Keychron has just announced two new material options for its upcoming keyboard, the K2 HE Special Edition. As well as a translucent black resin version, buyers can now opt to receive a concrete keyboard.
Appropriately dubbed the “Concrete Edition,” this version of the board uses concrete for the frame and then carries on the look with matching matte gray PBT keycaps, for a brooding, brutalist aesthetic. While we don’t generally consider a material being strong enough to build houses as a criterion for our best gaming keyboard guide, there’s no denying the look of this board would be perfect for some gaming PC setups.
As a 75% keyboard, the Keychron K2 HE Concrete Edition, has a layout that is, in many ways, an ideal compromise of compactness, clean styling, and function. You don’t get quite as many keys or functions as a full-size keyboard, or even a TKL board, but you get a much smaller board with the clean look that comes from its top being completely filled with keys. Meanwhile, it’s not quite as compact an option as 65% and smaller boards, but you still get to keep cursor keys, F keys and more.
This is also a fully up-to-date wireless keyboard with analog Hall Effect magnetic switches that allow for adjustable actuation, rapid trigger, and more. The switches themselves are Gateron Double-Rail Magnetic Switches with a 40g linear actuation. That means, with the board weighing in at 1,743g, you’d need almost exactly half its 84 keys (44 keys to be exact) to hold up the weight of another one of these boards.
Full RGB lighting can be found under the keycaps, while the caps themselves use the slight old school-looking OSA key profile, with a smaller top and more rounded sides than the standard Cherry profile of most keycaps.
Available now, the resin and concrete versions of the Keychron K2 HE both cost $199.99, making them about $70 more than a standard plastic version of this board. However, with the concrete version in particular, the amount of extra effort required to cast a concrete keyboard case compared to an injection molded plastic case easily makes that extra cost seem reasonable.
Ok, so maybe I don’t truly need one of these keyboards, but, boy, do I want one.
