms parallel to one another, shoulder-width aside. And the Q10, particularly, is a little bit tall. Nevertheless it’s a little extra snug than a regular keyboard because it helps you to hold your wrists at a extra impartial angle to your forearms. I really feel prefer it opens up my shoulders a little bit extra. It additionally seems 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 principally works — in case your imaginative and prescient of a high-end keyboard contains phrases like “gasket mount” and “milled aluminum chassis.” 

My evaluate 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 neighborhood 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, they usually don’t slide round your desk whenever you sort. And virtually, the per-unit price of CNC-milled aluminum scales linearly, which is vital if you happen to’re solely making 50 or 100 of one thing for individuals who don’t thoughts paying a whole lot of dollars every. It’s solely up 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: if you happen to push exhausting sufficient on any key, you may 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 frivolously lubed, and the stabilizers are… much less frivolously lubed. 

These are all methods fanatics mod their keyboards to provide them deeper, fuller sounds and cut back high-pitched clacking or pinging. To place it one other method: to compensate for the truth that they’re milled out of stable aluminum. One other is the tape mod (or Tempest mod, after the guy who popularized it). It entails 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 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 Purple 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 towards the swap plate. There’s no resonance or ping by any means. Even the area bars — normally the loudest keys on any keyboard — are fairly quiet, most likely as a result of they’re the dimensions of typical Shift keys. I personally don’t sort with sufficient drive 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’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 nearly no effort to get used to. It helps that the structure is generally normal. Typically, the keys are the dimensions you’d count on them to be and about the place you’d count on them to be. 

The underside row is perhaps the trickiest adjustment: there are three 1.25u modifier keys to the left of the primary area bar and a perform key to the proper of it. On the right-hand facet, there’s one other area 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 totally programmable utilizing VIA, a versatile and standard app within the keyboard neighborhood for customizing RGB lighting and key mapping. 

The Q10 contains each Mac- and Home windows-compatible keycaps within the field and has a swap to toggle between two totally different units of layers, which you’ll program independently. This can be a killer function for anybody who repeatedly 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 may have utterly totally 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 may finally be mounted (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 Purple (linear), Blue (clicky), or Brown (allegedly tactile) switches, in addition to doubleshot PBT keycaps in OSA profile. The keycaps are tremendous. 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, they usually include Mac-style legends on the perform row.

I say “basically 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 search out 89 good switches for $20, a lot much less keycaps. Even you probably have a bunch of keycap units mendacity round (don’t choose me), they won’t have each key you want for an Alice board, so that you would possibly as nicely spend the $20. 

There’s a 1.75u proper shift key, which is frequent in aftermarket keycap units. The Delete secret’s a row greater than it must be, and House is a row decrease (although you may 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 all sides of the cut up. Some keycap units are beginning to embody the second B, and you may cowl the area bars with normal 2.25u and a couple of.75u Shift keys in a pinch, however the Q10 continues to be a little bit tougher to cowl than a regular 75 % board. Keychron sells a few compatible keycap sets on its web site, together with totally 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 can cause issues with Cherry-profile keycaps except you utilize long-pole switches). Like my friend Flo Ion at Gizmodo, I discovered that among the cutouts within the perform row are a little bit tight to squeeze a keycap puller or swap puller into, so I wound up taking the highest body off after I swapped switches or caps. 

Even if you happen to depart the body on whereas swapping caps, you need to think about putting in switches with the body off, so you may 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 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 proper. It feels extra pure to me, a left-handed individual. 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 frequent on fanatic boards.

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

Like the remainder of Keychron’s Q line, there’s no wi-fi possibility. That’s tremendous. Bluetooth help 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 vital. There are plenty of decent wireless boards out there. 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. In order for you a extremely heavy Alice keyboard, it’s virtually the one off-the-shelf possibility except for the 65 % Keychron Q8 and the , which is 100 bucks costlier and has worse software program however does have Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz wi-fi. 

It’s a excellent keyboard, however you actually need to desire a five-pound gasket-mount keyboard. When you don’t desire a five-pound keyboard however do need an Alice board, there are just a few choices on the market. has just a few 65 % Alice boards, together with with a stacked acrylic case and VIA help. 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 you can purchase the elements — you want a soldering iron for that one, and never only for the switches. That’s an ideal possibility if you happen to love constructing your personal keyboards — which I do — however it’s the alternative 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 worth tag — however retains a lot of the different fanatic options of the Q collection. When you’re curious in regards to the Q10’s structure however aren’t prepared for a $200, five-pound keyboard, that’s the one to look at.

Pictures by Nathan Edwards / The Verge