Intro

After almost ten years of daily use, my Das Keyboard Ultimate 4 with Cherry MX brown switches is showing its age. Don’t get me wrong, it still works perfectly, alas the few polished ABS keycaps, mainly WASD, but I wanted something new, something diffrent, something “thocky” or “clacky”. Whatever that is…

Wishes

In the begining I had a few wishes:

• Classical mechanical keyboar, no Hall effect, I will type not play games on it.
• Clicky switches, that turned out to be a thing of past, so tactile it was.
• ISO layout (modded ANSI US print)
• Hotswappable switches.
• 75% so I can use it on my ad-hoc office setups in the kitchen.
• Knob.
• BT, cable and 2.4GHz connections.
• QMK/VIA programmable via web browser.
• OEM or better yet Cherry profile keycaps, classic beige.

Hello new ‘keeb’

Keychron Q1 Max

Switches

Gateron Jupiter Banana switches, prelubed, tactile, 3.4mm of travel (2.0mm of pre-travel) and 59 gf. They provide stronger early tactile bumps and double-stage spring for faster return and stable feedback.

Layout

Modified the last column on the right side, so the keys are in this order:

• GMK / Sleep
• Delete
• PgUp
• PgDn

This way, Delete is much closer, or so I think, time will tell.

First row was left default except the mentioned last key.

Another custom thing is Fn key besides the left Shift. GMK unfortunately sent me two \ keys in R3 instead of R4 profile. Looks nice, as the Fn key is gray, so mor in line with ANSI coloring.

Bottom row is now Control, Code, Alt, Space, Alt Gr, Code and Ctrl.

I have edited the Layout3, accessible by holding Fn to set up arrows to PgUp,PgDn, Home and End

In the meanwhile they have acknowledged their error and promptly sent me the correct key.

The bottom part of the case is a bit scratched. Keycap puller was missing and additional Alt key from original keycap set looked used and scratched. Keychron has sent me all the replacement parts.

GMK Classic Beige

Decided to go all in endgame, probably could get similar quality and PBT plastics in China, but lets support EU intelectual property.

It is the Classic Beige TKL set with EN-ISO and some red/green accent keycaps. In the end I have decided to use red Esc and green Enter key.

Kudos to GMK to quickly resolve my issue of missing/duplicate keycap!

Conclusion

I sometimes still miss the numpad and especially the right Enter. The typing experience is miles apart from the old keyboard, especially the stabilized keys like Space.