My favorite keyboard ever by far
I own two other mechanical keyboards I bought in an attempt to really be happy with my typing experience. Each of them had Cherry MX Browns. All in all, they are pretty good keyboards, but I was always unhappy with the limitations of the keyboards, lack of ongoing software support for the oldest one, and most of all I didn't like the wobbliness of the keys (which were soldered on, of course).
I finally decided to spend $200-250 on a keyboard and try to find something much closer to what I wanted. After looking at a lot of keyboards, I settled on this one because it hit right in the middle of a lot of nice areas. For one, the price is very nice for what you get. Wireless, wired, programmable, four quick-swap profiles, RGB LEDs (but not per-key programmable), hotswap switches, three different Bluetooth pairings, easily torn down, and supposedly a really nice typing experience even if it isn't quite as nice as the Q-series.
My decision was based on wanting to spend more of my budget on the quality of the switches rather than the frame and board. Because this is offered barebones, I was able to purchase really nice Gateron Box Ink V2 Pink switches instead. These are very expensive, but I decided to take a gamble on better switches. I also bought some Cherry-profile, PBT, side-lit key caps so that I could see the lighting through the key caps. (This is literally my only complaint, but it is something others prefer, so I will explain below).
All in all, the expensive switches were totally worth it. They are linear, so I knew that they wouldn't have any tactile feedback. But they also didn't wobble at all. I paid a lot for that, though. The actual feel of the keyboard typing with these switches is simply fantastic. The K8 Pro does not have the damper gasket that the Q-series has, so it won't be quite as sublime as that keyboard, but this is far and away the best typing experience I have ever had.
How is the performance? RTINGs has a review and test for this keyboard, and all in all it has good performance of around 10ms wired and a little over double that for Bluetooth. It's not as fast as the fastest gaming keyboards, but there are plenty that are slower than it. Personally, I find it to be fast enough that I don't notice any lag or hinderance while gaming in wired mode, and I can usually do fine with Bluetooth as well. But wired is ever so slightly faster and I can tell when playing a game.
What about all the capabilities? They were also awesome. Here are two hints: if you ever end up with an older K8 Pro with flaky Bluetooth, there is a Bluetooth firmware update that fixes it. Secondly, VIA is definitely my favorite keyboard configuration software now. But, you will see that there are two programming layers for each OS (Mac and Windows). What you need to realize is that the layers stack on top of each other based on which OS you pick. Mac is layer 0, and Windows is layer 2, and each of them have a layer above them that can stack on top and override any keys that are changed in that layer. HOWEVER, you can always just use the Mac layer for everything and then you will have 3 layers on top that can stack. I use Windows, but I just remapped the Mac layer to have Windows keys, and then I got 3 layers to use on top of the Mac layer, so I have 4 total. If I want to use it on a Mac with native Mac keys, I will just need to restore the original mapping.
So, what about my only complaint? What I have learned is that there are north-facing LEDs and south-facing LEDs that cater to two different camps of people. The really nice keycaps tend to be made of PBT, but usually don't have transparent letters. This requires double-shot PBT construction in order to make it good and a lot of keyboard enthusiasts don't seem to care about glowing letters. If your keys are not transparent, then you don't want the stems and bodies of the switches blocking most of the LED light that is intended to glow around the keys. Therefore, you need LEDs on the human-side of the switch so you see a lot more light around the keys. This is called south-facing.
Most keyboards, though, are styled with the letters on the "top", "back", or "north" side of the top key surface. If you have transparent letters that you want to glow, you need LEDs on the "north" side of the switch so that they are underneath the common location for most key cap symbols.
Keychron is in the south-facing camp, and this is by choice. So, if you want south facing this is great. I want glowing letters, though, so I would prefer north facing. To get around this, I bought illuminated key caps with the symbols on the front, "south", or side surface of the key. That way they are directly illuminated by the south-facing LEDs and you get the best of both worlds. I like the side-lit keys.
So, my only suggestion to Keychron is "please make a set of illuminated side-lit key caps" and perhaps "offer a north-facing option" at some point. There are probably others...
