Q1 Ultra 8K

Keychron made its name selling mechanical keyboards that worked properly with Macs, and then built an enthusiast ladder above them: the Q series, a run of heavy aluminium boards with gasket mounts and hot-swappable switches. The Q1 Ultra, shown at CES in January 2026 alongside TKL and full-size siblings, takes the compact 75 per cent layout (82 keys, a rotary knob in the corner) and sets it free of its cable. It is a deliberately handsome object, with a machined aluminium case, a polycarbonate plate and a metal backplate with a faintly science-fiction pattern.

The typing hardware is where the money goes. Switches are Keychron's Silk POM type (the tactile Banana variant is sold only on Keychron's own site), mounted on a Poron gasket and topped with double-shot PBT keycaps in a tall KSA profile. All of it adds up to 1.72kg, a little under two bags of sugar, which is a respectable argument for the board staying where it is put and a poor one for taking it anywhere.

So why a wireless keyboard that weighs as much as a small laptop? Because a desk is a fixed address and the cable is what Keychron removed. The board pairs by USB-C, a 2.4GHz dongle or Bluetooth 5.3, and Keychron rates its 4,000mAh battery at up to 660 hours with the backlight off and 200 with it on. The headline 8,000Hz polling rate applies only over wired and 2.4GHz connections (Bluetooth drops to 125Hz).

The weaknesses are small and mostly matters of taste. The keycaps are tall, there is no height adjustment under the case, and the caps are not shine-through. It is also a keyboard for people who enjoy owning a keyboard, with full remapping through Keychron's launcher. For everyone else, a lighter board does the same job. For the people it was made for, the weight is rather the point.

Photographs courtesy of Keychron