Keychron Q1 or GMMK Pro - Which Should You Buy?

what's up everybody welcome back to the channel this is andy nguyen and we've been hitting those uh budget boards pretty dang hard lately kv67 like nikki 68 aurora valley 60 free bird but you know these aren't 75 the 75 percent budget board or entry level board more or less was the gm mmk pro i mean there was id80 is the keycon k1 the gmmk pro killer i know you all thank you daddy i'm just saying it espn you know but let's not do the gmk pro and q1 boxing fight just yet let's talk about the q1 by itself so if you don't have time to watch full review this is the kikron q1 this is a 75 gasket mounted keyboard the gasket mount works it's 169 dollars with keycaps and switches it's 149 bare bones with just a piece being case i like the price i like the value i like the layout i like the aesthetic is clean what i don't like is the hollowness and the pinginess of the case which requires a lot of modding i still think it's a great option for beginners if you want to know more about the nitty gritty of it let's get into it not sponsored they just wanted me to review it because you know they trust me i think in the box there's everything you need you have a braided usb cable you have a keycap puller and a switch puller some extra keycaps you can change your key from alt to option you know for the mac users out there i like how the pre-built actually care about the mac users when they include these keycap sets here's what you've been waiting for keycon q1 i was under embargo so i couldn't really review it but this here is an aluminum case 75 keyboard with the top right blocker peep the badge uh these keycaps that are included are abs it is a gasket mounting keyboard and on paper there's a lot of things that are going 1v1 against the gm mmk pro before we continue talking about the aesthetics though the marketing for the kikron key one was much more fair they didn't go so hard at the custom mechanical keyboard community they said is what we're offering this is now something that is more in tune with what enthusiasts want rather than non-enthusiasts that care about pre-built there's a pre-built option in case you kind of just want to have everything in one package without having to worry about buying switches key caps and stabilizers in terms of the aesthetic you got some white and beige keycaps a very universal color this is the silver gray unit the keycaps actually show what the functions are so just like any other keycon prebuilt there are special functions for the f row in terms of the aesthetic it's a very boxy rectangular angular shape it's a very inoffensive aesthetic but the thing that kills me with this is actually the legending on the keycaps this is a very nitty gritty enthusiast thing but we got to mention it if you take a look at the keycaps the legending is in the top right this right here is a more ideal 75 layout because of the exploded afro the exploded nav and the offset arrows the other compact version which i showed in the thera75 video that's just to compress and you end up mispressing the f4 and miss pressing the arrows and all that having it exploded out and having space really does make a difference instead of just ragging on i will say in terms of the legending i do like the font and it's pretty minimal that's pretty much on brand with kikron and their target customer base all right let's talk about the feel of this keyboard right so this is gasket mounted and they're really focused on making sure that their gasket implementation was actually gasket actually bouncing you could actually feel it with the gm mmk pro the gasket implementation was basically just a paper thing yes there were gaskets but they were so compressed and there was no space in the keyboard you felt like you were typing into a brick with the discussion of feel we have to talk about how sound interacts with it so this board right here they went further and added some feel to it right right out of the bounce and to have balance basically you have to have more space underneath the pcb what that means is when you press down you can actually depress the pcb a little bit and actually feel that bounce but when you have a void underneath the pcb especially in the cheaper board that kind of void space adds a hollowness it adds that kind of distracting sound for some people in this current build right now i can't show you the bounce because i have modded the crap out of it and i filled up all the void but in the stock configuration with one set of gaskets they have another set of gaskets included in the box it's very bouncy and you definitely feel the gasket but the sound is less than stellar the gasket implementation has a plate and as you sandwich between gaskets like it should be so i actually like the feel of this board a lot now let's get into the sound department let's do the panted nock test doesn't sound too bad so when you type into it right now this is modded to hell right this has tape mod which is tape underneath the pcb this has poron case foam and the included case foam you can still hear hollowness it's really bad in the right mods you just heard the spacebar snap right there the board does include screw and stabilizers and they're pretty good kikron put some r d into making sure that the stabilizers were not utter crap but are they as good as durocks it's hard for me to tell because i usually holy mod my stabilizers and because there's already factory grease on the wire there's actually lube inside the stem already so i can't adhere a band-aid to it i didn't see any lube on the stem and the housing so you still need to add loop there so let's listen to the mods one more time here's the shift enter backspace and of course there's all sound testing in the air so it's not as fair as being on a table in a desk map but here you can definitely hear that there's case reverb and the board does sound pingy does sound hollow there's no way to ignore it there's two more mods i haven't tried which is the silicone pour and the pe foam those may help but we are stacking a lot of modifications in this board compared to the gmk pro i'd rather have a stock condition that has flexibility and has hollowness so i can fix the wholeness the gmk pro sounded flat and was stiff i can do all the mods and i'm really not going to be able to bring sound back the q1 you can actually hear the sound on the switch i actually like the sound of these doji cons right here but of course there's