Alice cured my fast typing problem, Keychron Q8 mechanical keyboard evaluation [with disassembly and upgrade]

As a non-professional living in the digital area, I have touched dozens of keyboards if not hundreds. But two days ago, a bad friend bought a keyboard with Alice, bragging to me about ergonomics, saying that the keyboards I used before were all rubbish. After the bad friend used the new keyboard, I also found that he communicated with me on WeChat and replied a lot slower. I asked the reason, and the reason he gave me was that when typing, all the energy was immersed in the collision between the fingers and the keycap, and the time was forgotten.

I don't believe the above reasons. As a "keyboard man", I cannot allow untouched keyboards! Recently, I just saved some money and plan to buy keychron Q1. The price of Q8 and Q1 is not much different. This time, I will buy Q8 first, and then save money to buy Q1.

This is the first time for me to buy a pure aluminum lump, and I was really unprepared. The moment I received the express delivery, my hand suddenly sank, and the box fell to the ground. From the front of the package, I can see that the corner of the keyboard box has been knocked into it. The packaging box of Keychron Q8 adopts a black design. There is a printed picture of Q8 on the front of the box, and the product name is above the printed picture. The overall design is quite simple.

When you open the top cover of the box, you can see that in addition to the user manual, there is also a card that "reminds you to plug and unplug the shaft body", which also confirms the Q8 customization attribute.

In addition to the main body of the keyboard, a Type-C to Type-C connection cable is also included with the package. The connection cable is made of braided material and has Velcro for storage. The adapter of A is quite careful.

In addition, there are keyboard replacement foot stickers, Windows supplementary keycaps, screwdrivers, hexagons, key pullers, and shaft pullers, which can almost meet the needs of ordinary users for disassembly and assembly of this keyboard. Keychron has considered this point quite thoughtfully.

In addition to the above accessories in the box, a sound-absorbing cotton interlayer is also included with the express delivery. Friends who have requirements for sound can disassemble the keyboard and install it. I will also show you how to install it in the [Modification and Upgrade] section later. .

The picture below shows the body of the keyboard. I chose the gray version with knobs. The layout is the Alice layout that I have never used. According to ergonomics, the keyboard is divided into two areas. The most notable feature is that there are two space bars and two keys. a B key.

The Q8 gray keycaps use PBT keycaps, which are composed of three colors: light gray, dark gray, and yellow. The Enter key and Return key are bright yellow, and the color matching of the keycaps is very balanced and comfortable.

The upper right corner of the keyboard is a knob button. The default rotation function is volume adjustment, and the pressing function is mute/contact mute. Of course, custom settings can also be made. The knob is also made of metal, the twisting force and pause feeling are good, and it has a non-slip scale, but the feedback when pressing is not very comfortable.

The entire keyboard body is polished and anodized. If you look carefully at the paint surface, it still has a granular matte texture, it should be sandblasted.

Take a closer look at the cutting edge of the CNC is also good, after the chamfering process, it does not cut your hands.

键盘顶部集中了Win & Mac布局切换按钮，这是我选择keychron一个比较大的原因。我是windows mac两边倒，市面上大多数机械键盘对mac的适配都不优秀，一是固件不完美兼容，二是option、cmd布局跟mac不一样。keychron Q8的这个布局切换按键就可以针对Windows使用场景和Mac使用场景进行切换，调整功能键布局。

Viewed from the side, the keycaps of the keychron Q8 are not of uniform height, but tilted inward from both sides may be more ergonomic. In addition, the thickness of the aluminum lump can also be seen from the side.

The back panel is also a whole piece of CNC-cut aluminum, and the cutting is also very regular. The rounded protruding parts of the four corners are foot pads for non-slip.

keychron Q8 is a keyboard with Gasket structure, "Gasket" translates to the meaning of spacer. Compared with keyboards such as Cherry, Gasket has a steel-free structure, that is, gaskets are installed around the positioning plate. This gasket is used as a cushioning layer for the bottom case and the top case. The advantage of this is that it is soft.

I dismantled keychron Q8, a gasket-structured keyboard. The purpose of this dismantling is to check the composition of the keyboard and the functions of various accessories. Try to see if there is any improvement.

Before disassembly, you need to remove the keyboard keycap. The keycap of Q8 is made of PBT material, which is not easy to oil after long-term use. You can also see from the bottom of the keycap that this keycap uses a two-color injection molding process. The overall workmanship is still good. Uncovered edges.

Below the keycap is the keyboard shaft body, which needs to be removed with the included shaft puller.

When I bought it, I chose Jiadalong G-Pro tea, the key travel is 4mm, the trigger key travel is 2mm, and the trigger pressure is 55g. Compared with the cherry tea switch, the overall feeling is that the pressure required to press is greater, and the overall feeling is better than that of the cherry. The tea shaft is slightly better.

After removing the keycap and shaft body, you can remove the bottom case screws. Use the included screwdriver to remove the 8 screws on the bottom case, and then the back case can be removed.

On the top of the back shell is a piece of barley paper, the main purpose is to insulate and prevent the circuit board from contacting the aluminum metal of the bottom shell to cause a short circuit.

