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Rowdy
13
Jul 25, 2021
checkVerified Buyer
An average keyboard with a few shortcomings
After buying a Womier K61 recently, I was hoping for a similar overall positive experience. Out of the box the keyboard looks similar to the K61, with its frosted case, USB-C cable and included brush and switch/keycap removers (both the cheap simple ones). Plugging the keyboard in, nothing happened for a long time, at least 10 seconds. Then the LED pattern snaked its way across the keyboard as it initialised, and finally the default rainbow pattern appeared. This worried me for a while that the keyboard was dead OOTB, but it just seems to take a while to start. The keycaps are ... well, the legends look ok, but feel as if they have been carved from the keycaps with the extra material left around the letters. They are definitely not smooth to the touch, and after a week of use much of the roughness has gone, but the longer keys are still rough enough to feel. Never had keycaps with as rough a surface as this before. In fact I've never had keycaps where you could easily feel the legends before. If it is a bit enough problem for anyone, keycaps can be replaced. I got the keyboard with Gateron blue switches installed. They are terrible - the click is inconsistent across the board, and the W key does not click at all. After removing the switches the switch under W appears to have been damaged. The slider does move up and down, but doesn't click. The rest of the switches are very inconsistent with their clicks, and with the overall feel. I have subsequently replaced the switches with Aliaz silent tactile switches, and the different is huge - this keyboard is now enjoyable to type on. The instructions (slip of paper) included with the keyboard provide hotkey combinations to change the backlighting, but they are incorrect and incomplete. A few Google searches provide lists of additional key combinations which seem to work. The biggest issue with the keyboard was the case lights flickering when it was connected. No key combination could be found to turn them off, and the flickering was very obvious to the point of being completely unusable. I am using the keyboard on a Mac, and the "driver software" is only available for Windows. After quite a few more searches, I found (on the Banggood product page for this keyboard, of all places) a link to a piece of Mac software that is supposed to update the keyboard firmware and, as they say, "fixed the light problem". After several tries to get it to run (it is not as easy as it is made to look in the video), I did manage to get it to work, and it did fix the problem! No more flickering lights, and press Fn + left Ctrl several times actually turns the case lighting off. The plate is not fixed in the case, and removing all the switches causes the plate to slip around a little inside the case. When swapping switches it would be a good idea to leave a couple of the old switches in place, insert a few of the new switches, then remove the rest of the old switches, mainly to keep the plate held in place. Many of the switches would not come out easily, and a little leverage with a small screwdriver was required to coerce them to come out. Perhaps a side effect of the acrylic case, rather than a machined metal plate? Or the cost of using a cheap switch removal tool? Dunno. Got them all out in the end. Backlighting effects are pretty much what you'd expect these days, with wave, ripple and raindrop effects. There is only one mode that appears to have a single static colour across the keyboard, but that is limited to one of four colours, and as you type the colour gradually changes to another in the spectrum, and reverts back to the original colour a couple of seconds after you stop typing. I was really hoping the Fn+space feature from the K61 would be present on this keyboard (lights up the keyboard in different colours and you press the key corresponding to the colour you want), but alas it is not. Overall it is an average keyboard, let down by poor keycaps (they can easily be replaced), bad switches (YMMV with different switches), buggy firmware (fixed, but only after going to some trouble), poor/missing documentation (mostly located by searching the internet), and somewhat limited backlight options (maybe the Windows software provides more options, but on a Mac limited to a few modes with the hotkeys). I'd still recommend it though, as most people like the animated RGB effects, keycaps and switches can be replaced, and the firmware issues on the Mac would affect a minority of purchasers, and can be resolved anyway.
Recommends this product? Yes
Gaboro
0
Aug 10, 2021
RowdyHey can you send me the Mac software or send me the link on where to get it? thanks
Rowdy
13
Aug 10, 2021
GaboroThere's a bunch of 5 videos on the page as you scroll down, just under the videos (search for text "Software for Mac (fixed the light problem)") are links to download the Mac app, a video instruction and a document instruction. https://www.banggood.com/groupshopping-item-1911753_1703697.html
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