Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “This Keyboard Isn’t a Phone – OnePlus Keyboard 81 Pro”.
We all know OnePlus to make phones, earbuds and now keyboards keyboard 81, Pro specifically uh. They teamed up with kikron to make this. Oh, I love this, never settle. Sometimes you should settle, but you know what not with keyboards. That’S what you shouldn’t settle for: connect, Bluetooth, remapping Keys, backlight, connect, cable, adjusting whatever switchable, keycaps or Os. This does have Linux. Mac Windows support Android support, oh, and then we got a little user manual as well. If the card wasn’t good enough for you, my only complaint from just looking at the specs is that it it’s wireless, but it doesn’t do 2.4 gigahertz, it’s just Bluetooth and USBC keyboards in here, and keep that a little secret for all of us right now. I’M going to open these other boxes, this guy comes in two colors, there’s a dark gray and a light gray.
The light gray is the one that’s supposed to come with their marble, mallow keycaps, which is a first. I’Ve never tried them before in my life and I’m very intrigued. It’S supposed to be like a softer plastic one, that’s specifically used in cables and bracelets, which seems odd um. These don’t feel like well. This feels like PBT this one, not so much. Why is the D the only one that feels different? Maybe I’m crazy, listen. I haven’t felt a lot of D’s, but this does feel a little different, yeah, okay, okay, also coming with a bunch of what looks like like foam gaskets, this is gasket Mount double gasket mounted. If one’s not good enough for you, they got two and they come with extras, which is always a plus a one plus.
Oh, I actually really like their keycap and switch puller that they’re, including because it’s got these cool, covers for it, cable and for anyone who wants to take apart their keyboard and modify it and do whatever they want to it. They come with a little Allen, key, which is great. The cable is notably in their OnePlus red that they use for everything yeah. It doesn’t seem that bad, but yeah it’s about two meters, probably USBC on one side, USB a on the other.
Oh, we got some screws. This is actually a huge deal to me um. I have bought a lot of expensive custom, keyboards and you’d be surprised by how many of them don’t come with extra Hardware. All right now for the big reveal the actual keyboard.
Oh, it’s pretty hefty. The whole thing is CNC aluminum. I actually really like uh, whatever they’ve done here on this Edge for the knob and the what’s I mean they’ve got the arrow keys on here.
It’S traditional, oh page, out, page down and home, probably yeah. These just feel like PBT. That’S a bummer one kind of disappointing thing off the bat here is that they’re supposed to have this really cool new marble, mallow keycap that I’ve never tried before the D key that came with this might be the material because it does feel different than PBT.
But I’m not sure and the way that you can tell that this isn’t marble mallow aside from the obvious PBT feel here, is that these are dark, gray keycaps. This comes in two color schemes, but the color scheme only is reflecting on the keycaps themselves. So if you get the light gray, then the alphanumeric and Center keycaps would all be light gray. Instead, we’ve got the dark gray version where it’s dark gray on the alphanumerics and light gray on the outside. That doesn’t mean the keyboard’s bad. I’M actually still pretty excited about it.
It’S just that was a really cool feature that I was hoping to experience today, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I really love this knob. Not only does the tactile feel actually feel great, but I love the clear like kind of fake, Crystal or fake glass appearance.
It’S got It’s just plastic, but it looks pretty good and then we’ve got the typical whole traditional one plus logo in OnePlus red on the Escape key and on the enter key uh. This is hot swap, which is great. I just don’t like it if anyone’s not hot swapped these days, because there’s not much point for it, especially in the more like Mass marketed. Keyboards, it’s a red switch, but it’s definitely tactile so I’m gon na take it out, oh, which makes sense. I’M pretty sure the linear switches.
So that’s the other thing. That’S kind of a weird design choice that they’ve made the color is also tied to the switches as well. If you get the light gray, you get linears and if you get the dark gray, you get these tactiles. So it’s kind of tough if you like linears, but you don’t want the new marble, mallow keycaps as cool as they may be. Tough break you’re stuck choosing one same thing if you like tactiles, but you really wanted the marble mallow keycaps like I do. I can’t get that right now, so, unfortunately, we’re stuck with these guys. They feel okay, they sound. Alright could sound better, I’m not sure if they’re pre-lubed, but they don’t sound or feel too bad. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a really small light application of Factory pre-lube on these we’ve got south facing RGB on our keyboard, there’s per key illumination for anyone who cares about that I’ll show you everything lit up once we connect the keyboard, but not before A word from our sponsor secret lab thanks to secret lab for sponsoring today’s video are your gaming sessions, leaving you in pain. Do you have to stand up and stretch after every email secret lab? Is there for you, your back and your butt? They’Re ergonomic high quality chairs are designed to provide maximum Comfort all day long. They even come in a variety of eye-catching upholsteries, so there’s a style for everyone check out secret lab at the link below another thing that I neglected to mention is that it’s got this cool bar on the back, and this is for adjusting your typing angle. But it’s also meant to let you stand the keyboard up the logo on the back. If you were to take your keyboard and flip it over uh, that’s upside down, but as soon as you stand it it up like this ah how’s that I think it’s kind of a weird way to display your keyboard most of the time.
