Keychron K7 Max QMK/VIA Wireless Custom Mechanical Keyboard

TLDR - Not worth the money. It kind of works but has many annoying quirks.

I needed a keyboard with a 2.4ghz receiver for lower latency on my home pc that could also use Bluetooth to connect to my work laptop. I also needed via/QMK compatibility so that I could access ALT codes for work on a keyboard without a num pad. I also needed a low profile board to keep my typing speeds high that didn't have the function row to save on desk space.

I previously tried a 60% layout from Nuphy but couldn't adjust to the smaller shift key on the right, so the only other keyboard I could find that met all my other requirements was the K7 Max with brown switches.

The K7 Max works. If you plug it in with a cable, use the 2.4ghz adapter, or pair bluetooth, it will work as a normal 65% layout keyboard. The switches are fairly quiet for a mechanical keyboard and the typing experience is fine. That's all I can say positively about it.

For the cons-
The keyboard advertises VIA compatibility (the open source keyboard customization tool) but it doesn't work. I've had no trouble using VIA with keyboards from other brands but the K7 Max only works with keychrons custom launcher website that is a copy of VIA with a different color scheme. If Keychron decides to stop supporting their launcher, you can't customize your keyboard (which is very important to me as I keep keyboards until they break).

To switch between bluetooth and the 2.4ghz connection, you have to flip a switch on the back. I switch several times a day and a key combo would be much easier than having to reach to the back of the keyboard. Since it's a physical switch, you can't remap it in the customization software.

After customizing the keyboard with macros to take screenshots and lock the computer with one button (on windows), I frequently have to press the button twice for the macro to register.

After the keyboard managed to reset itself in my backpack, I couldn't re-upload my custom key maps to the board as it said my backup configuration was an "invalid format". Another reason that they should have gone for VIA compatibility and not their own custom software.

The stabilizer on the spacebar is mediocre and a bit wobbly. It makes an unpleasant rattling sound when you use the space bar.

The keyboard has addressable RGB and doesn't come with shine through keycaps. My old K3 did so they have downgraded the keycaps for a more premium product.

These issues are something I'd expect from a $50 USD keyboard, not a $100 USD one.

The layout's almost perfect at face value, and the size and shape are absolutely excellent, a very efficient use of space, my main superficial gripe is it has home, pgup and pgdn but no end and I don't use either pgup or pgdn but use end a tonne

My first major gripe is the f keys require pressing both function buttons despite fn1 and fn2 layers being exactly the same so it's far too much effort to use f keys with the default layout, it seems an obviously bad choice or like noone thought about it that fn1 and fn2 are duplicates but fn1+fn2 layer has several useful functions so it's a big design miss there.

None of this would be an issue however if it wasn't for the buggy firmware, I started with some initial reconfiguring of the fn1 layer e.g. to bind printscreen, and this was fine for a bit but then after a few days the bluetooth stopped connecting to my computer that it was paired with, so I had to re-pair it and found that none of the bindings I had changed were there anymore it had just reset to factory default, tried it once more and same thing a little while later it bugged out and reset and now I can't trust that the effort I was going to put to rebinding all the function keys to a sensible layout is going to work so I'm living with this half-baked, great looking and feeling keyboard that is, because of incompletely thought out design choices, and broken firmware, very cumbersome to use

Also the bluetooth regularly breaking it's pairing is pretty annoying too

this keyboard is lagging compared to my v1 max and other keychron keyboard that i bought. I just want to try the low profile if iii will be interested. See that 3 i? i did not delete it. i just press one "i" then there is iii. am i interested in low profile? no!
watching netflix? i need to pause? i need to press space. no pause. press again. no pause. press again. then it will pause.
this is similar to Q0 max that i bought. but Q0 max is much worst since it has key chatter!!!!
Keychron is now same with akko keyboard!!! LOW QUALITY!!!!!
I will update this review always. just incase they fix it or just thinking about the money!!!!