My soft spot for mechanical keyboards fortunately never expanded beyond the limits of my wallet, but I can say for sure where it comes from: typewriters. When my father used to use a wonderful Olivetti Lettera 45, I loved the sound that those keys made and I couldn’t wait to do the same every time.
And so my baptism into the world of mechanical keyboards came by purchasing a Keychron K2. I was super excited at the idea of using a keyboard that, at least on paper, could finally give me those feelings of sturdiness and reliability that I expect from a premium product.
To have the Italian layout, which I still can’t give up, I had to buy a German ISO and then replace every single key with Italian keycaps. And here’s the first horrible fact: after spending the beauty of almost 140 euros between the keyboard, shipping, and taxes, I discover that one of the keys is wrong! Indeed, the < > symbols key is fundamentally incorrect, and I now find myself with a keyboard that has a TYPO. Unbelievable. Even more absurd is finding out that the typo I’m talking about is well-known in the world of Italian Keychron customers and that nothing has ever been done by the parent company to fix this issue.
I continued to explore the world of mechanical keyboards, buying other models that were not Keychron, until today.
I purchased a K10 pro, eager for a good gaming model. Overall satisfied with the previous model in terms of build materials and efficiency, I decided to try again with a slightly more expensive model, which, however, had an Italian layout available by default.
And so I encountered a terrible customer experience. I receive the keyboard and, once connected, I realize how badly the stabilizers were configured. In particular, the sound of the space bar was completely asymmetric, with the left side being really clicky and annoying. I immediately wrote to the parent company for explanations on how to proceed, attaching video material and details of the problem.
My questions mainly revolved around the possibility of being able to mod the keyboard myself without incurring warranty issues. I received no response at all: after replying once, asking to attach video material (which I promptly did), customer service completely ignored all my emails for several weeks. Even today I can’t explain what happened, Keychron simply remained silent and, considering their poor return policies, which involve sending at the customer’s expense and only after contacting customer service within 7 (seven!) days of purchase and with the only method of contact being email (which apparently is blissfully ignored), I can only define this customer experience as terrible and legally actionable.
EDIT: their silence from customer support (lasting weeks) seems to be due to the Spring Festival Holiday. How unprofessional can it be for a manufacturer not to respond automatically with a notice of possible delays in assistance? Despite the first vague response received after weeks, customer support continues to be vague, both on return policies and on what I can and cannot do with the product I purchased, which in my opinion is not satisfactory in terms of quality for the money spent.
I have at least proceeded to lubricate the keyboard where I could, I have not yet disassembled the whole body. After all (to my bitter surprise) the stabilizers are PCB Screw-in, which makes everything even more tedious. The result can now be seen in this post.
But the magic of buying such products has somewhat been lost, especially when dealing with manufacturers who claim to offer “luxury” products and experiences.
