The 5QS Mark 2 may be outfitted with Cherry MX2A Brown, Purple, and Silent Purple switches. Das despatched me a evaluation unit with its hottest possibility, the MX2A Silent Reds. The underside-mount system, massive quantities of silicone dampening, and the silent pink switches mix to create an extremely boring typing really feel. The switches, silenced utilizing inside silicone strips, are naturally delicate 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 parts 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 unit, nonetheless rattled, even instantly out of the field. This was additionally made extra apparent by the keyboard’s silencing.
Ultimately, this keyboard’s typing feels delicate and sounds almost silent, whereas nonetheless sustaining some delicate higher-pitched and rattly tones which are disagreeable, however quiet sufficient to be coated up by headphones, earbuds, and even audio system.
Not like many keyboards right now, the 5QS doesn’t have hot-swap sockets. Which means that except 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 unit. The Lego-like customizability provided by hot-swap sockets has gone from a novel luxurious to an business normal in trendy keyboards, so being absent on this mannequin, at this worth, 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 sometimes fail with intensive use.
Q Performance
Das’ massive 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 operate of every key.
The RGB may also be configured by particular person “applets” you put in inside the primary app. These can connect with exterior purposes and web site logins to show data like unread messages, alerts, and system data. Among the extra attention-grabbing ones embody a four-day climate forecast, worth trackers for shares and cryptocurrencies, and worth trackers for flights and video video games. Apart from that, there are a number of timed reminder apps for small duties like consuming water and standing reminders for those who’ve been sitting too lengthy.
Whereas all of those are cool ideas, even the most effective ones are held again by a serious flaw: RGB lights merely usually are not an environment friendly solution to talk complicated data. For instance, the climate forecast applet has a number of colour 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 lots of time with this keyboard and regulate 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 recreation with data that’s in any other case two clicks away on their laptop. Whereas different keyboards (like Razer’s BlackWidow V4 75% Pro) combine secondary shows, this resolution feels overcomplicated and underwhelming.