Keychron Q8 (Alice Layout) QMK Custom Mechanical Keyboard

I just received my Shell White Q8 with Gateron Pro Browns today and am already in love. This is my fourth Keychron board in the past three years; I started with the K2(v1 or v2), then the K1, and most recently have been using the Q5, all with the stock Blues they came with at purchase. I'm a customer service chat agent, and I work from home, so I not only am typing to multiple customers at once, but I also interact with my coworkers by typing, as well - after a couple of years of this, 40 hrs/week, 51 weeks/year, my fingers and wrists are really starting to feel the effects of all that typing! I thought I would have a really difficult time adapting to the Alice layout of this keyboard, but I actually feel pretty comfortable with it already, and I've only been using it for about 30 minutes since receiving it.

The Gateron Pro Browns are PERFECT. They are much more forgiving than the Blues, and I love the gentle but still satisfying sound they make while typing. I don't think I'll ever be going back to Blues. Eventually, I'll need to get myself a numpad, but for now, this should be just fine.

I switched out the keycaps for the Cherry Profile Double-Shot PBT Keycaps in White Mint that I already had installed on my Q5, and I love the combo. I just wish the set came with mint-colored number keys and mint-colored small space bar keys to add a little more color to the set. I also wish this keycap set was offered in the same profile as the keycaps that come standard on the Q8, because those seem really nice, as well. If they're offered, I will buy them. On the page for these keycaps, it's stated there is no 'Home' key for this board; that actually isn't true, and there is one included with the set.

TL;DR: This 'board is high-quality (as always), a joy to type on, and way easier to adapt to than I had anticipated as a first-time user of a non-traditional layout. I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing a reduction in the pain I've developed in my wrists and fingers from long hours typing every day! Thanks for making these ergonomic mechanical options available for Mac users, Keychron :)

This is my 5th or 6th Keychron and my absolute favorite keyboard I've owned yet. I replaced the stock G-Pro Reds with double spring Silvers, switch pads, Krytox, etc. It is ridiculously fast to type on. The odd thing, and the reason for 1 star deduction, is that it seems like the spacebar keycaps might be ABS. My right one has shined up to a mirror finish in less than a month or so. Also, it would be cool to release boards like this 65% and the 75% at the same time. I most likely would have chosen the 65% regardless, but it would have been nice to have the option to choose since the boards were released within a few weeks of each other and there was no announcement of the 75% that I recall seeing.

Out of the box, the Q8 is a pretty dang good board. I ordered mine in silver with the brown switches and a set of cherry profile keycaps (not a fan of the look or profile of the originals). It sounded pretty nice out of the box, but there was some audible case ping when typing, and the stabs have just a touch of scratchy sound/feel. I went ahead and applied the friction break mod, added a very thin layer of case foam, and lubed the stabs with Krytox 205G-0. These simple mods made a massive difference in sound and feel, and I can now say that I am in love with this board. This is my first time using the Gateron pro browns, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised! They are lighter than I anticipated, are very smooth, and have a quiet yet satisfying sound signature. The layout has taken me a little bit of time to get used to, but my wrists are thankful for the improved positioning compared to a standard board. Overall I would highly recommend the Q8 to anyone willing to put in a few minutes of work to make it sound much better.

Ordered the 2nd batch of releases and an fr4 plate, and saw many reviews and mod videos of people friction breaking, which is adding tape between the 2 metal pieces to reduce case ping, I also saw people lubing the stock stabs. After opening mine up, I was surprised that there was already tape between the 2 metal pieces and the stock stabs lubed. I planned on doing these things myself, but them doing this already saved me so much time and energy. This would not have been the case if this was a group buy, they saw that people were pretty much required to do these things and they adjusted their manufacturing it even comes with tape mod stock, they know this hobby and are willing to save us time. The stock lube stabs sound great, not over-lubed like some other companies either. It really is a buy-and-ready-to-go, which is something I'm not used to in this hobby. Would be nice to see them sell just cases eventually, as well as different knobs. Coming from YMDK wings, this is definitely a welcomed step up and will be my main for a long time to come. 10/10

I've bought a number of mechanical keyboards over the last ~10 years or so and this is my favorite. It sits in the sweet spot for me between a traditional 65% layout like the K6 and something more exotic like the ErgoDox EZ (not quite EZ enough for me) which has a board for each hand and an ortholinear orientation.

The unboxing experience was really, really good. I've used a Keychron K6, and this is a completely different beast. It feels heavy when you pull it out of the box, but in a really good way, like when you pull takeout out of a bag and you think "damn they loaded me up with the good stuff". Colors look great in person--I got the black layout with dark letter keys/light modifier keys. The keys feel great and it is surprisingly quiet. I got browns coming from a Ducky SF One with blues that was a bit too loud. This feels so quiet even for browns I had to doublecheck I didn't accidentally order some other color. I think I could've gotten blues because the board has so much sound dampening in its design.

I haven't tried anything programmable yet--I prefer to be able to just plug and play and this keyboard lets me do that so far. I have a feeling I'll eventually remap del/home to pg up/ pg down, actually nevermind, they do that with fn1 modifier I just realized while writing this. Wow! Everything just kinda works the way you'd think it ought to. Definitely worth the $205 my company paid for it, but TBH I'd buy this out of pocket.