Keychron K8 Wireless* Mechanical Keyboard Review

This is the Keychron K8, a wireless mechanical keyboard that might just be one of the best value mechanical keyboards on the market. The model I have here, with the hot-swappable Gateron Brown switches, will set you back just £83.20 at the time of filming, or £104 at MSRP, which is definitely on the more budget end for good mechanical keyboards. The key word there, of course, is ‘good’ – is the K8 any good? In short, yes. If you want an explanation for that, stick around.

One thing I feel I should make clear up front is that the K8 Wireless isn’t really “wireless” – or at least not in the conventional sense. It does support Bluetooth connectivity with up to three devices, and has a 4000mAh battery onboard to give you up to 240 hours of usage with the RGB lighting off, but there isn’t a USB dongle to be found. If you want to use this with any level of speed – as in low latency, which is especially important for gaming – you will need to use this as a wired keyboard. If you want to connect to a mobile device to type away, you can, although I’m very much not the target market for bluetooth keyboards, so if you are please do let me know what you use them for in the comments as I’d love to understand more! 

With that said, the K8 is a very well built board. While you do have a plastic base, with integrated height adjustment feet – specifically two sets, both of which have rubber pads to stop the board sliding when they are up – the outer frame itself is metal, and incredibly sturdy. It’s actually really nice, it feels super well built with no flex from the frame. There’s also some pretty obvious damping inside – have a listen.

Some of that nicely damped clack comes from the keycaps – they are shine-through which I tend to prefer – although they are weirdly smooth and feel just a touch off to me. I can’t quite describe the feeling (it turns out part of having autism is difficulty describing sensations so I’m at a loss on how to tell you why this doesn’t feel right) but it makes me a little uncomfortable in a way the Q3 Max keycaps don’t. It isn’t a big deal but I couldn’t not mention it. The switches themselves are pretty standard, the ones I have are Gateron Browns, although you can opt for blues or reds if you’d rather. The switches in this version are hot-swappable, although you can save a tenner and get them soldered in. They aren’t overly special, feel good enough, but really they are just the original Cherry MX Brown clones – admittedly very good clones and I think better than the post-patent genuine MX switches, but still. The fact they are hot-swappable means you can change them out later if you fancy something different. The typing feel, on the whole, is pretty decent. It has the right mix of sound, the tactile bump from the Brown switches, and rigidity from the deck that makes it comfortable and pretty enjoyable. 

You do have RGB lighting – albeit pretty dim – which you can toggle with the RGB key at the top right, or change brightness with FN plus F5 or F6. They are north-facing LEDs, the standard for switches like these. As for the rest of the special features – right out the box it comes with the Mac keycaps installed and the little toggle switch next to the USB C port on the left hand side set to Mac/OSX. If you’d rather use this with Windows, you’ll want to flick that toggle switch, and swap out the caps with the included puller tool, for the full set of regional and Windows caps that come in a nice Keychron branded bag. While you’re in there, you’ll also find the nice braided right angle USB C cable – although that cable is only a metre or so long, so make sure you’re close to your PC! 

Of course, I couldn’t not try gaming with it, and as you’d expect it’s pretty spot on. It feels great, it’s plenty fast when using the USB C cable to connect, and was a good time. There aren’t any fancy features, unlike the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL I reviewed recently – link the cards above – but that one costs literally twice the price of this, and is a considerably less refined typing experience, so if you care more about the cash and the typing feel, this is definitely the better choice. I think on the whole the K8 is a great board. Especially at the current sale price I think it’s a great value, and I’d much prefer this over the Redragon K673 Pro I reviewed recently too – that one is more like £65, so for just under £20 more you get a significantly nicer, more premium board, that still has bluetooth support too no less!