GIGABYTE GK-FORCE K85 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

i've had this board for a few weeks now, so it's time to render judgement!we've all read reviews by folks here on amazon that clearly should not have been written - ie any review by someone who complains that blue switch keyboards are "too loud", lol - so let me begin by stating that i am an avid collector of dirt-cheap mechanical keyboards of all kinds. aukey, tomoko, redragon, random mid-tier brands like thermaltake's gaming division's stuff, but i also dabble with the good - i've purchased a corsair k95 from amazon, and bought a ducky secondhand from someone i know irl. so i like to think that my opinion is grounded in the sort of experience that might make this a good review.anyways that paragraph is probably going to be longer than the review itself. let's get on with it:first off, i will start with the bad. why? because honestly it's not that bad, you'll see why in a second.THE KEYCAPS ARE GOD-AWFUL!! too lazy to take a video, but i'm not kidding or exaggerating when i say that some of the stock keycaps literally just sort of fell out while i was typing. my arrow keys were all garbage, as well as a handful of the qwerty keys.ok! thats out of the way! on to the good:the good news is who cares!!!! what sort of nerd keeps stock keycaps anyways! as you can see from my picture, i went and replaced most of my keycaps anyways - the WASD and arrow keycaps are from a redragon kumara, the rest are from some random set i ordered from ebay or something.when you pay less than 40 bucks for a mechanical keyboard, you know you're going to be getting compromises somewhere. so the way i see it - the "bad" here isn't really a "bad", because of all the things i would choose for gigabyte to compromise on, it would have to be the keycaps.the switches are solid, set into the board with no wobble (that is where redragon saves money, the result is crooked keys). the case is well-designed, with an aluminum face that offers low-profile easy access for cleaning, as well as a nice hefty weight for a solid base.as promised, the keys offer a nice and quiet typing experience. the only real noise comes from the stabilizer bars on the space/shift/enter keys, though honestly that might be my fault, i threw the new keycaps on without stopping to check to see if the stabilizers needed to be attached or not.when i first noticed the bad keys, i didnt know if it was the keycaps themselves, or the switches. as you can tell i concluded that it must be the keycaps, because after switching them out, the new keys grip onto the switches tightly.anything else? the media keys are what they are, the only ones i ever use are volume up/down/mute and gigabyte follows the general trend of placing these three at f2/f3/f4, with the fn key used to activate them.a little neat thing i dont see on all keyboards is that gigabyte replaced the right-hand windows key with a windows LOCK key - ie it merely enables or disables the left-hand windows key. super useful for gaming.yup, thats about it. all-in-all, probably my favorite sub-$40 keyboard ive used yet, but also, it's rare to find a red-switched keyboard for that price, most of them tend to be blue switched. but it's more than the switch type itself - it really is just a nice, solid keyboard. honestly not sure why i'm writing this review either, because anyone who reads this review is now a potential competitor of mine, in the race to snap up as many of these as i can before they're gone forever. so uhhhhhhhh disregard all that and go buy a rottay or something

When I bought my first mechanical keyboard, I bought one of those also $30-$40 generic Chinese boards. While I had no issue with its function, one thing that is common with those boards is to come with clicky switches. I noticed the hysteresis inherent in MX Blues and their clones was actually causing unrecognized inputs in games, and the clicky noise was bothering me personally for long writing sessions.So I decided to hunt down a cheap linear board to see if that was more my speed. Much to my surprise, I found this board, which bears the brand of a bigger name in the parts industry (albeit Gigabyte is not known for their keyboards), and has genuine Cherry switches. It features no backlighting, which I wouldn't have minded but am also not crying over not having. What it does feature, however, is extremely solid feeling construction. I feel like this board will actually last me a few years, barring some kind of accident.On to the switches: I should have started out with Reds in the first place. I much prefer the lighter actuation weight and the lack of a loud click. While this board is of a "open" design, the bottoming out sound is not too bad, and honestly is only a little louder than your typical office style rubber dome keyboard. The MX Red switches are excellent for gaming, featuring no hysteresis (the switch resetting higher than it actuating, making double tapping the key more difficult), and due to the light nature of them it allows me to FLY across the keyboard. Even with bottoming out I feel much faster on this keyboard.This keyboard features everything you need out of a standard keyboard, with durable mechanical switches and key rollover, making it an excellent replacement for an office board or one of those budget membrane gaming keyboards. BEST value for your money, PERIOD. 5/5 stars.

