This felt like an oldschool episode to me. Here's a product being misleading, here's why, and here are options in a similar price range that are objectively better. Simple but effective, love it.
As someone who logged over a 100 hours on a membrane keyboard in DMC3 when it first came out on PC, this is the last place where i'd expect to get called out like that. Good job writers.
@@budgetbajur WASD for left stick I/J/K/L for Y/X/A/B (xbox controls) 1234 for d-pad (style switch) space for rb (lock on) q and e for triggers (weapon swap) N or whatever else you want for LB (D.T) i personally find to have much more control over dmc's gameplay with keyboard over a controller
Several years ago I worked for a major university's IT department. These HP keyboards would last 3-6 months at most before they wore out and were basically a mushy mess. Terrible quality control right to the point of the plastic parts rubbing and squeaking on each other they had so much play in them.
@@xeon39688 No, that was the keyboard that came with the PC. We bought a LOT of those SFF HP PCs, which were excellent for normal office use. But the included keyboard went from good, lasts for 3 years or so to 1 year then finally junk because we have to include something. The cost-cutting was blatantly obvious on everything aside from the PC itself. The same with their monitors - the panel was fine, but the bezels, stands, and even supplied cables all went from beefy and solid to barely adequate. Lenovo (same parent company) had this happen as well with their laptops which used to be overbuilt tanks almost like old Thinkpads to flimsy garbage.
You can put a new ink cartridge in your HP printer, go flip the circuit breaker on and off 5 times over the course of 24 hours, and the HP printer’s ink head “maintenance” that runs each time the printer loses power and regains it will completely drain your cartridge without printing a single page. It’s borderline criminal.
Consumer grade HP products are generally garbage, but their enterprise grade stuff is actually pretty decent and easy to work with. I would be happy for one in a business, but I would never have one in my house.
I worked for HP tech support for 3 years. I had the best stats in my call center, so I was allowed to attend an actual meeting with HP big wigs discussing the future of their company. I told them to get into gaming products. this was back in 2004 or 5. they told me that was an awful idea. then months later they decided to do it. but they were so overpriced. they literally just took their consumer PC, added a stick of ram, a semi-good video card and added 1k to the cost. consumers weren't buying it. HP upper management is soooo out of touch
I'm sure you were the first and only person to ever suggest HP get involved in gaming. With the margins of the personal computer business, gaming is historically always a bad idea. Compaq knew this. HP knew this. The combined company sure knows it. There will be new generations of executives that wil learn for themselves and then know gaming personal computers is a money pit that will never work at large scale.
They arrived late to the party with the HyperX acquisition. And yes, HP upper management is still way out of touch, both in PCs and Printing. Source: also work for them.
HP companies' profit from all aspects of Israel's apartheid. Their role is similar to Polaroid's complicity with South Africa during apartheid. ATROCIOUS. DO NOT BUY HP.
@@Billy_The_Frog 100%. Optical technically isn't mechanical actuation, but it feels sooo smooth and consistent. Let's not pretend this was anything other than a cost-cutting lie.
If I can give a bit of feedback about the graphs, like the one at 2:49, I feel layout of the graph could be improved by putting the name of the hardware (Havid KB487L) in the middle and placing the axis labels under it with a bit smaller font to help guide the eyes a bit (for example, giving a subtitle "force(grams) ↑ vs displacement(mm) →"). You can still put the labels next to the graph as well, but a I would make those a bit smaller as to not draw that much attention to them. Currently my eyes need to move quite a lot to find what I'm actually looking at. Also same for the labels "press" and "release": I feel they should be quite a bit smaller as they now the first things that draw the attention of the viewer. But those are my own two cents on it.
Misinformation is the name of the game in the tech industry. I’m glad that we have people like Linus who don’t fall victim to the standard of business practices. Finally someone willing to expose them. Keep up the great work LMG❤️
Literally any tech shop you go to and ask for some tech product recommendation 99% of the time the sales guy has 0 clue of their products and just recommends the products that have high price
Labs is starting to show itself. I was sceptical about lab's, but fuck me that data is sexy and I now don't think I could buy a keyboard without it. Labs will be a behemoth.
The box plots at 9:25 are really great, but it would be awesome if you showed them all side by side at the same time so that they are easier to compare.
Look up "violin plots", you'll never want to go back to a boxplot again. Gives you all the same info as a boxplot but also additional information about the distribution of the actual datapoints.