Remove the barley paper, and you can see the circuit board of the keyboard. The circuit board design is very regular, and the LED lamp beads are directly integrated on the circuit board.

The logo of "Keychron Q8 PCB V1.8" is also printed on the circuit board. It seems that the design of the circuit board has been adjusted many times. Thanks to the layout engineer.

Between the PCB and the positioning board, you can place a free sound clip. The main function of the sound clip is to change the sound, because the sound is produced by vibration, and the sandwich cotton can absorb vibration and reduce the shock of touching the metal. The final voice presented is like talking under a quilt.

There is also a noise-reducing sliver above the sandwich cotton to separate the positioning board and the sandwich cotton. A set of noise-reducing cotton strips is also included with the keyboard, and friends who like customization do not need to buy them separately.

The dismantling part of Keychron Q8 is completed here. Next is my upgrade of this keyboard. After all, it is a customized keyboard. Although it is already very good, the process before and after the transformation is quite impressive. happy. This upgrade is mainly divided into four parts: shaft body upgrade, sandwich upgrade, shaft pad upgrade, and bottom pad upgrade.

I chose Jiadalong’s Qinglong shaft for the shaft body. I bought 70 pieces for 200 yuan, with an average of 2.8 yuan per piece. It cost 297 yuan to prevent suspicion of advertising, and the names of the shops involved have been coded.

In the last link, the Q8 keyboard was disassembled, and the sandwich cotton, under-shaft pad, and bottom pad were just replaced.

The first step is to install the pad under the shaft, install it on the front of the PCB board, find out the front and back sides, and install it in alignment with the holes. The one I bought is made of electronic foam. For the knob model, pay attention to cut the hole position at the knob.

The second step is to install the sandwich cotton. The sandwich cotton is installed in the middle of the fixed board and the PCB board, and it is only necessary to find the hole position for installation.

Then install the PCB board and the positioning board together, and tighten the fixing screws. The picture below is what it looks like after installation.

Finally, install the bottom pad. The bottom pad is installed on the back of the PCB board. It is also necessary to find the holes and align them.

Finally, stick the highland barley paper that was originally on the original keyboard to the bottom pad again, so as not to waste it.

Finally, install the aluminum tuotuo on the back of the keyboard, and tighten the eight screws that fix the aluminum tuotuo.

Then it is time to replace the shaft body. Here I am using the Qinglong shaft, which is a large paragraph shaft. In terms of paragraph sense, Qinglong is actually not too strong, a little weaker than other hp-like. Pressing fast makes people feel linear and makes typing feel comfortable. It is not as easy to touch by mistake as linear, but it is not as strong as other hp-like prompts.

Finally, the keycaps are installed, and the upgrade of the keychron Q8 mechanical keyboard is here.

Don’t rush to use it after the upgrade. Friends who play keyboards should know that Jiadalong is famous for its soft feet, and the pins of the shaft are very fragile. When installing the shaft, it is easy to bend the shaft and cause some problems. The keys cannot be triggered normally. There are online keyboard detection tools on the Internet, just find one and test it to ensure that every key can be triggered.

I overturned the car, and there were six or seven buttons that could not be used. I took off the shaft body and saw that the pins were bent. When will your feet not be soft, Jiadalong?

Now that the nonsense is over, let me talk about the experience of using the Keychron Q8 mechanical keyboard.

First of all, I agree with the design method of Alice's array, key with my right hand before, and it was easy to press the right hand on the steel plate in the initial stage of Q8. After about a week of use, I got used to it, and Alice could indeed correct fingering mistakes.

除了能纠正指法错误外，我觉得Q8的其他体验也蛮棒的，主要体现在键盘的Gasket结构和固件上。我个人是非常不喜欢钢感键盘的，这个真是见仁见智了，有些人就是喜欢钢感。其次，我觉得Q8的Mac & Win切换起来很方便，这确实解决了我一把键盘用在两台不同电脑上的痛点。

What satisfies me the most is actually the design and workmanship of Keychron Q8. To be honest, I have seen many things with CNC technology, and few of them can make such a large thing so finely. But it is really heavy, really too heavy, it is worthy of being an aluminum lump, and the tin goods from an aluminum factory that I used before are completely incomparable.

Secondly, I am quite satisfied with the Gasket structure of this keyboard. The keyboard input feels very delicate and soft, and I really don’t want to touch the steel plate after using it. Of course, there are also things that I am not satisfied with, that is, the sandwich cotton is not installed at the factory, but is sent to you separately, and it is a little troublesome to install it yourself. But after thinking about it, I am relieved. For customization, the choice is yours. You can also choose whether to pretend or not.

The arrangement of Alice is very small, but I still want to suggest writers to try it. Although the first week is painful, after the pain is over, it is difficult for you to return to the previous standard arrangement.

Finally, I hope that Keychron can add more shafts to choose from, such as TTC gold powder, Jiadalong G yellow and other excellent shafts, I believe it will be a bonus item.

Well, the above is the whole content of this article, thank you for reading to the end~