Xiaoyuan's Keyboard Part 1: The first retro mechanical keyboard in 2023, Heijue AK966 retro keyboard unboxing experience

written in front

The new year has begun. I have touched a lot of mechanical keyboards last year, and my preference for mechanical keyboards has become more and more obvious. From the very beginning, I like the shaft body with strong rebound and loud sound. I think mechanical keyboards should be Louder sound, and later I gradually like the quieter axis body, although I work alone and it will not affect anyone. Of course, except for the shaft body, I still like to have a backlight and RGB color changes as always. Of course, I have always wanted to have a mechanical keyboard with a retro feel. It just so happens that Heijue’s AK966 has a new retro color scheme. This article will talk about this mechanical keyboard with a retro raccoon shaft.

AK966 unboxing experience

Like Heijue's customized keyboards in the past, the outer packaging of Heijue AK966 wireless three-mode gaming mechanical keyboard is also relatively simple. Simple black and white two-color with front window design, you can see the color of the keyboard inside at a glance from the outer packaging, which is very convenient for selection. The specification information of the keyboard is provided on the back of the package, and you can know all the information about the keyboard just by reading it.

In terms of accessories, it provides a manual, a key puller, and a USB Type-C data cable. There is no supplementary key here. Of course, if you observe carefully, you will find that the win key is gone. It is replaced by super here, but it is suitable for normal users. Habit.

Appearance of AK966

Heijue AK966 currently has 5 custom color schemes: Xingwan, Mengxia, Senyu, Retro and NGA. I prefer this retro color scheme.

The keyboard adopts the popular 98 arrangement, with a total of 96 keys and a knob in the upper right corner. It has a relatively complete key scheme and convenient multimedia control functions. The overall arrangement is relatively neat and will not feel messy.

This keyboard is still very resolvable. At first glance, you can see that it uses dark gray and off-white keycaps, with red and green keycaps embellished. The red ESC key and Enter key are basically The soul, of course, can also be replaced with more personalized keycaps according to your preferences.

The knob in the upper right corner is made of metal, and the surface is treated with white lacquer. The knob cap also supports plugging and unplugging, and you can also replace it with your favorite knob.

The function of this knob is to adjust the volume. I have used the keyboard scroll wheel to adjust the volume before, which is very convenient to operate. However, this knob can also be pressed to achieve a one-key mute function.

In the middle of the numeric keypad and the letter keypad, there are four status indicators, which correspond to the status of the numeric keypad, uppercase and lowercase, and 2.4G wireless and Bluetooth connection status. Unlike most keyboard indicators in the upper right corner, this position is It is ingenious, and the location layout is more reasonable, which is convenient for users to identify the current working status of the keyboard.

The left and right sides of the fuselage are responsible for different functions. For example, the left side provides a three-stage toggle switch, corresponding to 2.4G wireless mode, wired mode and Bluetooth mode, which can be switched directly when in use.

The storage slot on the right side is used to store the wireless receiver, which does not seem to affect the integrity, and it is also convenient for users to store the wireless receiver to avoid loss and damage.

There are three-way cable outlets and two-stage support feet on the back, and 5 white rubber anti-skid pads. For the three-way outlet, I think it is quite special. The type-c interface of the keyboard itself is relatively inside, and the wire can be hidden when wired. This is much neater than the exposed wire. The desktop will also look much more comfortable, and both the left and right sides can be used as wired outlets, so it will not be affected by the location of the outlet.

For example, the retouching wire slot can hide the wires very well, and it can also feel great when using wired connections.

The two-stage foot support can be adjusted according to your own habits.

Shaft and keycap

The AK966 retro model is equipped with the "little raccoon" axis of Jiadalong's extended axis (this time it is not a fresh fruit axis, but an animal axis). This axis adopts a linear feel scheme and adopts a POM extended axis. Lightweight 2.0 shaft cover, the overall appearance is still very good with the keyboard body.

Shaft body parameters: trigger pressure 55gf, total stroke 3.6mm, design scheme of trigger stroke 2.0mm, combined with the lengthened shaft center and shortened key stroke, it can realize the hand feeling feedback of early bottoming, silky and smooth pressing, quick rebound and quick touch The bottom is also very solid.

The satellite shaft scheme is adopted for the large key position, and the shafts have been moistened before leaving the factory.

Pull out the shaft body and you can see that there are sound-absorbing cotton in the cavity, which is very effective in eliminating cavity sound.

The keycap part adopts the PBT keycap with two-color injection molding process, OEM height, closed character process, opaque, and processed by sublimation process.

The overall keycap is gray and white in retro style, the black characters are very recognizable, the surface of the keycap is delicate to the touch, and the PBT material is also wear-resistant and oil-resistant.

It's my favorite multi-RGB backlight

From the manual, we can see that the fuselage has 18 built-in lighting effect modes, and at the same time provides three fast game custom lighting effects, which can be switched according to preferences when playing different games. The lighting effect part also supports users to record custom lighting effects, supports 16.8 million color adjustments, and can be adjusted through the keyboard-specific driver. Switch the light brightness, dynamic speed, dynamic direction, backlight color, etc. through the combination of keys, which can bring higher lighting playability to the keyboard.

Experience

Power and battery life

The keyboard has a built-in 10000mAh lithium battery, and the large-capacity battery naturally has a longer battery life. It can last for 1200 hours when the 2.4G is turned off, which is equivalent to 50 days of use every day. If it is only used for seven or eight hours a day, then basically There is no need to charge for the first half of the year. If the backlight is turned on, it can also have a battery life of about 50 hours at the highest brightness.

This keyboard supports hot-swapping, compatible with mainstream three-legged and five-legged axes, and can take into account most of the axes on the market, which is convenient for users to replace the axes according to their personal preferences, and can replace the axes and keys they like. Caps, but for the backlight, if they are all transparent shafts, coupled with transparent or transparent keycaps, then the RGB lighting effect will be more vivid.

This keyboard also adopts the Gasket structure, which provides sandwich cotton, under-shaft pad and bottom sound-absorbing cotton inside. With the Gasket support silicone sleeve, it can bring softer feedback, which is why I like this keyboard very much. , the gasket structure has been very popular in the past two years.

The wire groove on the back of the keyboard can perfectly hide the wires when used in a wired situation. The left, right, and middle can be set according to your own situation. Of course, the three-mode keyboard and wireless connection will make the desktop cleaner.

In the daily use process, for 98 keys with 96 keys, I use the numeric keypad more, and also set a lot of shortcut keys, so for the 98 array with both numeric keypad and letter keypad, and function key F area, I think it is very suitable for me. The keyboard is centered in size, and there are separate number keys and function key areas at the same time, so you don't need to use combination keys to use it.

The existence of the knob is indeed a lot more convenient for using the keyboard to quickly increase and decrease the volume and mute with one key. I dare say that after getting used to the keyboard with this function, it will be somewhat uncomfortable to change to a keyboard without a knob.

Summarize

If you like retro keyboards, you can consider this keyboard. The feel brought by the gasket structure, coupled with the adjustment of various RGB backlight effects, I think it is very good no matter it is used for office or game.