hollowness so modding experimentation has to be done considering the price point of this keyboard there's 169 with abs keycaps and gataron switches the full thing and the stabilizers and since you'd have to replace the stabilizers because they're actually serviceable compared to the greatest of all time stabilizers that's like 20 dollars you have a coiled aviator cable that's another 20 so this is a great value for what it is and you'll have the phones included since my sound tests they're actually including an extra layer phone for people who want to tune their keyboard that way now if you don't care about the switches because they are more or less basic switches you want to use your own switches and you don't care about these abs keycaps maybe you don't like the legendary you can get the bare bones kit for 149 dollars so that's a 75 aluminum case gasket mounted keyboard we're used to just having a pcb in case if you're an enthusiast for 149 that is stupid cheap i know it's hollow but that's still stupid cheap the freebird 60 was 135 dollars included pcb and case right the tried and true value keyboard which is the tofu 60 is a 60 case aluminum case and the cheapest option is 159 with the aluminum plate so this is 149 for a bigger keyboard with the top right blocker and there's customization in the blocker so if you can you want to get other badges this is a great value now we talked about the price right 169 149 to compare with other boards we're going to talk about the 149 price point now we got to compare it with the satisfaction 75 the gm mk pro they're the 75 now we have the id 80. the sas section 75 is a custom enthusiast board and it really brought a lot of people into the hobby but it was way more expensive and it's a group buy but their 75 was also cheap at 260 but it's a gb 149 we can't really compare the two now we compare this with its actual competitors the id 80 all this variants the gmk pro and now there's a very compelling offer the gm mk pro is 169 dollars this is 149. there's a 20 price difference holo pingy case that's what you want to get away from if you're trying to go into customs and unfortunately this has that it's saving grease is the fact that it's 149 but you're gonna have to mod it tape is cheap pe foam is really not too expensive you can get it in packaging it's gonna take some work but so with the gmk pro i like this board and i like that it exists for the people that do not like the gmk pro like i mentioned before the gm mk pro is stiff so you can't really undo stiffness as you start taking out elements to try to save the sound you'll introduce some of that wholeness back because there's always a push-pull relationship in my other plateless boards the jubi the new they both have hollowness in it to my understanding to get rid of all the hollowness you typically eat into your fun typing experience with the gasket so of the two the gm capro or this i'd rather have this assuming that one of the last two mods i'm going to be trying tomorrow on stream p foam tape mod and silicone pour can save at least the hollowness of the space bar also comparing this to the gmk pro the gmk pro has very bad stock stabilizers so you're going to spend another 20 dollars so 169 dollars you can spend another 20 to get extra stabilizers now you're looking at 189 versus 149 with serviceable usable stabilizers for a beginner board if you're absolutely stuck with 75 and you can't give up your f row it's a not a clear-cut answer as to whether or not this is better than the gm fk pro they both have their faults and they're both like larger companies trying to get into the custom mechanical keyboard market key crown is primarily pre-built i know there's hot swap but this is like their first foray into it i feel like they can revise it and make it better and that's just what happens when companies have their first iteration the r1 is usually not the best so i think this board represents something bigger the bigger companies are willing to put money into r d to make entry-level enthusiast-grade custom mechanical keyboards i know the aftermarket slowing down but the budget category in the mid-level category of keyboards whether they're customs or pre-built that's heating up the kikron is accessible the key crown is affordable the kikron has the full kit as well as the barebones kit and it's offering at a great price it's gonna require modding but honestly that's part of the fun in the hobby i say i hate the fact that you have to modify nicer keyboards but i'm watching people modify a thousand dollar matrix keyboards and putting freaking t-shirts inside so i guess maybe i'm wrong so my final thoughts the kikron q1 is it a recommendation for me i'd say so for most people that have no idea and don't have any keyboard this satisfies the desire to get into the custom mechanical keyboard world it allows you to hear your switches and i think a beginner board sounding a little bit hollow is acceptable the pinginess is the thing i hate the most because it sounds like a freaking pan dude that's why you saw the sound test i was trying to review it without using words and i had to try to save the sound somehow i like the fact that there's another option in the market for people who are trying to get a 75 entry-level keyboard is it the best keyboard no since kicon is trying this right more companies may be willing to try to enter the market create a product that is more in line with enthusiast grade custom mechanical keyboards the more companies that do that the more competition the better product that the end user gets now it's going to happen right away no but first we had glorious now we have kikon who's next maybe razer and corsair will step up and make some really nice keyboards that you can buy from best buy that would be amazing right so all in all this isn't the best keyboard i've tried but it does a lot of things right i'm excited for what's coming to the hobby now is it the gm okay pro killer i wouldn't say it smokes it but it does make it feel a little irrelevant [Music] you

Channel: Andy V Nguyen

Views: 107,015

Keywords: andyvnguyen, andyvnguyen keyboard, keychron q1, keychron q1 vs gmmk pro, gmk pro, keychron, keycrhon q1, k1, keychron k1, q1

Id: -dQwhgy01kY

Length: 11min 21sec (681 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021

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[u/Carguy38]

I have worked with a gmmk pro and a q2 not quite the same but I prefer the gmmk pro