This item was available in India and was the same price as other local mechanical keyboards (cosmic byte). Just because it was a product from a reputable brand, it sold more even with lower ratings and bad reviews. The reviews were fun to read though :)
@@AMANSINGH-yr5yg he was saying "this product" (so i'm assuming he meant the HP keyboard)... as compared to similar local keyboards like the cosmicbyte. if you compared the cosmic byte vs the hp, and went for the hp... then you fell for the scam.
The cosmicbyte is mechanical. Poorly built and has a really bad looking legend but it's still mechanical. I've replaced this with another HP, GK320. pulled a couple keycaps off before purchase, it is a genuine blue switch mechanical. Very loud though😂
For anyone buying mechanical keyboard in India, cosmic bytes are cheap yes but not really a good option, there are better options like rk84 but are more expensive. Pls avoid cosmic byte so that you won't have to throw it away in a year or 2.
I have used membrane keyboard for 15 years, and when i finally decided to try out a mechanical one, sadly i ended up with this one. It was on sale, i got it really cheap, but something just felt off about it when i first used it, and now i know why. A month later spacebar died... thankfully i got my money back. I added a bit more and got logitech g413 which felt miles better. Its good linus is spreading awareness about it so people don't get scammed like i did, i actually thought i had a mechanical keyboard... i fell for it...
Had a k551 with blue switches for a few years, it held up pretty well but the cookies were fixed so I recently upgraded to a k580 with browns. Love it so far. Preference is absolutely right.
Like 10 years ago I got my first mechanical, a CM Storm. The switches were soldered, and that caused one of the keys to blow out the substrate. Was able to solder a wire across the previously connected pins and it's been working flawlessly since. Instantly made me a mechanical keyboard fan for life.
I've had multiple devastator sets, and I very briefly had a storm. Great gear for the price, and if I return to being a daytime person I'll most likely get a storm again.
It’s crazy to see how far LTT has gone in terms of keyboard reviews, now that the lab is here. Compared to the GSkill cherry red keyboard review from a few years ago the production and testing quality have gone so far
you know what would be sick? if LTT push’s the industry towards actually making great products that aren’t misleading by calling them out every time through the Lab.
And LTT is going to be rolling in the cash, LTT is going to have a line in everything tech that they tested and designed. That screw driver and backpack got them that lab.
Doing like a full suite of Redragon product reviews would probably do the biggest favor to most consumers. I took the K552 pill recently and it's been an amazing keyboard so far, although I'm saying it as someone who's been living and breathing rubberdomes all my life.
I have the K556. Amazing keyboard. Aluminum top. Feels solid. Has num pad. Amazing back light. Brown switches (comes in red variant too) and you can switch to the type you like. I'm enjoying it alot
I have the K618 at work and love it. Plan to get another for home use. It may not be quite as good as the Logitech G915 but at 1/3 the price, it's a no brainer for me.
I daily drove a Razer Ornata hybrid mech keyboard for years until it quite literally broke. I love the tactile sound and feel of a mech board, but that Ornata had the feel I liked, quick typing, and it wasn't deafeningly loud. Definitely my favorite hybrid keyboard I've used from a regular store bought brand.
I'm glad to see all of the data the lab can gather, I am also very thankful your team is making this happen. Thank you for giving solid data and great reviews all these years.
I like the inclusion and styling of the graphs from the lab data but I think it would be easier to parse if they showed the tests for different products at the same time. Graphs are great for showing comparisons between data. I could barely understand the latency graphs until you showed the latency graphs for the other two keyboards.
Don't you mean the displacement graphs? There is only one latency graph. The displacement graph is a measure of "pressure required" vs how far the key is pressed. For a linear switch the force required should be the same no matter how far the key is pressed. A curbed line suggests that the further you press the key the harder it becomes to press.
@@GentleWruzzPuppet They're box plots. The box is the first to third quartile and the top and bottom lines are the range. It took me forever to figure out as well because they're formatted so badly.
I ought this exact Havit keyboard a couple of months ago. And, I was honestly very impressed. Yes, it has flaws and shortcomings, but for the price I paid (35-40$ CAD), It's miles better than some more expensive mechanical keyboards I've tried that were between 70-90$. Plus, it fits my whole rig's color scheme of orange and black I do still believe that, building your own mechanical keyboard is much better and a great project that doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg
Oh, a belated thank you to the LTT community regarding mechanical keyboards. This was where I learned that Outemu switches had smaller pins, and where I could find a compatible switch alternative (Akko) for my board. I'm using Akko "Sponge" alternatives to the brown switches in a K556-RK, and it has been fantastic.
