Well, since I got my first Keychron Q2 Max with the crazy nice linear Alpaca v2 and my first GMK Retro keycap sets, I’ve just been raving about how nice they feel. With the included 2.4GHz transmitter, the connection is rock solid and reliable.
Well, I was away for 10 days and just dreaming about the Gateron Melodics, which are theremingoat‘s highest-rated clicky keys. And so when I got back I had to get.
Keychron Q2 Max: Amazing but Crazy Function keys
Keychron Q2 Max. This 65% keyboard is just so good and relatively inexpensive. I almost got the Q65% which is the left-handed version with the knob on the left side, but finally just got another one direct. It arrived so quickly it was crazy. It is weighty but ultra-compact.
The function keys are confusing. The main thing is that you lose the Function keys at the top, but I rarely use them. You can access them with FN2 and the number keys. I do think the backlight and other controls are a little confusing, the big ones are FN1 (which is the key on the right side in the spacebar row right now to the Control or option key) where:
- FN-Q means do Bluetooth pairing (I know right, why the Q?)
- FN1-Caps Lock turns on the backlight
- FN1-A changes the lighting effect (another huh, why the A)
- FN-S and FN-X raise and lower the brightness
- FN1-G and FN1-B increase the lighting effect speed.
This much Chinese transliteration because in English that doesn’t make much sense. There is a VIA keyboard remapper, but I’ve not had time to figure that out.
I did try this on Bluetooth and I think my MacBook Pro 2021 has something flaky, I had to turn it off and on and the keyboard to get it to work, but I have the same problem with my Anne Pros and Keychron K6 (I think I might have too many keyboards 🙂
Gateron Melodics are great clicky keys
I thought that I would also just love the original Cherry Blue (and I have an ASDF Code with Cherry Blues). But I can see why Theremingoat has these are the top-rated clicky keys. They are a little expensive at $25 for 70 keys, but they do sound amazing (not too loud) and they are very snappy.
I normally think of Gateron as sort of a Cherry clone (that’s cheaper and not as good), but I do have to say I like these quite a lot. They are rapidly becoming my favorites.
GMK Neon: A little too green for cream and you need the extras
I got the GMK Lime from Drop for only $99 which was much less than I got the GMK Muted Retro v2 from Mechanical Keyboards for a whopping $195. I have to say I get it now. First of all, they are again so incredibly beautiful, but I have to say there are two things that I should have seen:
- The images on the site didn’t show how green the keys are. They look ok against the white of the Q2 Max, but I need cream to match. I’m kind of on a bright keyboard run. I started with mainly black, but the Anne Pro 2 are white and they do look nice.
- The second problem is that this kit doesn’t come with extras and I realized that for Row 4 (the spacebar) row, they ship with the standard 1.25s (that is a little bit wider than normal) left CTRL, ALT and CODE keys. So make sure when shopping GMK that you do get the extras as the base (which is designed for larger 75% and above) doesn’t have a single space. fortunately, there were some extra keys in the GMK Retro kit that I got, so it looks a little odd but they work. I’ll probably swap these keycaps off (and the price goes into learning I think) at some point
- For both the Retro v2 and the Lime, they don’t have dedicated Mac keys, so the next set I get I need to look for the real Option and Command keys (because I’m a nerd).
Net, net these things are expensive, but if you spend your life typing, well, it is like driving a great car around the town.
