Keychron Q11 QMK Custom Mechanical Keyboard (US ANSI Layout)

The full version sold out right away so I had to buy the barebone version and I absolutely love it. It's got a low profile base and a clean, minimalistic look, The barebone keyboard is actually fully made from metal so it's solid and heavy, feels very industrial which is to my liking. The chassis is pretty much flat and does not concave in like some other keyboard chassis and that makes it pretty easy to use a can of compressed air to blow off the dust.

It’s solidly built, great sounding and with plenty of room for the RGB to show. I found the wrist rests on Keychron‘s website. The learning curve was incredibly fast — there’s no ortholinear to learn or anything else. Two layers of programmability mean I can put a numpad on the right half with different colored key caps to mark it out. I can use just the left or just the right sides, which is nice to have in some games. The second knob is set to skip forward or back by word through texts and enlarge the text size whenever I need it.
Long story short, everything you could need is in there with a minimum of unnecessary fluff. It’s my third keyboard, and probably my last. So happy with it.

What I like:
- This is my first split keyboard, and so far I'm loving it. It's nice to have my hands more apart so I can square my shoulders better. I was also able to pick up typing on this board immediately with no loss in typing speed.
- Compared to the Q1, this keyboard has even more buttons to work with at essentially the same size. You get all the basics, plus 5 dedicated macro keys and not one but TWO knobs! I'm still not sure what I want to use the second knob for, but I'm very happy I have two.
- Also, having two spacebars is pretty great because since I never use my left spacebar for space I get another super convenient macro key. Love that so much!
- The fact that this keyboard is staggered and not ortholinear is really nice. As someone that didn't want to take a productivity hit on buying a new keyboard, this was really nice.
- The way the two halves of this keyboard fit together perfectly is so incredibly satisfying. I love the look so much.
- This keyboard doesn't have any gasket mounts and is significantly flatter than the Q1, but honestly I don't notice at all. I'm not a wrist rest user so I may not be the best person to ask, but I don't really notice much of a difference switching between my Q1 and the Q11.
- Right out of the box this keyboard sounds great. I haven't opened this up and modded it like I did with my Q1, but I don't think I will for the Q11, it sounds that good.
- Also, I don't know if I'm hallucinating, but they red switches this keyboard came with are significantly smoother than the switches that came with my Q1.

What isn't as great:
- I really wish the keyboard came with another longer wire to connect the two halves. One of the main reasons I wanted a split keyboard was so I could rest my arms fully on my chair's armrest, but with the short cable I still have to angle my arms in a bit.
- I'm not a huge fan of how Keychron does their layering with their keyboards. They give you four layers total, which is awesome at first glance, but the toggle switch isn't configurable at all. It forces you to use either layer 0 or layer 2 as a default, which only gives you a single secondary layer when the switch is toggled to Windows. At a bare minimum I would much prefer the windows layer to be set as layer 1 instead of layer 2, that way I would have two macro layers shared for both Mac and Windows toggle, and not just one for each. This problem could also be solved if the keyboards came with more layers, but the only way you can make that happen is by forgoing VIA and using raw QMK, which is much less user friendly.

I am very pleased that my long awaited split keyboard is now available from my favorite Keychron.
The feel of the Q11 was very different from the previous Q series keyboards.
Perhaps that is very much due to the fact that it did not use a gasket construction.
We were very disappointed that the Q11 was noisier and harder to hit than the previous Q series keyboards.
It seems to me that there was a way to mount sound-absorbing foam such as Poron without using a gasket structure.
Also, the 75% size is too large for me.

I am looking forward to the release of a 65% size keyboard with improved typing feel.

Was very happy with my previous purchase of Keychron and had to have this one as it is a very different layout than I have already. I added some DCX keycaps from drop to it for a different look and those fit perfectly even the split spacebar! VIA works just fine as the directions say and have remapped some keys and setup the macro keys. Enjoy the double knob (not removeable). I would recommend as its a great keyboard to add to the collection