Keychron Q Pro Series [Q1 Pro, Q2 Pro, etc.] Keyboard Review

Hi.

Although I’ve used the site for quite a handful of tech purchases (extremely well-done testing, hats off), I’ve been only a lurker until now. However, I recently broke one of the incline feet of the keyboard, which coupled with my next issue, which is what I actually wanted to share, made me search out a new keyboard.

So this other issue I’ve observed is a consistent burning of the blue component of the RGB LED for the keys backlight. I bought a G513 back in the winter of 2019 and after around 1-1.5y of really moderate use and without any physical intrusion from my side, in the span of 1-2 months 5-6 diodes began becoming greener (I had all keys set to 0, 255, 255) and at the end of this timeframe almost all had no working blue component of the LED. (tested by 1 - setting only blue on 255 and red & green on 0 and 2- with disabled GHub when the rainbow effect is active, the affected keys skipped the blue “phase” ).

I returned it to my local shop as it was still within warranty and had no physical damage and they couldn’t/didn’t want to fix it, so they gave me store credit and I bought G512, which should be essentially the same keyboard, just a bit cheaper and without the wrist rest.

As you might guess, within a ≈1.5y the new keyboard started showing the exact same symptoms and currently has at least 10 no-blue-component-LED keys. Now, of course, I might have been extremely unlucky, but when it occurred the first time I did a thorough search through the internet and saw quite a few people reporting the exact same issue, which leads me to believe it was either a faulty batch of LEDs that were able to make their way two times to me OR the whole series uses bad quality (in terms of sustainability over time) LEDs.

Now this whole ordeal was to bring attention to this issue and more importantly ask (in case this works like a comment section of a social media site, I have never posted before so I have no idea lmao) if there are any plans and even ways, to test for such defects that occur after some time of use (but still well within the expected lifetime of a keyboard IMO). I mention it as this constant burning of the leads is kinda a dealbreaker for me (and I guess other people too) and almost the sole reason I’m going to change the keyboard to another one.

I have to admit that, especially as an up-and-coming engineer myself, your site and testing are absolutely gorgeous and legit if not the only, then at least one of the very few tech review companies that I’ve seen do it this way and I’m fascinated by it. The fact that you have a testing methodology is enough to tell a person that you do test with a really tight set of parameters and everything is strictly monitored, so you have my absolute respect for that. I’m saying that as I don’t want my above question to sound like hate, as it has no ill intent behind it, but literally curiosity if you know of ways or plan to introduce such test to your methodology, that are able to check for defects occurring in a bit longer timeframe.

Jun 24, 2023 04:38 PM By matey_i_h

2

Hi. Although I’ve used the site for quite a handful of tech purchases (extremely well-done testing, hats off), I’ve been only a lurker until now. However, I recently broke one of the incline feet of the keyboard, which coupled with my next issue, which is what I actually wanted to share, made me search out a new keyboard. So this other issue I’ve observed is a consistent burning of the blue component of the RGB LED for the keys backlight. I bought a G513 back in the winter of 2019 and after around 1-1.5y of really moderate use and without any physical intrusion from my side, in the span of 1-2 months 5-6 diodes began becoming greener (I had all keys set to 0, 255, 255) and at the end of this timeframe almost all had no working blue component of the LED. (tested by 1 - setting only blue on 255 and red & green on 0 and 2- with disabled GHub when the rainbow effect is active, the affected keys skipped the blue “phase” ). I returned it to my local shop as it was still within warranty and had no physical damage and they couldn’t/didn’t want to fix it, so they gave me store credit and I bought G512, which should be essentially the same keyboard, just a bit cheaper and without the wrist rest. As you might guess, within a ≈1.5y the new keyboard started showing the exact same symptoms and currently has at least 10 no-blue-component-LED keys. Now, of course, I might have been extremely unlucky, but when it occurred the first time I did a thorough search through the internet and saw quite a few people reporting the exact same issue, which leads me to believe it was either a faulty batch of LEDs that were able to make their way two times to me OR the whole series uses bad quality (in terms of sustainability over time) LEDs. Now this whole ordeal was to bring attention to this issue and more importantly ask (in case this works like a comment section of a social media site, I have never posted before so I have no idea lmao) if there are any plans and even ways, to test for such defects that occur after some time of use (but still well within the expected lifetime of a keyboard IMO). I mention it as this constant burning of the leads is kinda a dealbreaker for me (and I guess other people too) and almost the sole reason I’m going to change the keyboard to another one. I have to admit that, especially as an up-and-coming engineer myself, your site and testing are absolutely gorgeous and legit if not the only, then at least one of the very few tech review companies that I’ve seen do it this way and I’m fascinated by it. The fact that you have a testing methodology is enough to tell a person that you do test with a really tight set of parameters and everything is strictly monitored, so you have my absolute respect for that. I’m saying that as I don’t want my above question to sound like hate, as it has no ill intent behind it, but literally curiosity if you know of ways or plan to introduce such test to your methodology, that are able to check for defects occurring in a bit longer timeframe.