I made a mechanical keyboard from the scratch using cherry browns, a teensyduino 2.0 and 3D printed everything else. I also had to program the code that runs on the Arduino myself. My design has a 6 key roll over, fully programable, RGB lights and you can even code your keyboard to do complicated mouse and keyboard actions with a press of a button. The whole thing costed me just under $50. It is the size of an envelope, has 58 keys and have been running flawlessly for the past 4 years. So I am proud to say I make better mechanical keyboards than HP!
My friend got one of these, I honestly thought it was mechanical when he showed me over the phone, felt it once and could tell, sure was a shame that hp was being this sneaky
@@bobmarley2140 he doesn't really care that much considering he keeps his desktop backwards with the cables facing out and uses a super bad Logitech mouse from 10 years ago and it's a wireless one. New Logitech wires mice are like 5 bucks
@@chrisbarnard3946 Is a 10 year old functioning Logitech mouse even possible? Mine always broke right after their 2 years warranty period ended. The plastic mold would usually wear out, there where it touches the internal switch. Causing missed or double clicks at times. Have been using a Razer Atheris for the past 2 years, it's great besides requiring new batteries every three months...
@@timmy7201 idk it's pretty wild. I can feel the latency when I use it. He also likes turn based strategy games so they don't exactly need precise movements
i sell computer products, 10% of that piece of shit stops working around 3-6 months - you got lucky, but be careful.. next time, if you can choose a "good brand"
@@j1tapper I doubt it's a stroke of luck when there are so many people that swear by Redragon's durability. Most of their mice suck badly, admittedly.
Having multiple keys being pressed at once is actually important for genres that require multi-button inputs, such as fighting games (which isn’t anywhere near as hellish as trying to play DMC on a keyboard, an example pointed out the video). Speaking of which, keyboard switches are actually becoming quite popular with leveless controllers. It’s because of those kinds of controllers that SOCD (simultaneous opposing cardinal directions) has become a hot topic in the FGC. Although another pet peeve of mine that carried over for this keyboard is the fact that the cable is hard-wired to the PCB. It’s a nuisance that’s also pretty commonplace with arcade sticks, so stick manufacturers really need to just do detachable USB-C ports across the board like most keyboard makers already do these days.
Uhh, i think its important for more than just fighting games In fact, i believe that N-key rollover should be the only standard, and everything under it should be left to the dustbin of history.
@@nemtudom5074 Implementing NKRO is more expensive. If the intended customers aren't ever going to need more than 6KRO, keeping prices down by omitting NKRO can be a good thing. As long as the company doesn't lie about it...
@@TheUnlocked While technicly true, its an abysmally small cost. Its just a bunch of extra traces and resistors, maybe a slightly more expensive controller that can handle N-key rollover. It shouldnt increase the price by more than a couple dollars (unless the manufacturer is using it as an excuse to inflate the price of the keyboard) I really dont think this argument holds water. Technicly you're right, but its inconsequential. For a 10$ membrane keyboard, sure. For a mechanical keyboard, nahh. Even the affordable redragon keyboards have n-key rollover. it doesnt matter in end cost.
thank you for shouting out the rhythm gamers!! back in the day on garbo keyboards, i thought i was just bad at mania games- surprised to learn it was likely (mostly) rollover! thanks for the interesting and informative video as always!
I chose the Logitech G413 for my dad, because the brown tactile mechanical switches are PERFECT with their high required actuating force for my dad’s Parkinson’s hands (people with Parkinson’s tend to get tics in their hands where their hands constantly flap around). He can bang on that keyboard till the cows come home, and it will take that punishment and more! And that also means he doesn’t have to worry so much about mis-typing stuff, as the higher resistance means he can press harder to press the keys down, so he doesn’t have to worry about a stray hand flap bashing a wrong key as often.
I would like to add, the LTC nimbleback is also a great option. It is completely hot swappable, and around the 50 dollar mark... It's full mechanical, and feels and sounds great. I have been daily driving mine for a little over a year, and i am in love with it. If I decide i dont like the sound of the switches, i just swap them out for something else. I currently run mine with a set of silver speed switches. It sounds great, and the key presses are responsive.
wow... this one hits close to home. I also bought this keyboard and returned it in a heartbeat after experiencing how bad it was... Ended up getting the G512 Carbon.
