Das Keyboard 5QS Mark II Review: A Keyboard Lost in Time Leave a comment

The 5QS Mark 2 may be outfitted with Cherry MX2A Brown, Purple, and Silent Purple switches. Das despatched me a evaluation unit with its hottest choice, the MX2A Silent Reds. The underside-mount system, giant quantities of silicone dampening, and the silent purple switches mix to create an extremely boring typing really feel. The switches, silenced utilizing inside silicone strips, are naturally mushy and a bit mushy, and the underside mount makes this mushiness much more pronounced when typing. The sound dampening contained in the case absorbs no matter different vibrations and components of typing really feel would in any other case be current. The stabilizers are generic plate-mounted models that, regardless of being lubricated from the manufacturing facility, nonetheless rattled, even instantly out of the field. This was additionally made extra apparent by the keyboard’s silencing.

Ultimately, this keyboard’s typing feels mushy and sounds almost silent, whereas nonetheless sustaining some refined higher-pitched and rattly tones which might be disagreeable, however quiet sufficient to be lined up by headphones, earbuds, and even audio system.

In contrast to many keyboards right now, the 5QS doesn’t have hot-swap sockets. Which means that except you’re useful with a soldering iron and don’t like having a producer guarantee, you’ll be restricted to no matter switches the keyboard comes with from the manufacturing facility. The Lego-like customizability provided by hot-swap sockets has gone from a novel luxurious to an business commonplace in trendy keyboards, so being absent on this mannequin, at this worth, is considerably disappointing. Nonetheless, this does imply the 5QS goes to be marginally extra dependable than a hot-swappable board, since hot-swap sockets can often fail with in depth use.

Q Performance

Das’ huge promoting level with this keyboard is its “Q” software program, which is used to customise the RGB lighting and different capabilities. This can be utilized to use animations and patterns to the RGB, together with modifying the person perform of every key.

The RGB can be configured by particular person “applets” you put in inside the principle app. These can connect with exterior purposes and web site logins to show info like unread messages, alerts, and system info. Among the extra attention-grabbing ones embody a four-day climate forecast, worth trackers for shares and cryptocurrencies, and worth trackers for flights and video video games. In addition to that, there are just a few timed reminder apps for small duties like ingesting water and standing reminders if you happen to’ve been sitting too lengthy.

Whereas all of those are cool ideas, even the most effective ones are held again by a serious flaw: RGB lights merely usually are not an environment friendly solution to talk advanced info. For instance, the climate forecast applet has a number of shade choices for various predictions, however solely a few of these make sense at a look: White for snow, yellow for solar, and blue for rain. Different choices—pink for overcast, and purple for thunderstorms—usually are not very intuitive. Except you spend numerous time with this keyboard and modify your every day routines to acclimate to the brand new system, I doubt the typical individual will discover it useful to play a reminiscence recreation with info that’s in any other case two clicks away on their laptop. Whereas different keyboards (like Razer’s BlackWidow V4 75% Professional) combine secondary shows, this answer feels overcomplicated and underwhelming.