Keychron K8 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard, White Backlight

Fácil de usar, lo recomiendo, no he tenido problemas y es muy cómodo

the Keychron k8 is hot swappable on the keychron website. But when i tried to swap the switches, i found out that the switches are soldered on.

Connected quickly and easily, super easy set up. I love typing on this. Highly recommended!

Call it 3.5 stars.

Originally I purchased the aluminum/RGB K2, but found three shortcomings with it. Pros and cons of the K2:
+ compact but still with full-size “laptop-like” keyboard. Right-most column with Lighting/PgUp/PgDwn/Home/End/Right arrow rather resembles an HP Spectre.
+ The aluminum bezels give it a heft and nicely-finished quality totally absent on the K8.
— I could get used to the K2 layout, except that I move among several keyboards regularly and having the Light Effects key at the top-right, where Del usually is, was always going to lead to the circus light show, or at least was going to require additional time on a regular basis to remind myself. As a touch typist, the idea is to never look at the keys. I’m also blind, so…definitely not looking at the keys anyway. The K2 right shift key is also less than 2u wide and the right control key is barely beneath it, adding another layer of required thought when hitting shift+control combinations, often used in word processors.

– The PgUp key on the K2 unit I received had a hair-trigger, meaning that it actuated within 1mm of the press, long before the tactile feedback; so that particular unit was going to go back regardless.

– Although I liked the aluminum sides, it’s not much, really; the bottom remains plastic. I didn’t want the RGB but alum wasn’t offered without it, so the added $20 wasn’t necessarily worthwhile.

The all-plastic K8 with white backlight has the following pros and cons:
+ Totally ergonomic layout with traditional spacing among function key clusters, above the arrow cluster, and around the nav six-pack.
+ the additional 1.5” or so of width really doesn’t feel significant. I suppose the keyboard is now somewhat wider than most people’s laps. Works fine in my lap, though, which is my normal use-case (being blind, I can just leave the I-device sitting next to me).
+ absolutely no flex, so no advantage to the aluminum-clad over the plastic models.

– The virtual assistant key doesn’t summon Siri on IOS/IPadOS.

– Huge con for me is that the unit looks and feels like a DIY prototype. The frame is a non-textured plastic tray with switches mounted to an aluminum plate. There’s a quarter-inch of gap between the top plate and base of the ABS key caps. It’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever encountered, honestly. Also, any spill is going to absolutely trap the liquid. There are no drain holes. Not to mention dog hair and dust. Without the lip around the edge, I could at least blow stuff out. Now, though, I’ll be pulling keycaps way too often for cleaning. Note that the aluminum version also has the recessed area below the six-pack and between function key clusters.

– They really desperately need to add a dedicated hotkey like FN+[lighting] to turn the backlight on/off. Pressing FN+L+[lighting] for six seconds locks the current light show, but get this: it doesn’t work to lock out the backlighting, because their light-show-enthusiast customers kept writing them that they couldn’t figure out how to turn the backlighting back on! Even though this is white LED-only, it still bounces, strobes, runs, explodes, and dances just like the RGB version, so that one has to cycle through more than 30 variants before getting back to “off.” The only solution is to lock in the least-silly lighting option.

– On the unit I received, some of the outer keys have a different tambre/pitch: spacebar, tab, capslock, and the latter two also wobble side to side as if they aren’t properly stabilized. With all the different sounds, typing is quite the percussion section. I’ve bought 4 mechanical keyboards now, and three of them (two Keychron, one Cherry) have had a minor problem with one or more of the switches right out of the box.

But I love the keyboard. What draws me to a KeyChron in general are the toggle switches for Mac/PC and USB/off/Bluetooth, rather than relying on hard-to-remember key combinations or dip switches. Love the USB-c detachable cable, too. I’ve actually read reviews of people complaining about the included charging/data cable. Get whatever cable you want.

On the topic of switches, I got the K2 with browns and the K8 with blues. The blues have a much nicer, crisper feel, and the click sound effect is, to my ear, less high-pitched than my Cherry-branded keyboard with Cherry blues. The Gateron browns don’t offer very much tactile feedback at all—I only notice it when thinking about it. Otherwise, they just feel wobbly. Love the Gateron blues. After buying the Cherry keyboard, I was disappointed enough that I turned around and bought an IKBC with clear switches, which I vastly preferred. But the K8 with blues may be just as satisfying. Of course, I’m not taking this one to a coffee shop, meeting, Zoom conference, or to get a job as a court reporter!

I learned to type on a manual typewriter, then moved to buckling-spring IBM Model-M keyboards, one of which I still have! But I am still not a mechanical keyboard fetishist. Scissor-switch keyboards on flagship laptops (Thinkpad, HP Spectre, XPS 13, Apple when they’re not totally screwing up a good thing) are perfectly satisfying to me as a writer. I’m a writer, not a typist, so most of my time is spent thinking. I’ve never experienced fatigue from typing or acceleration from typing on a mechanical keyboard. I do like the key travel, though, and the features on the Keychron boards. Here’s hoping the BT module doesn’t crap out, which seems to be what gets all of these Bluetooth mechanical keyboards, both Keychron and IKBC.