Keychron Q2 Keyboard Review After 2 Months!

what's up guys i'm random frank p and today is my long-term review of the kikron q2 after two months of this being my main keyboard over at my setup so instead of dropping a review in this first launch back in january i really wanted to use it you know put some actual time into it go through the whole you know day in the life process for gaming photo editing video editing and everything in between to see how the q2 holds up because i love the form factor so much the navy blue color pops so nicely so i figured a two-month review would be necessary so this q2 is a follow-up from their very popular q1 that launched last summer which was a gmmk pro alternative pretty much with a nice compact 75 layout so here cutting it down to just 65 that means you still have things like arrow keys plus on the top right we have a volume knob which is configurable stock it's like you know controlling your volume obviously but you can have it do things like zoom in and out you can have it change the rgb lighting all that stuff so overall the layout in the footprint nice and compact and this particular 65 layout really isn't too common which is why when i saw it i really did like it and want to put it to full use and use it for the two months as my main keyboard now as you can see i do have it customized however the pricing for this i think is very very fair you can get it bare bones on their website for just 149 or you can get the bare bones with the knob up top for 159 but fully assembled it can range from 169 to 179 again if you pick the knob which comes with keycaps and switches plus you can get it in the navy like i have silver or black the frame is aluminum so it has that metallic sort of shimmer to it and the plate inside is steel so like i said i wanted to go bare bones with the knob included so i could then build it up which is what i did because i really like the navy blue color i think it looks really nice and i added my own keycaps and switches keycaps here are our deepsea topographic keycap set this is from myself and control t keys by the way there's only a few days left the pre-order ends march 30th so definitely hop on these while you can code rfp at checkout will save you five bucks as well so don't miss out and the colorway i think is just a really really nice accent to the navy blue especially with the teal accents on the keycaps and the topo lines and stuff just looks great here now in terms of switches i went with the lubed version of the glorious link switches that are linear and as you guys know on the channel i tend to match the keycaps with the color of the switches which you know has no actual meaning in the end right it doesn't matter what the color of the switches are but in terms of aesthetics that's what i like to do and here in this case with the teal housing it's a nice accent and for me you know it's just it helps it helps my ocd okay but they are very very smooth and for being factory lubed they did a pretty good job now popping off the switches will reveal the hot spot pcb which is 5 pin with a south facing led and south facing is preferred overall because it'll have less interference in the game with other key cap sets out there but on the south side of a south facing pcb with led on the bottom if you're using shine through keycaps the rgb won't you know be as bright but for me it doesn't really matter so for my first week of use back in january i used it completely stock and i will say this still had a pretty hollow-ish pingy sound to it so i took it all apart because i wanted to you know add some sort of dampening foam or see what they had going on inside that was still causing it to sound relatively hollow interestingly enough they do have their own layer of sound dampening foam and then underneath that is this very strange like layer of film like it's literally a giant piece of cutout film it seems like but the foam they included is really doing nothing it's super super thin it's literally see-through so i knew that moddiness and adding my own internal sound dampening layer would definitely do wonders for the linear switches here with the all-aluminum frame so i actually cut out a layer from silicone this is like arts and crafts like a silicone mat that i picked up for super cheap i just cut it to the shape of the current foam they had inside and it really really helped the sound profile now the q1 is a gasket mounted keyboard which means it's gonna have a nice softer feel overall and more give when you're typing on it or pressing down you can see the rubber pads surrounding the pcb and the trade-off now to adding the silicone definitely does sort of eliminate that more bouncy soft feel but i'll take this compromise because the sound now is much much better real quick i'll do a sound test like i said of the lubed glorious link switches in addition to my own layer of the silicone damping pad so really not bad for factory loop switches and in case you're curious about the stabilizers it is their own sort of creation i guess they're just pretty much screw-in stabilizers they have a nice like greenish teal sort of color tint to them and they were factory lubed although i did add just a little bit more but really no rattle no pinging anymore no more that hollowness i am really digging the final result i'd say the sound is deep and kind of like marbly at the same time so again for my use case as a content creator and i'll be very honest with you guys i really haven't gamed too too much this year so far again my son was born end of december so i haven't had a lot of free