Keychron Q1 Review – A Truly Amazing Mechanical Keyboard

This isn’t like any mainstream keyboards you can find on the market. This isn’t injection moulded plastic, it’s CNC’d aluminium. It weighs a metric tonne – ok specifically it’s 1.8 KG but for a keyboard that’s an absolute brick. It types like a dream, it’s endlessly quiet and just insanely refined. Oh, and it costs less than most high end gaming keyboards you’ll find from the likes of Corsair or Razer. This is a board you’ll want to check out.

Keychron aren’t new to the keyboard market – I reviewed their K2 back in 2019 – and since then they have only refined their designs to make this masterpiece. This is the Keychron Q1 V2, and it’s mighty impressive. On the hardware front, this is a 75% board that natively supports both MacOS and Windows with a convenient switch next to the USB C port on the top, and included replacement keycaps for Windows – the MacOS ones come on the board by default. It’s made of billet CNC machined aluminium, with hot swap keyswitches, south facing RGB LEDs and this fully assembled board came with Gateron Brown switches and double shot, non-shine through keycaps.

The construction of this board is something to behold – you have a massive wedge of aluminium on the bottom providing an incredibly sturdy base, which is bolted to the top frame (also CNC machined aluminium), and sandwiched in the middle is a mid plate, thick foam, then the PCB. The board sits on rubber gaskets on both sides, isolating the switches from the chassis completely. Add all that heft, the foam and the double isolation and what you get is a beautifully refined, quiet sound. Here’s an example.

The only sound I’m less of a fan of is the space bar. It’s a little clacky, but I think it’s only obvious thanks to just how soft and subtle the rest of the keys are. It does have a bit of a ring to it if you hit it hard, but as long as you aren’t spamming the thing I don’t think you’ll notice it much. The OSA style keycaps are remarkably nice. They offer a good profile, height and a pleasing aesthetic with their rounded faces. They are just Cherry stems though, so should you want to pick a different set, you are more than welcome to. The same goes for the keyswitches. While you can buy the Q1 with Gateron G Pro Reds, Blues or Browns, Gateron Phantom Yellows or Silvers, or even Keychron’s own K Pro Banana switches, you can stick any MX style 3 or 5 pin switches you’d like in here.

The Gateron Browns that came with this one are pre-lubed, which always offers a beautifully smooth typing experience. The tactile bump is pretty light, but still noticeable compared to a linear switch. It’s a nice balance for me – although the Glorious Pandas I type on regularly still feel a little better to me personally. Of course, I typed the script for this video on the Q1 and I don’t have much in the way of negatives to list. This board’s owner doesn’t like the sound of the stabilisers, and I’m inclined to agree there. They aren’t quite as refined as the rest of the board, which is a shame, although not what I’d call a dealbreaker.

The 75% layout here makes a lot of sense. They’ve left the full function row, delete, insert, page up, page down and home. Perhaps I’d have asked for end too by pushing that row a few millimetres further out, but you can always map something like FN + HOME to be end instead, so it’s not a big deal. The default second layer functions all make sense too – save for the RGB controls which aren’t listed on the keys like the other secondary functions on the function row. FN + TAB is what enables or disables the RGB lighting, so it might have been nice to have that maybe ninja printed on the front edge of the cap. Still it’s laid out well.

Speaking of the RGB, because of the non-shine through keycaps, it’s effect is pretty muted. You get little portholes of RGB light when looking at the board from a shallow angle, or a slight aura around the caps if you are more directly over top of it. The reason I like keyboard backlights is especially in a darker environment you can see where the keys are – this doesn’t give you that benefit, which I think is why the board’s owner leaves the RGB off.

Since we’ve talked a little about mapping keys and the RGB lighting, it’s probably time to talk about the software side of things. This is an open source keyboard, based on the QMK firmware and uses VIA for live configuration. You can head to usevia.app and select your Q1, then in real time control all of the mappings for all four layers, control the lighting, and even test each key. The UI isn’t the most intuitive, like why is there two different sets of lighting controls you can map, but it doesn’t take that long to get used to. Being a web-app, it’s super simple. There’s nothing to install, just allow your browser to connect to the board and get tweaking.

If you want to tweak the board further than just the VIA configurator, the firmware is open source. The board uses an STM32 so it’s very easy to work with, and Keychron have even left the SWD ports easily accessible and labelled if you want to tinker even further. Considering the price of this board, a whole lot of work has gone into making it a top notch offering.

I suppose that brings us nicely onto the price. Bear in mind that Corsair’s top end model costs around $250, as does Razer’s top end offering. This absolute brick of aluminium and top notch design? $170. Even if you add another $30 on for shipping from China, that’s still a considerable saving, for an unquestionably more premium, better built, better feeling board. Sure, it isn’t quite as flashy or have a handful of gimmicky features to amaze you with, but if you want a proper, well built, built-to-last, upgradable, repairable, and top notch premium typing experience, this thing is for you. What’s even better is that if this 75% design isn’t for you, they offer a collection of different styles, including a full size board which is very much my preference. While I am happy enough with my badly painted GMMK board – what I call the TechteamKB – and I am a sucker for flashy features like the Wooting boards, the Q boards from Keychron are definitely on my shortlist for my next board. Hell, with how great this feels to type on, it might supersede everything else.