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As we saw at CES , Keychron is all about making keyboards entirely out of unusual materials. Before it announced its upcoming designs in concrete, resin, and marble, Keychron launched a keyboard — the Q16 HE 8K — made (almost) entirely of ceramic.
The Keychron Q16 HE 8K is a 65-percent wired magnetic keyboard with an enclosure and keycaps made of ceramic. It features a hot-swappable PCB, RGB backlighting, built-in PC/Mac modes, and up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate. Keychron may not (really) be a gaming company (or, well, it has a separate gaming division — Lemokey), but this keyboard is clearly designed with gamers in mind. Gamers who live for the aesthetic, that is.
Of course, the aesthetic doesn't come cheap — the Q16 HE 8K is available now in navy blue or light green colorways, and it costs $229.99.
Design and Construction of the Q16 HE 8K
The Q16 HE 8K is a 65-percent wired magnetic switch keyboard with a ceramic case and ceramic keycaps. It has a 65-percent layout, with alphanumeric keys, arrow keys, and a single column of navigation keys (Delete, End, Page Up, and Page Down) on the right side. It's small, but many gamers are looking for something small — it doesn't take up too much desk space, so you have plenty of room to make big mouse swipes, and a lot of games don't require more than a handful of alphanumeric keys, anyway. (A 65-percent keyboard at least has arrow keys; 60-percent keyboards ditch even those and take some getting used to.)
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
The keyboard measures 12.4 inches (315mm) wide by 4.36 inches (110.8mm) deep, and is 1.54 inches (39.09mm) thick at its thickest point, including the keycaps. This is close to the same size as the Arbiter Studio Polar 65 — one of my favorite 65-percent magnetic switch keyboards, which measures 12.4 x 4.29 x 1.57 inches (315 x 4.29 x 40mm). The Q16 HE 8K weighs slightly more than the Polar 65 at 2.34 pounds (1,060g) versus 2.2 pounds (990g).
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The keyboard is made entirely of glossy-coated ceramic, which looks nice as long as you don't touch it. If you're thinking that glossy ceramic keycaps sound like they'd be a nightmare for fingerprints, you are correct — this keyboard attracts fingerprints instantly. I basically had to wipe it down for every single picture, and handle it with white gloves otherwise. Keychron does include a microfiber cleaning cloth in the box, which is good because you'll use it more often than you use the keyboard. I think the color might also play into this — the navy blue is darker and seems like it shows fingerprints more easily.
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