KeychronV1 Wired Custom Mechanical Keyboard Barebone Version, 75% Layout QMK/VIA Programmable Macro with Hot-swappable Support Compatible with Mac Windows Linux (Frosted Black - Translucent)

First custom keyboard to make and I will never regret it everything is good except the rgb it's very cheap

I managed to pick one of these up for $45 on prime day, and it turned out to be one of the most function keyboards I own. Having QMK/VIA functionality right out of the box is a godsend as well.

Was excited for this board. A budget friendly QMK/VIA board?? Heck ya! Sadly, it didn't deliver.I'll start off with what's good... the build quality is decent, it's a nice feeling quality plastic. The silicone insert gives it some heft so it doesn't feel hollow. Every switch seated perfectly on first try. The tolerances are great. I'd say price is great if it wasn't with so many issues.Issues?... so first off, as someone else said, the USB port is super wonky. It's hard wired on the main board, not a daughter board as usual. I don't think it will break, but it does have some slop, it wobbles, feels sketchy. Probably for cost cutting reasons.The color... It's not black. Mine has a green hue to it. See photo for comparison against a sharpie marker.Mine would stop working every once in awhile and I'd have to unplug it and plug it back in, and it would work again. Really annoying, no idea why it would do this. Over the course of just 2 days, it stopped working 6 times.The tiny screws that hold the plate to the base are poor, strip out easily. If you want to do a tape mod or something, be extra careful with these screws.Although the tolerances are good, and every switch went in without a problem, when taking my switches out (because I'm returning it), some of them were lose and came out with minimal effort. So maybe tolerances are actually sloppy? I'm just used to some boards being overly tight.To call this a QMK/VIA capable board is an insult. It's extremely limited. There is only a handful of lighting options, like <10. No per key lighting. When you try to set the lighting speed it fails and causes the lighting to just stop all together, and requires the board to be factory reset. It showed 4 layers in the VIA layout, but only 2 seemed to work. Missing some basic functions. If you're buying this board because you want access to the QMK/VIA framework, I would pass, it's an extremely poor representation of what QMK/VIA is supposed to be.Keychron support... not so good. I've had several back and forth messages with them and have gotten no where.If you're looking to spend $70 on a budget barebones, there are better options out there. Maybe not with QMK/VIA access, but this boards implementation of QMK/VIA is so bad, it's not worth it. I'd take the typical Chinese OEM software a lot of other budget keyboards use over this any day.

Wow, this thing is great. And not just "for the price"; it is a decent base to make a nice custom board without spending hundreds of $$$. With the steel plate and tray mount, this board is on the stiff side, but a few simple modes can convert it to something almost as good as a premium board.It is not the simplest one to work on, but if you know what you doing, all the modifications will take an hour or so, and the end result will be surprisingly nice.I build this board for a friend who is on a budget, and with keycaps, switches, and all the mods it cost under $150, which is fantastically low for such a keyboard.

I love that the barebones option is affordably priced, despite the recent price increase.South facing LEDs are a plus and the build quality is superb. It's not as heavy as other custom boards but there is a bit of heft to it, specifically for the polycarbonate version. I paired these with the Akko Matcha Green switches and I love how they sound and feel.I would note that VIA software with this board is a bit finicky but past that, it works well. Everytime i want to change a setting, I need to re-upload the JSON file for the board to VIA. This isn't a deal breaker for me but rather a very minor inconvenience.Hopefully Keychron can sort out those issues with VIA in the future. Nonetheless I would recommend this board if you're shopping for a 75% board.

its good for the money. i personally didnt wanna go through the hassle of finding a good keyboard and pcb and whatnot. this comes with it all, stabs are meh but if your just trying to poke at custom keyboards its great.