Mechanical keyboard with CTRL on the way to type my way into the rabbit hole

The keyboard is one of the two parts of a computer setup where flesh and blood meet plastic and metal. (The other is a mouse or trackpad.) A keyboard effectively means moving fingers with the accuracy that a computer can understand, often much faster than the speed of conscious thought. So many people are right with a cheap or default keyboard – as long as they reliably register the keypress – others don’t mind spending a little more to do something better.

And then real Connoisseur Spend hundreds of dollars in ordering parts of the world to create their own custom, dream-like keyboard – a. Mechanical Keyboard, of course, where each key has its own mechanical switch.

I didn’t have to go overboard too much when I recently, finally dipped a custom keyboard. So I decided to take a pre-built but very customizable drop CTRL instead. The Drop CTRL is tenseless with a 100 Hz individual RGB LED that supports a hot-swapable Cherry MX style switch (plate-mount only) running QMK firmware. It comes with a selection of OEM profile doubleshot PBT Shine-through kick apps and switches. Fau. But, no, none of that is pointless marketing talk.

I paid 5 225 for the high-profile black model with Cherry MX Brown switches installed (plus $ 15 US shipping to Europe; surprisingly cheap). And after waiting 33 ag painful days, I finally started my journey through the custom keyboard rabbit hole.

USB-C 1.1

Leave CTRL

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The drop in CTRL from the PC AT era by the sheer force of build quality is not the first sign that an IBM model exists, that CTRL connects to a computer using USB-C. What could be better than a small, fit-in-where-direction and future-looking USB-C port? Two USB-C ports. There is one on the left and one on the right behind the keyboard. You can use either to connect to a computer; The keyboard then acts as a one-port USB hub, so you can hook an extra accessory through another port.

Although the connector is the latest and greatest, the protocol USB 1.1 is full speed. That means only 12 Mbps, and the keyboard only draws 500 mA of power. The second port charges about 2 W on my iPhone, and continues charging when the computer and keyboard are asleep.

The cable included is a USB 3.0 Type A to USB Type C. I tried some cables with USB-C on both ends, but it often doesn’t work. Notably, Thunderbolt compatible cables connected to a Thunderbolt-compatible port do not work. Some charging / USB 2.0 cables connected to the Thunderbolt port were working on the computer, and also working with several cables in connecting to the USB-C port on my monitor.

RGB LED

After connecting the cable, the LED under each key and around the keyboard lights up in a wavy rainbow pattern. That colored lighting certainly adds flair, but it’s also functional: with LED lighting off, it’s very difficult to create legends on the keys.

Each key has its own set of RBB LEDs that can create 16 million color combinations. On cheap keyboards with this feature, the LED may flick to some extent, but CTRL’s LED refreshes at 100 Hz, which means there is no imaginative flicker. You can switch between a handful of animations and many solid colors, and you can change other settings for LEDs with key combinations. I felt that I didn’t mind the RGB animation happening in my peripheral vision, especially since the speed was a bit slow.