Hi mateyih,

Thank you so much for the kind words and really happy that you appreciate our testing approach.

We currently don’t do any destructive or durability testing. The reason being that we only have 1 unit and we want to keep it in a good condition so that we can retest it later on and still have valid results. This may be because we have introduced a change in our methodology, there’s a new firmware update that changes the behavior of the keyboard or thing we may have missed during the initial review that some users, like yourself, are pointing out.

For these we usually rely on user feedback and if we observe a trend we sometimes add a disclaimer in the review text. I have no doubt this has happened to you and that it ruins the aesthetic and your appreciation of your keyboard. Hell you’ve been through two keyboards and have experienced the exact same failure. So I’m forwarding this information to our keyboard tester and writer to let them know. We’ll do some research on our side as well to see if this widespread.

That said we are not closed to destructive testing, see our TV longevity test for example. And we have been pondering if we should buy two units for less expensive items like keyboard and mouse to do durability testing on it. For the moment it’s more of a though experiment but we want to provide information our users care for and need to make their buying decisions. If durability is the most important factor for you and them then we will put our efforts into designing the tests.

Hope this helps and I really wish that the RBG on your next keyboard will last much longer.

Jun 24, 2023 04:38 PM By matey_i_h

2

Hi. Although I’ve used the site for quite a handful of tech purchases (extremely well-done testing, hats off), I’ve been only a lurker until now. However, I recently broke one of the incline feet of the keyboard, which coupled with my next issue, which is what I actually wanted to share, made me search out a new keyboard. So this other issue I’ve observed is a consistent burning of the blue component of the RGB LED for the keys backlight. I bought a G513 back in the winter of 2019 and after around 1-1.5y of really moderate use and without any physical intrusion from my side, in the span of 1-2 months 5-6 diodes began becoming greener (I had all keys set to 0, 255, 255) and at the end of this timeframe almost all had no working blue component of the LED. (tested by 1 - setting only blue on 255 and red & green on 0 and 2- with disabled GHub when the rainbow effect is active, the affected keys skipped the blue “phase” ). I returned it to my local shop as it was still within warranty and had no physical damage and they couldn’t/didn’t want to fix it, so they gave me store credit and I bought G512, which should be essentially the same keyboard, just a bit cheaper and without the wrist rest. As you might guess, within a ≈1.5y the new keyboard started showing the exact same symptoms and currently has at least 10 no-blue-component-LED keys. Now, of course, I might have been extremely unlucky, but when it occurred the first time I did a thorough search through the internet and saw quite a few people reporting the exact same issue, which leads me to believe it was either a faulty batch of LEDs that were able to make their way two times to me OR the whole series uses bad quality (in terms of sustainability over time) LEDs. Now this whole ordeal was to bring attention to this issue and more importantly ask (in case this works like a comment section of a social media site, I have never posted before so I have no idea lmao) if there are any plans and even ways, to test for such defects that occur after some time of use (but still well within the expected lifetime of a keyboard IMO). I mention it as this constant burning of the leads is kinda a dealbreaker for me (and I guess other people too) and almost the sole reason I’m going to change the keyboard to another one. I have to admit that, especially as an up-and-coming engineer myself, your site and testing are absolutely gorgeous and legit if not the only, then at least one of the very few tech review companies that I’ve seen do it this way and I’m fascinated by it. The fact that you have a testing methodology is enough to tell a person that you do test with a really tight set of parameters and everything is strictly monitored, so you have my absolute respect for that. I’m saying that as I don’t want my above question to sound like hate, as it has no ill intent behind it, but literally curiosity if you know of ways or plan to introduce such test to your methodology, that are able to check for defects occurring in a bit longer timeframe.

Thank you so much for the response, Cedrik - will definitely be looking forward to this possibility and how your testing methodologies will evolve as well!

While the G513 offers a great typing experience and a sleek design, and I agree with most points on the above review, I encountered significant reliability issues that significantly impacted my usage. After several months of use, specific keys began to double-type, a known issue with this model (as I’ve realized later in forums). Even after a warranty replacement, the same problem recurred, and subsequently, key stuttering issues emerged. Given the price point and brand reputation, these recurring hardware failures are disappointing. I’d recommend considering other options, especially if reliability (and not wasting money) is a top priority.