Gadgetory

welcome to a Rhian boxing something we don't do that often this my friends is the Coolermaster CM storm quickfire TK fully backlit mechanical keyboard it has an extremely clever layout so it delivers pretty close to a 10 kilo size so so for those of you who aren't already sort of familiar with the terminology that goes along with mechanical keyboard chopping ten kilos refers to keyboards that don't have a number pad but this one does have a number pad so what they've done is they've used the number lock to either enable number pad functionality or arrows num law or rather print screen scroll lock pause insert homepage up delete end page down all that functionality you can choose whether you have a number lock or those things which is actually kind of cool it's available with a variety of Cherry MX switches including the very reason that we are redoing this particular unboxing because there is a new option for the quick-fire TK Cherry MX green switches so the keyboard includes a removable braided cable as well as a key cap puller and we're going to use this as an opportunity to show you guys just exactly what a cherry MX green switch looks like ah yes it looks like pretty much any other cherry MX switch except for the fact that it is indeed green but before we get into the typing impressions from both me and slick let's do a quick recap of the overall features here so it has function keys which give you your media playback play pause stop backwards forwards mute volume up and volume down you've also got a Windows key lock which can be enabled by holding function and clicking on that one you can see ah yes it has a backlight so you can use the function key to control various types of back lightness so you can turn it on and off you can adjust the brightness between five different levels it actually gets extremely bright at the brightest level looks very very very vibrant looks quite nice and you can choose three different modes for it so you can have it in breathing mode you can have it in fully backlit mode and you can have it in just illuminate the WASD Keys mode the other thing to watch out for is when you press the number lock those arrow keys that indicates that you are not number locked which is a little bit counterintuitive I wish the num lock illuminated or something like that when you press num lock and when you were an unlock mode it has a removable cord as well as a nice set of ergonomic options back here so you've got nice little rubber feet on the top and bottom of the keyboard as well as rubber tipped feet that can flip up in order to elevate the keyboard a touch it does not come with a wrist rest unfortunately and that is something that I would have liked to see included however does a fairly value conscious option in terms of pricing so you got to just kind of remember that that comes with the territory last thing is with function held you can press the Escape key and either six or n to choose between six key rollover which is compatible with Macs and all pcs so compatibility mode or any key rollover which allows you to press all the keys and have them all register even over USB but not compatible with Mac and can cause some pcs to fill the boot so you can just change that mode back if that's not working for you the last thing to cover before we get into the typing experience is the cable management on the bottom so the detachable cable can be routed either straight at the top or to either the right or left side this is great for keeping your desk tidy now typing experience let's start with the big thing about Cherry MX greens I mean why are they so rare well because they require a lot of force to press at 80 grams of actuation force at the actuation point that is nearly double what is required for Cherry MX browns which are a light tactile switch and Cherry MX Reds which are a light linear switch so both of those are around 45 grams and it is a full 60 percent higher than the 50 grams required for Cherry MX blues which are considered to be a relatively heavy Cherry switch so with that said how does it feel for typing all up for me it was too heavy just right out of the gate I'm gonna give it a shot in the longer term here and you guys can stay tuned on Twitter or in the forum or whatever else I'll let you know if I change my mind but I found that it was just flat out too heavy for anything but my index finger and my middle finger so for my ring finger and pinky finger it was very unnatural for me to type on it now I and not a great typist I rarely use my pinky so wouldn't have even mattered if it wasn't too difficult for me to press with my ring finger without it feeling a little bit weird so I'm not necessarily the best person to go okay well he had trouble typing on it so therefore it is difficult to type on because slick tried it too and while he didn't find it as fast as Cherry MX blue switches not even by a long shot he didn't find the typing experience physically difficult because he just has plain old heavier stronger fingers to start with so right now we're kind of going okay results are a mixed bag it is a different experience and it is certainly very unique I mean it's probably the closest we can get with a Cherry MX which to something like a buckling spring or even more like a typewriter field where it really feels like there's a long sort of resisting press before you reach that actuation point but we didn't find it to be dramatically better than some of the other more available and less expensive switches that are out there now I have seen reports of people saying that they bought Cherry MX green keyboards and got used to it over time but I think that'll depend on a little bit of a long-term testing session now speaking of getting used to things over time audible.com you guys are likely getting used to us talking about audible but do you think you could get used to having a subscription for a new audiobook to listen to every month I hope so because audible.com has just such a service and like anything highly addictive the first one is free I think we've actually talked about the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins being available on audible.com before but with Catching Fire coming out in theaters right now this seems like a great opportunity to bring it up again the movie is likely to be awesome but stop me if you've heard this one before the book is always better mmm head on over to audible.com slash Linus for our free trial and to sign up for a monthly audio book from again that is audible.com and ten points if you can figure out how many times I said audible.com in the last minute or so of this video I think we're done here guys as always like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment and let me know what you think if you'd like to try out Cherry MX green switches and as always guys don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips from one boxing's use and other computer videos