@@luis_lantano The thing is it isn't even that cheap. It's essentially a $5 keyboard pretending to be a $50 keyboard, but of course it's HP and as usual they are scamming customers just like they did with my laptop, HP is really a shit company
@@luis_lantano The problem is that it isn't a mechanical keyboard, and you would be better off buying a membrane at a cheaper price and saving up for something better. Of course you thought it was a good price but that was only because of HP's false advertising.
@@triadwarfare Nah. GX Brown (the only one left in the store), but thank you for that explanation. My brother has another keyboard (not the same one) and it does double click a lot. Now I know a possible cause.
Glad you mentioned the G413. I have a G413 Carbon I picked up at Best Buy for $32 on sale about a year ago for work because the cheap membrane ones they kept giving me broke within a month (I work in a manufacturing plant). That keyboard is amazing for the price. It has held up extremely well in the harsh environment I have it in, the switches feel great to me, and the metal chassis just feels nice. The only complaint I have is that the keys are a bit smaller than I prefer, but that’s just a me thing. I actually just bought a second one for home use the other day. Definitely highly recommend it!
i actually almost bought this keyboard thinking it is a "mechanical keyboard", back when i didnt know anything about mechanical keyboard. Thank god i found another mehcanical keyboard at that pricepoint and its a real mechanical keyboard
Love the stats. Consider using violin plots instead of boxplots. Same principle, but it's a superior method of conveying all the same data plus some additional underlying information about the actual distribution of the raw data itself.
Linus, I'm an old guy who when I first found your channel years ago, I was like "this guy got this part wrong!" Here we are years later and now your schooling me. I never knew the term "key rollover"! Finally I know the name of what used to grind my butt playing quake or doom on particularly bad keyboards in the 90s. Thank you. Channel has come a long way.
The force graph claim is interesting. Even linear switches can have a curved force curve because some switches uses a progressive or even a dual stage spring that have harder bottom outs the further you go.
@@stclaws9580 linear simply means that there is no perceptible tactile "bump" when pressing down on the switch. the only other two switch types are tactile (with the bump) and clicky (with an audible click).
@@stclaws9580 yeah I agree with what Elmo said. It’s simply a tactility term. It’s not to characterize the springs behavior. If you try different premium switches in the custom world you will feel a difference when comparing these types of springs
Hey LTT, You were talking about Rollover in the rhythm game scene which reminded me of a very annoying fact a lot of us face, NKRO is actually bad for precisely timed inputs due to limitations in the USB-protocol causing us to prefer 6 or even 4 KRO. It's hard to find good mechanical keyboards that meet this requirement. It might make an interesting video to analyze the delays the different kinds of rollover introduce, it'd go wild in the rhythm game community if you guys did a video!
Thank you for your work advocating for consumers! Tech feels like one of those places, where companies feel they can get away with lying because so many consumers lack the knowledge. It's amazing to see an account with such wide reach calling them out.
Never knew about key rollover before. Found an online test and was pleased to see my G610 Brown got up to at least 26, making me believe it's probably just NKRO since I ran out of ways to press keys lol.
As someone who hates replacing stuff regularly i appreciate the repairability of real mechanical keyboards. I own an old Cherry keyboard with MX black switches. It's one of the first that got manufactured with a black casing instead of beige in the early 2000s and features USB but it's still the classic design. Yes it's nearly 20 years old but i still love it to this day. If some day a switch dies i could simply replace it in a few hours although it would involve soldering. Despite its age this wasn't necessary yet. As someone who has his desk directly under a window and has spitted Pepsi over the keyboard more than once I can confirm cleaning it with water and isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry afterwards always did the trick for me. In contrast the traces that are printed to the layers inside a membrane keyboard corrode in minutes when they get in contact with liquid. Even if you are fast disassembling the keyboard and drying everything I experienced most keyboards are trash at this point.
yep that was my first "mechanical" keyboard. Returned it the day after. I remember it actually blocked the spacebar when you held two directional keys at the same time (WASD not arrows) which meant you couldn't jump while moving diagonally in games all thanks to it's amazing anti-ghosting feature!
Damn, i dont remember that i ever suffering keyboard ghosting issues in any game i ever played even on integrated keyboard on cheap non gaming laptop i used to have long time a go, what an overpriced piece of 💩
I just tested the key rollover on my $34 Velocifire and I couldn't find a limit other than not being able to press both shift, ctrl, or alt keys at the same time. Plus it uses real mechanical switches. Just saying.
