Beginner Keyboard Comparison - Monsgeek M1 vs Keychron Q1 Pro

what's going on team tactile today I wanted to take a look at two keyboards that you should be considering if you are a beginner to the mechanical keyboard hobby on the one side we have the keychron q1 pro pretty new to the scene definitely a nice keyboard even comes pre-built on the other side we have the mons geek M1 which is a keyboard that if you've seen some of my videos you know I'm a big fan of but which one of these keyboards is right for you let's get into the video all right everyone so let's take a look at the M1 and the q1 pro together starting off I want to talk about the construction of these two boards they are pretty similar so you're both both these boards are going to be CNC aluminum they're both really well constructed plenty of plenty of weight to them maybe a little more evenly distributed in the M1 but other than that they both feel really good in the hands as far as like the height of them goes it's hard to see from this angle but if I put them up next to each other basically same height same angle and all of that so you're not going to really get a difference in typing experience still probably want something for your wrist unless you're trying to invite carpal tunnel into your life so and then really what it comes down to I'd say is kind of the Machining itself man's geek tends to be a little more rounded all right all the edges and stuff keycroc tends to be a little more Square that's potentially a personal preference thing for you but it doesn't really change the functionality of the board again they're pretty similar both made out of machined aluminum so as far as which one is the better choice if you're concerned about Construction I actually think it's a tie So after talking about just like the overall case construction I think it's important that we take a look at the inner workings of both of these keyboards so we have the M1 up top and the q1 pro on bottom so nothing too crazy here for the bottom of them you can see I did put some little tabs in there for Force braking on the M1 I do really like the case foam that comes with the M1 it also has we can zoom in here maybe this dampening kind of pad that comes with it so you can see it a little more over there so it's pretty nice I think it does give the board a nice sound and then if we're looking at the q1 this was some case foam that comes with it this is actually some extra foam that I've put in but um pretty flimsy piece of foam and then just your battery cover back here because it does have wireless what I will say though is around the points on it you can see everything that they've put in place to kind of help with the pinkiness of it so even though the board does sound hollow when I'm smacking on it it doesn't actually sound super Hollow when you're typing on it so that's the bottom of both of these boards now let's take a look at what we get with the top so starting with the keychron q1 pro I'm just going to disconnect some of these so we can separate everything so you do have a lot more wires on the q1 pro because it is Wireless so you do have to attach your antenna things like that hopefully once you take your knob off this will pop right out I am just going to leave the switches on for simplicity's sake as we're talking about this so no surprise there for the case and here you have your PCB and we can see you got some foam sandwiched in between there your PCB and foam gaskets on this which is going to be something different than the M1 all these are nice foam gaskets give it a lot of good movement so now if we take a look at the M1 and just taking off that top piece does come off with the knob still on depending on who you are as nice I wrestled with the knob for a while but you have again some foam sandwich between but you have these silicon gaskets which are pretty nice um I do think you actually see quite a bit of kind of flex on it which is nice it feels good um the plate though however on the q1 or excuse me the plate on the the plate on the M1 I found to be a little finicky right so let's get this thing in I mentioned this in my video On It originally like working it around the stabilizers is actually a pain you really have to snap this thing down for it to lay flat and somebody knew I thought I was doing something wrong but overall once you know that not a big deal so you got your PCB and everything there so again these two are fairly similar still your big change is going to be the gaskets that you're looking at here I'd say more than anything um we know both these boards are fairly similar in their construction but as far as when you're picking out which one's for you it's important to look at what comes with the board as well this is the cable that comes with the kikron it's a USB CD USBC it comes with a usba adapter heatron also comes with a switch puller not this one but a switch puller it also comes with the keycap bowler it basically includes everything you could possibly want now monsie comes with what I would say is kind of a cheaper feeling cable it is coiled if that matters to you but the key crime one is braided it's a little higher quality at least in feel and then what separates the mons geek is that it comes with things like tape for the tape mod there's little pads for a force break so this is where we start to alter who we're marketing towards I'd say with these where the M1 is definitely starting to be more of what you want to mod is in the box and then the ketron is like here's here's everything you could ever want you know as far as just doing the basics on your keyboard four extras I do give it to the kikron though over the monsie because ultimately tape is all you need to satisfy the same thing for what's included in the box right if you have blue painters tape at home you can do a tape mod you don't need their tape just like you can do a force brake mod with it if if you want to do that and I don't even think it needs it so overall I think extras and peripherals you get a better deal from the kikron than you do on the mons geek right so we've opened up both these keyboards we've talked about what makes the internals of them different let's talk a little bit about the price and what else separates these keyboards and ultimately which one you should go with so the monskey cam 11 comes in at 99 it really is a fantastic deal um it's it's hard to beat and I think that's why I'm so in love with it because everything jumps up to basically where the kikron is after that one the key Crown is 179 as a Bare Bones package or 199 as a pre-built so if you want to pre-build this is your option right here I don't think you can go wrong with buying the pre-built you have a good choice of switches you do have to deal with their KSA keycaps because if you're going to go buy new keycaps like I put new keycaps on this one you're 200 plus who knows seventy dollars in so now you've made much more expensive keyboard and you really didn't have to for the M1 I think this is the beginner modders keyboard and what I mean by that is it is clearly there for they'll give you a USB cable with it they give you the tape mod with it but they're really expecting you to properly go do the stuff on your own you don't need the tape again you can use Blue's painters tape everybody likes their fancy USB Aviator cables and things like that so this is a great deal but it's probably made for somebody who wants to Tinker with things and even like I said the PCB with that the plate on it can be a little difficult to smush together so you have to be comfortable putting a little force in it like this is definitely a DIY kit if you are in the market for something pre-built Wireless it has like kind of a Mac versus Windows setting on it just out of the box you know the keycon's a great option there's obviously no Wireless in the M1 so if that's a requirement for you that stands out I've had older keycon boards where I hated their Bluetooth but this one actually does seem to be really good and like I said I think all the peripherals again in the Box are actually a little higher quality so I don't think you can make a bad choice with this board I do think it's a better deal as a pre-built than it is as the Bare Bones because I think there's just a lot of boards coming to Market at that 179 point that unless you really want Wireless because I think that's something that's always going to stand out you might be able to find something that is a little better but overall both these boards are great I would highly recommend either one of them and like I said it's just up to you like are you looking to get into modding Do you want to build your own thing or are you looking to just kind of pull out the box and get going because then key crime is going to be probably better for you let me know what you think in the comments appreciate everybody watching another video like comment subscribe if you like what I'm doing and I will see you all in 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Channel: Tactile Talk

Views: 16,653

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Id: lrC0G5ljVWc

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 13 2023