Keychron V1 75% Wired Mechanical Keyboard, QMK/VIA Programmable, Hot-swappable Red Switches, Compatible with Mac Windows Linux - Carbon Black

I'm learning touch typing at old age. I was looking for good keyboard with longer key travel, but did not expect this level of quality. Everything is pretty much perfect. Beautiful to look at, good key action (brown switch) with some light tactile feel, nice sound of the keys (creamy = muffled, deeper). The keys have no wobble, while shape of the key makes easier to detect the edge (to avoid other keys). Upper rows are sloped up and bottom has feet at the end. Keyboard is quite heavy and very stable. I appreciate ability to switch between Mac and Windows and extra key tops for it. USB-C cable is of high quality.It comes with tools to pull the key tops or keys. Even the box it came in is nice (I'm going to save it). In spite of my poor typing skills I've worked with many computer keyboards (starting with IBM), but this keyboard is the finest by far. Highly recommended.

First off, let me say that I am a novelist, which means that I do a LOT of typing. Currently I'm working on an epic novel that is over 1.5 million words long. I mention this because my review of the Keychron V1 is based on its feel and functionality for TYPING, not gaming.Recently I found myself getting bored with typing on the keyboard I was using (a Qwerkywriter typewriter-style keyboard), so I started shopping around for a different one. Over the course of a month, I bought a dozen keyboards and ended up returning eight of them. Of the ones I kept (a Durgod Taurus 320 TKL with blue switches, a Royal Kludge limited edition with yellow switches, and a Steelseries membrane style keyboard), they were all terrific, but each had a tiny problem. Like "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," one keyboard was too hard, another too soft, etc. But then I got the Keychron V1 (with red switches) and was BLOWN AWAY--by everything: the packaging, the palpable quality, and most of all by the smooth, crisp, quiet and effortless typing experience. The Keychron V1 is just right, or GOLDILOCKS as I put it.Every day, I write for 8 to 12 hours, producing between 2,000 and 5,000 words a day (the equivalent of 8 and 20 typed pages), which translates to a LOT of typing, so I need a keyboard that is going to be a joy to type on (and won't tire out my fingers). The Keychron V1 is that keyboard. I'll definitely keep and use (from time to time) the other keyboards I mentioned--we all need some variety--but in the V1 I see a true workhorse. From the moment I pulled it out of the packaging and experienced its heft, its gravitas, I knew it was going to be my go-to keyboard, and the one that will carry me through to the finish line on my epic novel.The keyboard has a couple features that I won't have any use for (e.g., the RGB backlighting), so I won't speak to those. I have no idea how this will perform for gaming, but I CAN attest to its perfection as a typing keyboard. If you are someone who does a lot of TYPING (a writer or a coder), do yourself a favor and GET THIS KEYBOARD. At about $100 it's a bargain.

It has some weight to it; making it feel very premium.The keycaps feel nice; the knob is useful too.I ended up swapping the brown switches to some Gateron milky yellows and it truly improved the sound and feel.I love that you can make this keyboard your own by customizing switches and other stuff. This is a great first custom keyboard if you are new to the hobby.Just look up some YouTube videos on how to swap switches and keycaps and other custom keyboard tips.

Update to below: After following some suggestions online, I was able to make the spacebar sound considerably better and I think I will hold on to this keyboard even though I'm still a bit on the fence. (I stuffed the spacebar with some foam and sticky tack.) The overall feel is fantastic and the sound of the other keys is great, but the issues below are still a bit disappointing. If you do order this keyboard, I highly recommend trying out some others alongside it just to see which ones feels and sounds best to you.I wanted very badly to like this keyboard. I'm, even typing up my review on it right now just to give it one last chance to impress me. But sadly, I think how the space bar sounds is going to be the deal-breaker.For some reason, the space bar is considerably louder/"sharper" sounding than all the other keys. So every time I finish a word, it is loudly punctuated by the space bar. While I appreciate the space bar's enthusiasm in announcing to all present that I've finished typing a word, this is not something I want or need.I've seen some people saying elsewhere online that this is normal or that you need to fill the space bar with foam or something, but the other keyboard I've been trying out does not suffer from this issue, with the space bar sounding more or less like all the other keys. I don't think the new keyboard I was prepared to spend $100 on should need a piece of foam, but maybe some people regard this as a feature rather than a bug. I've now switched over to the other keyboard I recently ordered and I'm back to having a normal sound when I use the space bar.I was also surprised by and did not like was the fact that the characters on the stock key caps are not translucent to the RGB lighting underneath. Now, I'm not someone who usually wants the letters on my keyboard going crazy with a bunch of colors, but having characters illuminated for when I need visibility is a major selling point for me. Without character translucence the RGB actually makes everything harder to see. And I'm saying this as a touch typist who only occasionally looks at the actual keys.Now for the positive. The keyboard seems very solidly built and I absolutely love the feeling of the keys and the key presses. Even the shape of the keys is great and I love how my fingers feel on them. The sound of the keys other than the space bar is also top notch. The volume/mute knob is another nice touch that feels very solid/well made and gives the keyboard a little old-fashioned analog flair.I also like the coloring of the keyboard keys, since it provides some visual cues without being completely over the top; though honestly this isn't a huge plus for me.If it weren't for the issues listed above, I would definitely keep and use this keyboard whenever I didn't need a number pad. But as it stands, it's sadly going to go back to Amazon.