I was recently in the market for a cheap mech keyboard, and this was being promoted on Amazon. I look for reviews, and surprisingly I couldn't find any review of it from the usual cheap keeb review channels, so finally went with the redragon. After seeing this video, glad I did!
Are you in India? I wanted to specifically find this keyboard just to see a listing for it. I specifically had to go to HP India and Amazon India just to see it online. Its from the Pavilion gaming line, something we don't get in North America. Here we only get Omen or Victus (part of Omen).
@@matthewjbauer1990 hey, yes I'm referring to Indian Amazon here. Interesting! Pavillion isn't considered "gaming" here too, it's usually the go-to laptop range for first year college students - cheap and from a known brand
super interesting to see this video against that "Sh!t manufacturers say" on the mem-chanical keyboard with luke. hadn't thought about it but having so many more people in the office gives you so many more people to do the side-by-side comparison than just having luke come in vlog-style.
I daily-drive a local gaming brand keyboard called "Gamen Titan Elite". Some simple mods like switching the alphabet and spacebar to brown switch (they only ship the keyboard with blue switch), filling it with some padding foam, trimming and lubing the stabilizer turned this $15 keyboard into my favorite keyboard mainly because of the layout (78 keys but instead of having function keys, it has NUMPADS! which is a godsend for someone who used Blender a lot).
6:54 Thats because X-key rollover (excluding N-key), is based on zones, and hitting many in one zone will disable the rest while still allowing keys outside that zone. Worse yet, the zone layouts are not standardised, and whatever the manufacturer decided on
To elaborate on zones a bit, they are statistically derived based on workflow... But what workflow? Who knows. Chances are it's not gaming, and whether it is something you actually do, unless this machine is sitting in an office you likely multitask. Good luck when you find a program you use a lot is particularly affected. For the handful of zone layouts actually informed by game input, they appear to have bodged that on top of an existing zone based design, losing any real benefits. N-key solves all of this, and there really is no excuse at this point as the cost difference in mass production would be hard to even calculate with any confidence.
Bought a 122-key IBM Model M keyboard years ago and it's been my main keyboard ever since. Buckling springs are glorious to use and it's such a massive keyboard. I absolutely love it.
I have two, one at home and one at work. I've gotten a lot of comments about it at work, my keyboard is older than a lot of the people I work with! And it's such a big, solid thing in a pinch it can be used as a blunt object!
I have one given to me by my dad when he worked for IBM as a repair tech. I have some spares, but I still use the same "M" one. The PS/2 port fully supports N-key rollover, so online games where you can literally be pressing 5 keys at once for an instant when running diag and need to jump and/or change weapon.
I was building my PC a few months ago and almost bought this keyboard. Good thing I've decided to read some reviews and ended up getting a pretty decent hybrid keyboard from Cougar for the same price
I'm curious how much hp actually saved, if anything, by not using a standard mx style switch. I imagine the pcb and some cheaper switches from the likes of Greetech or Otemu couldn't be much more than a membrane pcb and a custom "switch" to make it look mechanical.
@@GuyGamer1 even when its only 5$ per keyboard its still worth it for them because they will sell at least a few thousand so like 5$ x 9321 keyboards = 46000$ extra profit for the rich CEO so he can use his private jet when he's flying to Paris to eat breakfast.
I bought a keyboard named E-Yoosoo Z686 for around 30USD. For this budget,it may not feel very good to enthusiasts but it has Hot swappable switch and Detachable cord and software controlled RGB for more fps. for this budget i was surprised and happy with the purchase.
I have a Tecware Phantom L TKL which has the slightly better Outemu low-profile browns than the equivalent Havit keyboard with low-profile Kailh switches. Best buy for a $30 tactile 👌
@@handlemonium Honestly, the fact that you can get a decent mechanical keyboard for so low is just shocking to me. There's absolutely no reason for membrane keyboards to even exist at this point.
@@nemtudom5074 Yep and full-size Keychron C2 tactiles are going for $60-$80. My guess as to why membranes still exist is profit cuz it almost definitely costs only $10-$15 to make them but Big Tech can dish em' out en-masse for $20-$30 a pop. Sure I guess the "90% of people don't care enough about keyboard feel" argument still stands, but why reduce your bottom line when you can rake in 35-45% via membranes in profit instead of only 20-30%?