I would actually prefer the bar to be on the bottom, and then I would like put it up like this, I’m not against the bar. I think it’s a pretty cool way to have adjustable typing angles. Um, especially it’s pretty stiff.
So I don’t think unless you like, really sit here and crank it and wear it out, it’s it’s not going to just wear out on you and suddenly your keyboard’s gon na, like droop, like I’ve, got to press I’m pressing, pretty oh geez. Actually, I almost pinched my fingers there, but I’ve got to press pretty hard to get this bar to like go down. So I’m not worried about that at all and then on the rest of the keyboard. Physically, we’ve got a on off switch and it looks like it might choose as well between Bluetooth and wired, and then we’ve got a Mac or Windows and a USBC Port.
Ours comes with this neat little stamped short circuit title here, that’s pretty cool! That’S probably just a personal thing for us, sorry, other than that it’s got four little rubber feet here, which probably do the job yeah like they could be better, but I’ve definitely had worse rubber feet on a keyboard realistically you’re not pushing on it that hard. When you’re gaming or typing anyway – and it’s pretty hefty like this thing – yeah it’s all aluminum as for weight, yo 1.8 kilos yeah, it’s definitely pretty hefty about five pounds, or so it’s got a 4 000 milliamp hour battery, which is respectable in the space. But I want to use wired because I’m a wired kind of guy – oh, this is cool. I only just noticed this now uh it actually comes with a USBC to a dongle, but it’s also just a USBC to see cable. So if you have it just a spare USBC Port that you want to use, feel free to do that and if you don’t boom OnePlus has got you covered. I got ta say I really like the RGB, and it makes me appreciate the red keycaps and the red cable even more.
I think that the red and the gray and the metallic kind of look of the aluminum all goes together really nicely. I’M not a red kind of person, I’m more of a blue or green or orange kind of boy. Wow. 129.
100. Yeah. I’M pretty happy with that. Honestly. This is they’re working with kikron to make this product and it feels and looks a lot like a kikron um which I’m relatively fond of they’re, not perfect out of the box, but I think for the price you get something pretty reasonable that you can then upgrade Yourself with Foams or mods, whatever you want to do, um but yeah. I actually really like the typing experience on this and while it’s more of a thick than a thock, I actually really like the sound right out of the box.
It’S like a tick right, how’s. The spacebar: it’s not super rattly, but it’s a little bit Hollow and a little just a tiny bit rattly. So you could fix all this up yourself and especially with it being hot swap. If you don’t like the switches, you don’t like the keycaps, you can change.
Basically, whatever you want one other thing, I kind of noticed, while just looking at it is I really like the overall construction designs. I love how the screws aren’t in the bottom of the case, so they’re not using these super long screws. Like you see on some more premium, keyboards they’re using these little short guys and they’re just right in here on the edges. If I were to disassemble this, it looks like basically the top part of the case, just kind of lifts off and you’re left with a really thick body, instead of it being kind of centered.
How some keywords are basically split in half like the top case is just as big as the bottom case, but yeah it looks very clean and it doesn’t look like you have to get rid of any feed or anything to get in there, which is fantastic. So I like it one thing I wasn’t sure of while talking about this and reading their you know descriptions and whatnot. They say double gasket but uh. I don’t exactly know what that means. A lot of gasket systems, I’ve seen they’re like Burger, Mount and stuff. They have gaskets on both side anyway, okay, there’s a few too many ribbon cables. So I don’t really want to fully disconnect it, but, as you can see, we’ve got these really thick gaskets and there’s one on either side of the plate, which appears to just be plastic. It might be polycarb, but I’m not 100 sure they are extra thick and there are two of them.
So it is technically double gasketed, but I don’t think, that’s anything. That’S crazy! A lot of stuff that’s gasket mounted, is going to have gaskets on both sides of the plate, a lot of the time it even comes with little socks that you put on the edges on like these guys here, so there’s contact on both sides of the plate. It feels pretty good and it’s definitely gasket mounted with layers of foam and whatnot. Like it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad, I just it’s not a big deal, calling it double gasket. I don’t know that’s a bit of a that’s a bit of a stretch here. All right one moment, please, as I put it back together.
Luckily that was really easy. One thing that’s nice that I didn’t mention that is pretty typical for kikron is this? Does support open source firmware, so it’s qmk and it’s via compatible and you can do just about whatever you want with it change the RGB to. However, you like adjust any macros, you want or adjust keys to something else, and now we’ve got to talk the price, which is something we actually don’t have uh. They never sent us any details.
We can’t find it on the website anywhere and I’m gon na go ahead and say that I think personally, if this thing is like on par with kikron pricing, so for an all aluminum chassis, you get a cool knob. I think if this is about 250 start getting into the 300 territory, if you want to pay that much then start just looking for custom keyboards that are going to come out in a year like that’s the only kind of problem with that route. Is you find something on Mac Group buys that you, like you get in on the pre-order or on the group buy, and then you wait. So that’s kind of why I recommend kikron.
So much is you can just buy it, which I’m hoping you can do with this. If you can just buy it and it’s like 250 dollars cool, that’s pretty good yeah. Let us know in the comments like subscribe, all that good stuff and uh see you later .