Is the Keychron C1 the best budget-friendly keyboard out there? Probably so. At a current price point of $69 dollars (That even includes RGB.) it is an incredible value if you’re looking to get your feet wet with mechanical keyboards. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not an expert on mechanical keyboards, but I know that a lot of people are starting out from the same place that I started.
I’m sure you’ve watched a few videos displaying “thoccy” keyboards. That is, keyboards that sound pleasing to your ears. You dream of having such a great sounding therapeutic keyboard. However it’s not all fun and games. There is a lot of work involved in making even a great entry level keyboard like the KeyChron C1 sound good.
How Does it Sound?
Out of the box, it doesn’t sound too impressive. Honestly it sounds pretty hollow and cheap. I also found that my switches weren’t very lubed out of the box, so it was pretty hard to press them down. This made it very easy to make a typo. I found that in my first few days of typing I made a lot of typos, but after a while I got used to the typing height and lubed the switches. I think having slightly easier to press switches helped a lot with being able to type precisely and accurately.
Don’t worry too much about the sound though, there are some pretty cool mods we can do to this keyboard if you’ll continue reading to the end.
Hot Swappable Switches
The switches are hot swappable, and the ones that I got with mine were the keychron brown switches. You can also opt for the gateron switches if you want to when you order it. However, since you’ll most likely be swapping them out for nicer switches it’s probably not worth bothering. I decided to lube my switches to see how that affected the sound. Over all it sounds a little bit nicer and is more smooth to type with. It is possible to use too much lube though, which is something I tried to avoid.
I think for my next switches I’ll be purchasing some pre-lubed switches if possible. I don’t really enjoy lubing switches at all. Considering you need to carve out 4-5 hours in your week to do it and on top of that you’ll be without a keyboard. I have two kids and a wife, so my time is mostly spoken for. I can’t be randomly taking my keyboard apart for fun. I do want it to have great switches though.
Design
I think the design of this keyboard is pretty decent. It is not a bad design to use the keycaps as is. However, I am definitely planning on changing mine out with some more unique keycaps. The letters seem fine so far after 4 or 5 months of typing, though the command key seems to be wearing off a little bit. The key caps are double shot ABS.
If you’re looking for some alternative keycaps for the future, check out Novelkeys. I’ll probably be getting mine from there soon. The PBT keycaps are known for lasting longer.
Since this keyboard is black, it can work with a lot of different color schemes. I’m sure you could also spray paint it if you wanted.
Build Quality
I’m actually quite impressed with the overall build quality of this keyboard. It doesn’t move at all when you’re typing on it, which is very helpful. It’s also decently heavy. I think a heavier keyboard is better for the feel but it might not be the best for portability. I’ve disassembled it for my switch lube mod and I think the PCB is pretty nice. It seems to be made out of higher quality plastic. For this price point you’re not going to get a metal keyboard body unfortunately.
Keyboard Programming
I’m not super into keyboard programming, but there is supposedly software coming out for this keyboard soon. Keychron has been working on the software for a few years and people in the community are a little bit frustrated. Keep in mind that if you get the RGB version of this keyboard you might not be able to program it to do what you want it to.
However for simple key command changes I was able to reprogram those in MacOS X, and I know some have used karabiner for this as well.
Notable Mods
I’ve seen a few mods on YouTube for this keyboard and I attempted some of them.
- Placing foam in your keyboard to dampen the sound.
The foam that it comes with in the box seems to work pretty well for this. I cut it to shape and it seemed to make it sound a little more luxurious. It sounds hollow without it. - Changing/Lubing your switches
This is probably the mod that is most recommended as it gives you the best results. I noticed even when I lubed the basic switches it came with, the sound was pretty good. - Lubing your stabilizers
This basically involves removing your stabilizers and lubing them appropriately. I don’t think I did this correctly, so I’m sure how worthwhile this modification is. - The bandaid mod
This mod basically places bandaids underneath where the stabylizers come into contact with the PCB. It softens the blow so that it’s less clacky and more thick. - Changing your keycaps
This is a great mod for making your keyboard more unique and you can make it look how you want it to look. There are a lot of cool keycaps but you want to make sure you get the right sizes. Here is the key size chart