Just wanted to say, great work to the Linus team. I believe you guys are improving and innovating your content and that goes great lengths to help responsibly-educate anyone who’s exposed to your content. Caught myself writing few pages length of what I mean, but just know, I appreciate how well-written and responsible the channel is. Good job everybody at Linus. This is important work. 🙏🏽
The Razer Ornata Chroma is a "Hybrid Mechanical" that works very similar. It's a mechanical top with membrane under. I tried it out a couple years ago when looking for keyboards, and it sounded like an interesting notion. After feeling the mechanical part's switch engage occurs, you still have to press down even further for it to contact the membrane. It has an awkwardly delayed response because of this. Typing is extremely annoying because there is a visual lag from how it actuates. Gaming is near impossible because the travel distance is deceiving with that click to finally pressing the membrane difference. 1/10 do not recommend. Only giving it the one because it was funny to see other people try to use it and notice something was off. Replaced it with something else.
@@CoolJosh3k I have had relatively decent experiences with all of my Razer products and that includes the Blade. However, I do still remember that camera debacle.
I do think actually conceptually the Ornata is worse. It has no mechanical bits beyond the keycap having a nub that hits against a clicker that generates minimal, if any, tactility. The clicker really is just there to make noise, to give the illusion of being mechanical, that's all, the Ornatas are just rubber dome keyboards. Also, some mechanicals can use a membrane and there have been slider over dome (like Topre) and spring over membrane deaigns (like Oki switches, or even buckling springs) that did work and were still able to actuate part-way. The problem is bizarrely HP tried to mash the two together and thought they needed a dome that shouldn't been there, by having the red linear slider directly plunge into the dome instead of directly onto the membrane, making it a mushy and crappy experience. Then again spring/slider over membrane sucks for linears too due to the need to bottom out unless done intelligently. Even buckling springs only had a flipper that then hit the membrane rather than being directly over a membrane, and Topre is capactive to be able to actuate part way and has no membrane.
@@bbking006 Apparently some of their products are okay, but way too many that die young due to cheap internal parts. It is the kind of company that relies on marketing instead of product quality.
@@CoolJosh3k Absolutely. I had to replace the bulging battery on a $4000 machine thrice in 3 years and also made 2 fan replacements. No attention or caring paid to details.
I actually loved my Mecha-Membrane Razer Ornata. I’ve given up MX Brown, Gatheron Red and Gatheron Silver keyboards for it. But the way it’s mecha-membrane is that it had the actual metal push bar, I don’t really know how to call it properly but it was guiding the key. So it had the resistance profile similar to Blue keys, without being super noisy, had much lower profile and was not kinda swallowing down on press (I actually don’t mind rubber mushiness if done properly). It’s a bad keyboard overall but the concept made sense. This case with a spring I’m not sure it makes any sense.
I literally bought this keyboard at a thrift shop for $4 and thought I found an amazing deal only to get it home and realize it's not mech. honestly, if there were pressure differential offset springs... tactile release to bottom out, it might be serviceable
It's disappointing that HP would try to market this keyboard as a mechanical one when it's actually a membrane keyboard. It's frustrating to see companies using such misleading tactics. Thanks for making a video about it and bringing this to light.
Having experienced many, many HP keyboards throughout my office life, I think I have a solution. Governments just need to come together and agree HP shouldn't be allowed to call anything "gaming" anymore. They clearly can't be trusted with the word.
The argument about "I only have 4 fingers and a thumb why would I need more then 6 buttons pressed at once" is irrelevant since they they claimed it's 10 and it doesn't do that which doesn't matter how much you need it's still false advertising
For us GTAO players, while flying a helicopter, the optimum control layout is WASD for engine power up and down and tail power up and down and also 8456 on the numpad for rotor tilt. Add in tab to scroll through weapons and space to use them and you could actually be pressing 10 keys at once just to fly a helicopter... in GTA. A simple way yo see how many keys your keyboard SHOULD rollover is to look at your drivers, the USB keyboard driver can only support up to 10 keys per instance, but many keyboards actually connect to your pc 3 or 4 times, you will literally have 4 parallel keyboards in your device manager, and that exists only to allow more simultaneous key presses. And yes, some keyboards do allow 40 keys at once. Which all pale next to old school ps/2 keyboards which can actually have every single key pressed at once. And old games like Mech Warrior 3 actually needed it.