time to fully game like i used to but when i do using this now versus my old apex pro tkl which had their omnipoint switches that were very very very very very lightweight but they were also adjustable these are like 10 times smoother because again they're factory lubed i've had no issues with gaming nothing like that so for gaming it's been just fine but again one of the bigger benefits now to this smaller footprint is the fact that it's gonna take up less room on your desktop and also having that functionality of the volume knob is great again stock control volume you can have it zoom in and out jog your timeline change rgb whatever you want you can have this volume knob do it's three different functions with turning it up and down plus you can press it in to actuate it and it's all set up and configured in qmk or via i always say kia but it's not qmk or via software so kikron does not have their own software to use this i just use via and it's very very straightforward it's what a lot of custom keyboards out there use i will say though it's not a perfect integration like for example clicking on the lighting tab will cause it to just freeze and do nothing so if you want to add like you know the rgb control and stuff you have to go down to the actual lighting tab on the bottom for the functions and then sort of set it up and configure it that way but you can also just control the rgb on the keyboard itself with a function shift and then like qwer asdf that controls like saturation effects brightness speed all that and like i said before with the south facing led it's going to be shining through the baby blue teal colored housing of my lynx switches so when i have the led set as white it's gonna have that bluish sort of tint to it which i don't mind because again it fits the keycap set perfectly but i'll give you guys an idea of how it looks with the rgb and stuff it is very very bright and saturated nice smooth effects there's a bunch of different effects on board to pick from so rgb on here very nice but for me i always keep it a static color either white here or like a teal again just to accent the keycaps so at the end of the day i think the overall value here of the q1 with a little bit of love and tlc you know mod just a little bit if you want to improve your sound profile it is outstanding for what you're paying whether it is bare bones or the fully pre-built like fully pre-built with switches and key caps for under 200 is insane for a great compact layout here the volume knob all that great stuff and on the back side there's actually a little switch you can toggle between using this for your mac or pc so depending on you know what your operating system is it's compatible with both so for me no issues no problems it's been really great to use this for the last two months i'm gonna bring up one minor con that does annoy the hell out of me 95 of you are not gonna care but again with my like just craze over aesthetics and my ocd on that side i will say having the volume knob with the little cutout around it it does bother me i wish it was flush with it and there wasn't that square cut out but again that's because you can get this with an extra switch there instead of the knob but it just bothers me so would i recommend the q2 yes hands down would i recommend modding the q2 yes as well but they make it very easy to do so as you saw there's just these eight screws in the bottom you take them off and then boom it's open hotspot pcb very very easy to mod this and like i said just with that sound film and very very thin layer of foam which isn't doing anything um a little bit of love will go a long way here to really improve the sound profile depending on your switches and all that but they just make it very user friendly and i have to say i love what kikron's doing in the keyboard space giving us these you know almost custom-esque budget builds for under 200. especially if you are a you know you're you're a new person in the community and you want to sort of get a feel for these custom keyboards we don't want to spend 400 and up this is a great great value if you do want to get it pre-built for under 200 just really really loving what key crown is doing from their days i remember like seeing their wireless keyboards a bunch of like tech youtubers on like you know the mac side of things and the apple side of things we're always showing these off never really paid much attention until q1 that i reviewed and it's just been up and up ever since so if you want to check it out i'll put a link for you in the description down below as well as our deepsea topographic keycap set like i said only available until march 30th i don't care shameless plug i'm proud of it they look great if you want to hop on it in the description down below that'll wrap it up for my review of the two month q2 review hope you enjoyed if you did give it a thumbs up show your support feel free to follow me on twitter at randomfrankp and last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button hope you all enjoyed have a good day

Channel: randomfrankp

Views: 162,986

Keywords: randomfrankp, 4k, 2022, keychron q2, keychron q2 review, keychron q2 sound test, glorious lynx switches, glorious lynx switches lubed sound test, keychron q2 mod, custom keyboard, keyboard for, keyboard for beginners, keyboard fortnite, keyboard under 200, keyboard under 100, randomfrankp keyboard, keychron vs glorious, gmmk pro vs, gmmk pro vs keychron q1, gmmk pro vs keychron q2, keychron q2 build

Id: wzQnhWOBnkU

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 26 2022