New premium Keychron wireless mechanical keyboard appears at retailer ahead of launch with a num pad, new switches, and 8 kHz polling
Keychron seems to forever be releasing new models of its mechanical keyboards, with updated layouts, new features, and subtle design tweaks. Now, though, it looks as though two new wireless mechanical keyboards have slipped out ahead of the intended launch, with both the Q6 Ultra 8K full-size mechanical keyboard and the V1 Ultra 8K 75% mechanical keyboard being listed on Best Buy. These listings appeared with no sign of the new keyboards on Keychron's own site or from any other retailers. The incongruent copy on the Best Buy product pages also suggests that this is a pre-release listing, perhaps an accident. As the names suggest, the new keyboards feature 8 kHz polling, which is neither here nor there for a mechanical keyboard, based on our testing of the C1 Pro 8K, but that's also hardly the only update to be seen.
News of the launch of the Keychron Q6 Ultra 8K first broke on Reddit, when one user, u/Jseepersaud10 found the keyboard at his local Best Buy — and then proceeded to purchase one. While the Best Buy listing doesn't provide much information other than the layout, form factor, 8 kHz polling rate, and the price, photos uploaded by the redditor reveal much more about the Q6 Ultra 8K. According to the Best Buy page, the Q6 Ultra 8K costs $239.99, while the original Q6 Max comes in at $219.99 on Amazon.
For starters, the image of the keyboard's box, and subsequent comments in the ensuing thread confirm that the Q6 Ultra 8K features new switches, new keycaps, and an updated aesthetic. Instead of the traditional Gateron Jupiter Brown, Red, and Banana switches typically found in Keychron's high-end wireless mechanical keyboards, the Q6 Ultra 8K has Keychron Silk POM switches, which seem to be an as-yet unannounced switch from the keyboard brand. This follows the recent launch of the Keychron K9 Max, which introduced Keychron low-profile Milk POM switches, so there is no reason to believe Keychron would void launching a full-height POM switch with a new keyboard. The switches in question are brown tactile switches, so it stands to reason that there will also be red linears and perhaps banana tactiles, which offer an earlier, sharper tactile bump.
The other obvious change is the move away from a mix of black, white, and blue (or off-white, green, and brown) keycaps to a two-tone black and blue aesthetic instead. The keycaps still use the same KSA profile as the Keychron Q13 Max we recently reviewed, so they should be decent quality if our experience with the aforementioned keyboard is anything to go by. The cap on the knob has also seemingly been updated, although it's unclear exactly what material we will see used there.
Specifications like the plate material, internal sound damping materials, and the RGB configuration are still unknown, but there are hints that the stabilisers on the new Ultra 8K keyboards have been redesigned to reduce rattling and ticking, which would be a sizeable improvement.
Keychron V1 Ultra 8K
Alongside the Keychron Q6 Ultra 8K, Best Buy also listed a Keychron V1 Ultra 8K, which is the cheaper, smaller version of the Q6 Ultra 8K. It seems to feature the same 8K polling rate upgrade, wireless connectivity, and new subdued looks as the Q6 Ultra 8K, however it comes in a 75% layout, ditching the num pad and navigation cluster of the Q6 Ultra 8K. There is still a knob in the top right corner, however, and it looks as though Keychron will be sticking to the OSA profile for the V1 Ultra 8K, instead of the KSA profile from its full-size metal cousin.
The Best Buy pages for both keyboards claim that the boards in question use magnetic switches, but this bears some scrutiny, since Keychron already has similarly priced wireless Hall effect keyboards with identical layouts. Keychron is also only known to use two types of magnetic switches, and neither of them are branded "Red" or "Brown" like these new keyboards are. The Reddit user who ended up buying the Q6 Ultra 8K also claims that the switches appear to be classic 5-pin mechanical switches, lending credence to the idea that these are not actually Hall effect or TMR keyboards.
Both keyboards are also customisable in Keychron's Launcher web-based software, which we have also previously reviewed positively for its user-friendliness and powerful customisation options, however, Launcher reportedly doesn't seem to quite know what to do with the unreleased Q6 Ultra 8K just yet.