Membrane keyboards fill an important gap that mechanical keyboards can't, and I think it's important to highlight the actual reasons why you'd choose one. First the membrane helps protect against spills, having less functional components makes them more reliable (not less), they are often a lot easier to clean, they are a lot quieter (important for the workplace) and they tend to be cheap. I use a Corsair K55 membrane keyboard and it's brilliant for what it does. I'd never game on it, but for coding it's the perfect compromise.
I got a blue switch mechanical gaming keyboard for about 40 USD. Wired, BT and 2.4GHz connectivity. No special software needed. It's an F11 from FL eSPORTS. It's a Chinese company (I think) but it works absolutely great. I honestly don't need to go searching for another keyboard since. Been using this since 2021. Works great. Sounds great (oiled or no oil). And it got a dozen light modes with various color schemes. It's legit. I've opened it and oiled the switches. Also swapped out a couple blues for Razer Green switches
oh yeeeess! i bought this keyboard like two years ago, with the intention to mod it and solder on some other switches. imagine my disappointment when i took it apart and i saw rubber domes under what looked like just basic clone red switches. 😂
Funny thing is that one now old video on this channel did a shootout fir the IBM model M keyboard, which I used as a child. Then discovered the Unicomp recreation and I ended up with one. I am not sure it is the best for gaming, but I am so much in love! I am always looking for an excuse to use it. Keyboards are more important that one might think
My last mechanical keyboard was 50$, and it was honestly great. Lasted me quite awhile and I'd definitely get it again. I really don't see the point in all the super expensive ones that are 100+, there's just no way they justify that price.
I'm with you. I have a Krom Kernel for gaming and it's just great for what it does. On the other hand, as I have big hands and fingers, I used a Dell membrane keyboard for typing and coding. First, I just can't bear the sound of continuous mechanical beating for 8 hours a day and second, I tend to hit collateral keys now and then and it just pisses me off ... I'm 47 so I can really remember when they dropped mechanical for membrane back in the 80's. There was just no PC gamming scene at the time and a room full of coders hitting mechanical keyboards all day was just bad for your ears. Current mechanical switches are much better but I'm out for a working scenario. Mechanical keyboards are better for gamming but membrane are more comfortable for typing long hours. You can just rest your hands on the keyboard as well. Most mechanical will just type ...
Proud owner of Redragon Draconic K530. Got it for 2500 russian rubles (about 30 USD) on a sale as a first keyboard i modded. Replaced the stock Outemu Brown switches with Akko Rose Reds, lubed them with some universal spray lube and dampened. Very happy with result. Bluetooth up to 3 devices, RGB lights, pretty small size (get used to button combinations for stuff like F1-F12 and so on tho). Great keyboard if you want to get into modding for cheap.
I just miss the days of prolific analogue keyboards. Particularly in driving, stealth and escort missions, being able to feather your speed is such a boon. It is also an absolute necessity for emulations of console exclusives and 3DS games. The 10KR is an absolute must for some older games as well. Many early games didn't utilize the mouse leaving you with WASD+IJKL, WASD+ Numpad 84562 or (rarely) top-row 12345678+arrow keys. Eragon is a great example of this where you regularly get to 8+ keys in open combat.
Loved this video. I agree with other comments about the value of calling companies out on their BS. On another note, I'm suprised the venerable Model M did not show face in this episode! No harm done. I was waiting for it though. :D
I am not surprised like at all. I had some experience with HP support, it was 5 years ago or so. They always redirected to the same clerk, and no assistance at all. We had some trouble with service center, and after a month I have written again, and the same clerk just answered that she asked for a report from service center and it satisfied her. That is all. "If you have evidence you may go to court" - she said.
man redragon have been killing it in the budget keyboard space for a while now. i also recommend epomaker, yunzii, and royal kludge for the best bang-for-your-buck . a lot of them offer gateron or other high quality switches and dual-shot pbt keycaps. with both of those things combined you're pretty much set and can easily replace things if they break down the line. typically they even come with extra switches just in case.
Still rocking Ducky Shine 3 with black Cherry MX switches here, couldn't be happier. For me, the Cherry MX black is the way to go. This and an SSD were my best upgrades. Thanks LMG!
I have an HP laptop that experienced the weird inconsistent, zoned, key roll over. I discovered this when designing a rhythm game for a university project, it was the bane of my existence.
Holy moly. I remember considering buying this for my sister as a cheap mech keyboard. Thank god reviews that said that the keys often get "stuck" made me buy another keyboard.
