Massdrop CTRL Mechanical Keyboard - Refurb

The day has finally come. The Massdrop CTRL mechanical keyboard is here! Constructed with a solid aluminum frame and Kaihua hot-swappable switch sockets, the CTRL allows you to change switches whenever you want without soldering. It’s fully programmable via QMK firmware, has more than 16 million colors of backlighting to choose from, and comes with custom dye-subbed PBT keycaps that won’t fade. We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out, and we think you’ll be just as impressed as we are.

The search for the right factory can be long and grueling. It’s more than just giving a good one the green light: there are countless certifications and compliance-related formalities to consider—not to mention thousands of viable facilities. In fact, we started with a list of more than 100 different factories, eventually cutting them down to 12. To help narrow down the options, our team flew to China to see them firsthand. While there were a few potential choices, we’re confident we’ve found the perfect one to bring our vision for the CTRL to life.

Keyboards can be tiny, massive, and everything in between. After much deliberation, we’ve decided the tenkeyless layout is the most widely applicable to the community. It strikes the perfect balance between compact layouts and full-size layouts with much larger footprints. It also has a full set of arrows and function keys for programming hotkeys and macros. To do the CTRL’s tenkeyless layout justice, we know we need a sleek case. To achieve a clean look that jives in the office or the game room, we’re making it with aluminum. Aluminum is easy to anodize, powder coat, and CNC machine. It’s also strong and heavy enough to stay put on the desktop, but not so heavy that it’s difficult to take on the go. As for the color, we’ve explored many variations of silver and black, and ultimately landed right in the middle with anodized gunmetal gray. The community loved the gunmetal colorway on the Planck and Preonic keyboards, so it seems a natural choice for the CTRL.