Gadgetory

hotspot Shield service makes your internet browsing safer more secure and fully private click now to learn more welcome to a long overdue unboxing and review this is the ducky shine 3 and as with any unboxing we're gonna start with the box itself and the content so the first thing you find is cardboard it's oh wait no there's actually a keyboard in here that'll be important later in all likelihood we've also got some accessories including but not limited to a WASD set of key cap replacements alright we've also got a key cap puller in order to apply said replacements if we're not happy with the blacks limbs that are already on there we've also got a USB a 2 mini B cable that's wrapped up in a nice little cable management thing happens to be gold-plated although that doesn't really matter and we've got a replacement space bar if we don't like the snake graphic on the stock space bar last but not least so I guess we are limited to the things that I just found we have a registration thing for your warranty as well as a user's manual which you will need so the keyboard itself I mean what is there to say that every other reviewer in the world hasn't said about ducky the build quality is immaculate there's almost no flex to the thing whatsoever it is extremely heavy the keys have a very ah satisfying sound to them just like you'd expect with a mechanical keyboard but it's even better with a solidly built mechanical keyboard and of course there's the stuff that you can't see such as the dual layer PCB that's inside and the UV coated laser printed ABS key cap so those are pretty darn good as far as key caps go there are better ones out there but they're generally considered to be aftermarket options on the back of the unit we find 4 rubber pads so that it doesn't slip around on you as well as 2 little risers if you prefer to have a bit more of an angle to your keyboard we've also got cable routing options for the detachable USB cable so it can come out straight to the right or to the left whatever you prefer we also find our serial number on the serial number on the back as well as some dip switches more on those in just a moment alright so while this might not be the most user-friendly way to implement different you know control changes what these four little dip switches do is they disable the Windows key so it doesn't have like a gaming mode button on the front you can actually do that with a dip switch on the back you can actually swap control and capslock you can swap windows and alt placements and if you want to to be adventurous you can put it into demo mode which might be more useful for shopkeepers and less useful for individuals who are buying thing what demo mode does is it cycles through all the different lighting modes and stuff like that without actually any USB data going back and forth it just makes it take in power so it doesn't actually work in demo mode alright Linus it's a ducky so we know it's extremely well built but tell me about the features alright so it's available in either a 104 key or a 10 key list that is to say without the number pad layout it's available in a variety of colors although we've only got blue here today so blue red green white magenta and orange for the LED backlights and it's available in the kind of the standard four key switch type so that's brown red black and blue that nice clicky sound it has shortcuts for media keys although I think what ducky means by that is volume up volume down and mute because there's no play pause or or track skip or anything like that it also has an ease are classic calculator computer email and Internet shortcuts in the top right actually gotta love that other than that most of the labels on the keys are just for controlling lighting and other advanced functionalities such as changing the repeat rate or how fast characters will appear when you hold down a key and changing the repeat delay or how long until repeating begins in practice a repeat delay above about 2x caused me to double press spacebar just while I'm typing but your mileage may vary on these very cool functionality there either way particularly for gaming over all the configuration is completely driverless but you will need the manual to set it up it's not too bad though I figured most of it out in about five minutes alright but that's just the regular features what about the lighting this is a shine well we'll start with the seven different modes which you cycle through by using function and s10 number one which you just saw was a hundred percent on that self-explanatory you can adjust the brightness down here with the up and down arrows and function and that's about it in breathing you can use the arrow keys to adjust both the speed and the maximum brightness of the breathing effect the range is very wide and it should please pretty much anyone in wave mode you can adjust the speed of the wave but not the actual brightness of the way so that's what you can see right now and in snake marquee mode this one I actually quite like you can change just the speed of the snake but not the brightness and it crawls around on the keyboard like that in reactive mode you can change both the pressed and non pressed brightness so you can either have the keys turn off and then fade back in as you type or you can have them be off and then turn on and fade away as you type I think this one and ripple are my personal favorites speaking of ripple both it and Aurora are cool modes that send out patterns when you press on particular keys you can adjust the speed of either effect but only ripple can have the brightness adjusted so this one right here is Aurora which always runs on full brightness you can see it sends out horizontal waves now the spacebar is a bit of a unique situation it only has or rather it has one blue LED which matches the color of your keyboard and it has two RGB LEDs one on either side of the blue one so you can change the color effects of the spacebar by using the insert home and page up along with function to achieve pretty much any color you could possibly want so it's our G and B and you can mix them in whatever way you find most pleasing or turn those ones off and then another option that you'll have by using the custom configurations here so let's go ahead and press function record one where we can turn on or off whichever keys on the keyboard we want so we can turn on everything let's say okay let's say for example you guys imagined so function record one let's say you guys imagined that I turned on everything except the spacebar so I can either have that middle one illuminated or not illuminated and it's totally up to me whether to have it at some of the original color or none of it at all and then you can recall those by using so let's go ahead and stop recording by just pressing function cm 1 or cm 2 and that's on the f11 and f12 keys now if you're anything like me and particularly the first time around if you get just overwhelmed at some point you just want to go back to the dock all you have to do is hold down both of the windows keys for 3 seconds the keyboard flashes and boom you are back to factory settings and you can start tinkering again so the conclusion for this is pretty simple if you're looking for an extremely well-built keyboard that's available in a wide variety of configurations at least some of which you're down to find pleasing and you want the best lighting features then I guess just go buy one with that said the shine 3 is not cheap it's well over $100 and given the spotty retail store availability you'll likely have to get it shipped to you so you're probably looking at a hundred and fifty dollar plus or minus investment it's probably going to last forever however so as long as you have the discipline to not run and buy more mechanical keyboards it really is addictive then you may be able to justify the expense for the faster more satisfying typing experience that a mechanical keyboard provides and you can treat yourself to one that is particularly awesome as always guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you just like to leave a comment let me know what your thoughts on mechanical keyboards in general and the shine 3 in particular and as always don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips