Instead, Keychron opted to use a steel plate, which is far too heavy for a TKL gasket-mount board. My initial thought was weight, but you can always get a light switch plate, like FR4. Reviewing the Q3 made me wonder why there aren’t many gasket-mount TKL keyboards. Since the Q3 is a big and heavy board, the aluminum case sounds extremely hollow, which surprised me since there’s foam between the PCB and switch plate, as well as underneath the PCB, along with silicone tabs on the bottom plate. This is most evident in many of KBDFans’ boards, like the KBD75, which has a cutout on the backplate for weighted bars, typically made of brass. Mechanical keyboard enthusiasts like to spend extra for their board by purchasing weighted bars to help dampen noise. I would’ve preferred to see the knob located at the top right, where the pause / break key would be, because who actually uses that anymore? Now, this board is also available in a knobless version and, if you’re into soldering, the rotary encoder can be desoldered for a standard MX switch.Īt just under four and a half pounds (2 kg), the Q3 is heavy, but its weight doesn’t improve acoustics, which is usually the case for other enthusiast-tier mechanical keyboards.

The knob is placed where the F13 key would normally sit, and while it’s not the worst spot, it’s definitely not a great one. The first thing I noticed when I took the Q3 out of the box was the rotary knob, which looks very weird.

Keychron k8 pro review