Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00These are two keyboards that I've been looking forward to for quite a while.
00:08They announced them in the fall of 2018 and they showcased some demos of them at CES.
00:12These are the SK630 and the SK650 from Cooler Master.
00:17They're very nice looking keyboards and the whole purpose of this particular keyboard
00:20is that it's a low-profile, just aesthetically pleasing keyboard.
00:25And they look really good.
00:27And I think a lot of people are going to be interested in these devices because of how
00:30good they look.
00:31Now, I got these about two weeks ago.
00:33I've been using them since then.
00:35And my initial impressions of these particular keyboards were kind of lukewarm, but I thought
00:38I'd try to use them for a while, try to get used to them.
00:41And the more I use them, and the more I kind of open them up and play with them, I realized
00:45that these are just not good keyboards.
00:47And I just don't think most people should be buying them or this particular type of
00:52keyboard.
00:53Let me explain.
00:54These are marketed as low-profile keyboards.
00:57Just right off the bat, if you compare it to a real low-profile keyboard, this is another
01:02keyboard I'll talk about later, but this to me is an actual low-profile keyboard.
01:06It's called the Keychron K1.
01:08This is like half the height of this.
01:11The Cooler Master is noticeably taller and it just no longer feels like a low-profile
01:15keyboard.
01:16If anything, it feels very similar to just like a regular keyboard.
01:19So right off the bat, it's not really a low-profile keyboard.
01:23And the reason for that, I guess the best way to explain this is to open it up.
01:28I probably should have done this in advance.
01:30This keyboard has a lot of screws.
01:31I think it's like 12, 15 screws.
01:34Most keyboards that have opened up are significantly easier to get into.
01:37This one's not hard, it's just time-consuming.
01:38Now, if you end up buying this keyboard and you do want to open it up, just a tip, there's
01:48two screws underneath the space bar and then there's another screw on the bottom of the
01:51keyboard underneath the escape button.
01:54So top-left of the keyboard, it's underneath the rubber foot.
02:02Okay, so on the inside, I just want to draw attention to two things.
02:14The PCB's pretty clean, like there's no like super sloppy soldering or anything like that.
02:17It's like a, I don't know, it's Cooler Master.
02:19They usually make good keyboards and they've done a good job on the PCB.
02:22I do wish that the USB connection, so it uses USB-C, which is great, but the actual connector
02:29is not directly on the PCB.
02:31So they've actually had to have a secondary kind of piece and that makes the whole device
02:35a little bit more elevated, which is why the device isn't as low-profile as it could or
02:39should be.
02:40And the other thing, I'll just demonstrate this real quickly.
02:43This connector, it's USB-C, it's technically universal, but it's a relatively proprietary
02:49cable size.
02:50Like you can't stick most USB-C cables to this.
02:53The one they include is perfectly fit, obviously, but I've tried several other USB-C cables
02:58and not all of them fit, so just keep that in mind.
03:00Now another thing I noticed is that at the bottom of the keyboard tray, you'll see kind
03:05of like two spaces, which I think are for other variants of this keyboard.
03:10So when they originally announced this thing, they said that it was going to have a wireless
03:13version of this, and this might be like spots for batteries, but they've designed this case
03:17to be a low-profile mechanical keyboard, but it's just not, I mean, it's just, it's not
03:23low-profile.
03:24And there's one real big reason as to why this isn't low-profile, and it's the actual
03:28switches themselves.
03:29So these switches are Cherry Reds, they are low-profile Cherry Reds, and, okay, I love
03:38Cherry switches.
03:39Some of my favorite keyboard switches are made by Cherry, but they've only recently
03:43gone into the low-profile game.
03:46This over here, I will show, is a other company.
03:51This keyboard switch is also a low-profile switch, but they've designed this switch so
03:55that the keycaps insert into the switch itself, and it just makes the whole switch a little
04:00bit more flatter and shorter.
04:02The Cherry low-profile switch uses your standard Cherry stem, which might seem like a good
04:06idea at first, because then you could switch keycaps and such, but the problem is that
04:09this stem is a lot higher, and it inserts into the key, so just the whole mechanism
04:15becomes a lot taller than your standard low-profile switch, and it just makes this keyboard not
04:20feel like an actual low-profile keyboard.
04:23The typing experience isn't great, but I don't mind the switches.
04:26They feel similar to regular Cherry Reds, they obviously bottom out quicker, but they
04:31actually feel a little bit stiffer to me.
04:33Okay, so I also want to talk about the keycaps themselves.
04:52I'm going to go back to the properly assembled version of this keyboard.
04:58These keycaps are not good.
05:01They look awesome.
05:02They look really, really nice.
05:03They just look very clean and just boxy and industrial.
05:06It's why I was attracted to this keyboard, but they just type really poorly, and originally,
05:10I couldn't figure out what it was that I didn't like about these keycaps, and it's two things.
05:16The dish is pretty shallow, but that's something that you can kind of get used to over time,
05:19at least for myself.
05:20The biggest problem, though, is the spacing between each keycap.
05:24When you're typing on this thing, you're constantly making contact with the other keys, and even
05:28if it doesn't make you have typos, like you may not be pressing those other keys, but
05:32the fact that you can feel them constantly while you type is just an irritating experience,
05:35and it's just not a comfortable keyboard to use.
05:38And you might think, hey, I'll swap out the keycaps to something that I do like because
05:41it's running Cherry Stems.
05:43Problem is, they're running proprietary stabilizers, so none of the keycaps that I had would fit
05:47onto this keyboard, which is honestly a big shame.
05:50It is such a nice-looking keyboard.
05:52The RGB lighting is really good.
05:53They add some nice software that lets you do a lot of stuff with it.
05:56The metal finish on the top looks nice, the layout of the keyboard is good, but there's
06:00so much I dislike about this keyboard that I can't recommend it to anyone.
06:03And it's not the keycap or the switch individually, like if they'd used this switch with a different
06:08type of keycap, it could've worked, and vice versa, it could've worked.
06:12If you really want something like this though, like if you really want a low-profile keyboard
06:16that is mechanical, there is something else on the market that I still don't think this
06:20is perfect.
06:21This is a lower-profile keyboard.
06:23It's the Keychron K1, and this is a better implementation of a low-profile mechanical-switched
06:29keyboard.
06:30So this is using chiclet keys as well, but they've got a blue switch in here, and they've
06:34just made a low-profile mechanical keyboard a lot better than Cooler Master did for a
06:38lot cheaper too.
06:39And it's wireless, so if you want to check either of these things out, I'll link them
06:42below.
06:43But seriously, for most people, I just do not recommend the Cooler Master SK650 or 630.
06:49Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
06:50Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
06:52And I'll see you guys next time.