This is for the K83 Red Switch keyboard since there are multiple products reviewed here.This is the best functional "no-frills" mechanical keyboard you'll be able to find. There is no backlight, no RGB, no macro keys, and no software required to be installed. This keyboard is 100% plug and play with no setup required! I picked it up for an absolute bargain price on sale for $39.99 here on Amazon. For me the lack of unwanted features keeps the price point down and you're still getting a solidly produced, high quality keyboard using real Cherry MX Switches. These are not Oetemu, Gateron, or Kailh switches. I am an avid PC Gamer and this keyboard is the bees knees.Even though this is the standard 104-key layout with no macro keys (thank goodness) or dedicated media keys I feel it should be noted the function (FN) key to the right of the space bar allows many shortkey functions which work just fine.Pressing FN+F1-F12 (L to R): Home, volume down, volume up, mute, play/pause, stop, previous track, next track, default music player, default mail app, task manager, and calculator.If you've never typed or gamed on Cherry MX Red Switches before, especially if you're coming from Cherry MX Blues or Browns, you may have an adjustment period like I did. They have a very light actuation force of 45 grams. Because of my experiences, I highly recommend getting these o-rings if you want to quiet it down, and limit your key travel to keep you from bottoming out on the board. They only took me about 20 minutes to install: ThreeBulls 120Pcs Rubber O-Ring Switch Dampeners Keycap white For Cherry MX Key Switch Keyboards Dampers http://a.co/7GLscP1 (ThreeBulls 120pc Rubber Red O-Rings)Putting o-rings on a Cherry MX Red switch keyboard will make this keyboard just as quiet as most dome switch keyboards.I am so impressed with this Gigabyte K83 keyboard that I am most likely using it to replace my Razer Blackwidow Chroma v2 -- which I think says a lot. I don't need bloated software and unwanted macro keys.

I bought the Gigabyte Force K83 with the Cherry MX Blue keys as an upgrade/replacement for my HHKB Lite2. After using it for few weeks, I have to say that I'm 90% impressed with it. The keyboard is sturdy and does not have flex. The key wobble is also minimal, and it does not bother you when you type. The metal base is very sturdy and has some weight to it, so you probably won't want to carry this around. The key switches are genuine Cherry MX Blue switches, and not a 3rd party derivation.However, the main downside to this keyboard is that you'll probably want to get a separate set of keycaps for it right away. I've used this for a few weeks now and the key lettering are already starting to fade away. This is most likely due to cost cutting measures to keep the price low. They keycaps are replaceable based on my research on various YouTube reviews.They keyboard has a distinct "thwack" noise when bottoming out. To alleviate this problem, I've gotten rubber o-rings. To be specific, it's the ones in 'Akwox Keycap Puller Tool + 135pcs Rubber O-Ring Sound Dampeners For Mechnial Keyboard Cherry MX Key Switch'. I know that Cherry MX Blue switches aren't really supposed to be quiet, but that "thwack" noise was a bit annoying.However, despite the flaw, the overall build of this keyboard is very good. If you are trying to buy your first ever mechanical keyboard, this is a good choice. Just be sure to be ready to get a new set of keycaps. 4/5 good buy.

Le doy 3 estrellas porque las teclas no duran ni meses, por lo demás cumple con lo que promete, es cómodo para escribir y jugar, resistente en general pero lo de las teclas me parece inaceptable en pleno siglo XXI

Adquirí este teclado para iniciar en el mundo de los teclados mecánicos después de haber utilizado teclados de membrana toda mi vida. Es importante señalar que fue el gran auge que han tenido todo estos periféricos gaming lo que me orilló a optar por uno de estos.A simple vista su diseño es bueno, se ve un teclado de calidad y la serigrafía es muy buena a comparacion de otras opciones en el mercado. Le hubiera dado un plus si el cable fuera mallado en tela, pero solamente es de plástico.Los switches red me gustaron para jugar por su facilidad de poder mantener las teclas sin dolor, este es un puntazo ya que cuando jugaba con los de membrana las yemas de los dedos siempre me dolían.En cuanto a la diferencia entre usar teclados de membrana y mecánicos para escribir es muy amplia, no logro entender porque con los de membrana era muy raro cuando fallaba al escribir pero, con los mecanicos me equivoco tres veces más y suelo pulsar teclas incorrectas muy frecuentemente. Tal vez sean los switches al necesitar tan poca fuerza para ser activados y solo sea necesario cambiar cambiar el tipo.Me quedó mal sabor de boca realizar esta compra debido a que el layout del teclado es en inglés por lo que si se configura el idioma en español por sistema algunas teclas no coincidirán a lo que está serigrafiado en la tecla.

After just a few days of use the keys that are used the most (W,A,S,D,E,R,C,V in my case) start to loose their white cooler and getting grey, some are even pretty black by now and hard to read. I tried taking a picture but you can't really see it on the pictures so I didn't bother to include one in this review.Otherwise it's a solid and sturdy built keyboard, I bought because it is the cheapest one I could find with original cherry mx switches, I mean what do you expect from the cheapest thing out there? the cherry mx switches are of course fantastic, the best you can get.Does it's job, is nicely made, keycaps loosing their color 4/5 stars.

I actually wanted the Red ones, with Cherry MX Red switches. Seller shipped me the Blues by human error. Decided to stick with it, even though it's really loud. I didn't really have a preference between linears and clicks from the brief periods I've used Cherry switches before, and I think I'm okay with the clicks myself.Keyboard is well built, keys don't scratch much. But the keycaps, while built well, have printed lettering which aren't even aligned properly. If that bugs you, you can buy replacements, fortunately. (It does bug me, and I'm looking for ways to just melt them off.) No ugly RGB, no eye-searing "gaming" typefaces on the keys. It's very sound. (And noisy :)In terms of features, the only annoying thing is that the Fn key is to the right-hand side. You have to move your left hand all the way to the right of the alphanumeric block to be able to control media playback. Who thought that was a good idea?