The 5QS Mark 2 will be outfitted with Cherry MX2A Brown, Purple, and Silent Purple switches. Das despatched me a assessment unit with its hottest possibility, the MX2A Silent Reds. The underside-mount system, giant quantities of silicone dampening, and the silent pink switches mix to create an extremely boring typing really feel. The switches, silenced utilizing inner silicone strips, are naturally tender 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.
In the long run, this keyboard’s typing feels tender and sounds practically silent, whereas nonetheless sustaining some delicate higher-pitched and rattly tones which are disagreeable, however quiet sufficient to be lined up by headphones, earbuds, and even audio system.
{Photograph}: Henri Robbins
In contrast to many keyboards right this moment, the 5QS doesn’t have hot-swap sockets. Because of this until 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 supplied by hot-swap sockets has gone from a novel luxurious to an business commonplace in fashionable keyboards, so being absent on this mannequin, at this value, is considerably disappointing. Nevertheless, this does imply the 5QS goes to be marginally extra dependable than a hot-swappable board, since hot-swap sockets can often fail with intensive use.
Q Performance
Das’ large promoting level with this keyboard is its “Q” software program, which is used to customise the RGB lighting and different features. This can be utilized to use animations and patterns to the RGB, together with modifying the person perform of every key.
The RGB may also be configured by particular person “applets” you put in inside the primary app. These can hook up with exterior purposes and web site logins to show info like unread messages, alerts, and system info. A number of the extra attention-grabbing ones embody a four-day climate forecast, worth trackers for shares and cryptocurrencies, and value trackers for flights and video video games. Apart from that, there are a couple of timed reminder apps for small duties like ingesting water and standing reminders for those who’ve been sitting too lengthy.
Whereas all of those are cool ideas, even the very best ones are held again by a significant flaw: RGB lights merely usually are not an environment friendly option to talk complicated 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 pink for thunderstorms—usually are not very intuitive. Until you spend loads of time with this keyboard and modify your day by day routines to acclimate to the brand new system, I doubt the typical individual will discover it useful to play a reminiscence sport 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.