This felt like an oldschool episode to me. Here's a product being misleading, here's why, and here are options in a similar price range that are objectively better. Simple but effective, love it.
You're right
You're right
You're right
You're right
You're right
As someone who logged over a 100 hours on a membrane keyboard in DMC3 when it first came out on PC, this is the last place where i'd expect to get called out like that. Good job writers.
Cracking game and series (except maybe 2). Genuinely cannot imagine playing it on keyboard though! You are a sadist!
They're in your walls!
DMC5 I'd understand. But bro??? Your fingers didn't get tangled?
I have 1500+ hours on apex/cs go on a 1990s MS ergonomic ps2 keyboard..... fml
@@budgetbajur
WASD for left stick
I/J/K/L for Y/X/A/B (xbox controls)
1234 for d-pad (style switch)
space for rb (lock on)
q and e for triggers (weapon swap)
N or whatever else you want for LB (D.T)
i personally find to have much more control over dmc's gameplay with keyboard over a controller
For a channel this big, it’s pretty amazing that you guys have the balls to call out a company as large as HP. Good stuff.
Several years ago I worked for a major university's IT department. These HP keyboards would last 3-6 months at most before they wore out and were basically a mushy mess. Terrible quality control right to the point of the plastic parts rubbing and squeaking on each other they had so much play in them.
lol i guess you are a new viewer xD
@@xeon39688 No, that was the keyboard that came with the PC. We bought a LOT of those SFF HP PCs, which were excellent for normal office use. But the included keyboard went from good, lasts for 3 years or so to 1 year then finally junk because we have to include something. The cost-cutting was blatantly obvious on everything aside from the PC itself. The same with their monitors - the panel was fine, but the bezels, stands, and even supplied cables all went from beefy and solid to barely adequate. Lenovo (same parent company) had this happen as well with their laptops which used to be overbuilt tanks almost like old Thinkpads to flimsy garbage.
There's no fear if the UK Trading Standards Office are going to be investigating.
LMAO they call out intel and Nvidia almost weekly.
I can't believe companies would lie to sell more of their products 😱
SUCH A PLOT TWIST!!!
lol they do it all the time
Surprise surprise 😅
No way!!!
69th like nice 😂
I think once the LTT lab is fully functional it will be an a amazing achievement!
@My Cancer Journey dont care
@rc6146yay capitalism
Mhm!
@@ImKairyu if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything. Your parents failed you
@@TheOne23_ bro he's replying to a bot. If it's a bot, only say mean things
You can put a new ink cartridge in your HP printer, go flip the circuit breaker on and off 5 times over the course of 24 hours, and the HP printer’s ink head “maintenance” that runs each time the printer loses power and regains it will completely drain your cartridge without printing a single page.
It’s borderline criminal.
It makes me want to take a printer and toss it through HP headquarters windows. Of the ceo
That’s a very specific scenario. When would you be flipping your breaker 5 times
Consumer grade HP products are generally garbage, but their enterprise grade stuff is actually pretty decent and easy to work with. I would be happy for one in a business, but I would never have one in my house.
@@geese5170it is entirely a reasonable scenario to lose power 5 times in a day if you live somewhere windy and remote.
@@geese5170and 5 power outages could cause the issue without even printing a page.
I worked for HP tech support for 3 years. I had the best stats in my call center, so I was allowed to attend an actual meeting with HP big wigs discussing the future of their company. I told them to get into gaming products. this was back in 2004 or 5. they told me that was an awful idea. then months later they decided to do it. but they were so overpriced. they literally just took their consumer PC, added a stick of ram, a semi-good video card and added 1k to the cost. consumers weren't buying it. HP upper management is soooo out of touch
I'm sure you were the first and only person to ever suggest HP get involved in gaming. With the margins of the personal computer business, gaming is historically always a bad idea. Compaq knew this. HP knew this. The combined company sure knows it. There will be new generations of executives that wil learn for themselves and then know gaming personal computers is a money pit that will never work at large scale.
They arrived late to the party with the HyperX acquisition. And yes, HP upper management is still way out of touch, both in PCs and Printing. Source: also work for them.
HP companies' profit from all aspects of Israel's apartheid. Their role is similar to Polaroid's complicity with South Africa during apartheid. ATROCIOUS. DO NOT BUY HP.
@Claudia Furlan Hey, if the pay is good and you enjoy it, who cares?
Unless said job is the pure evil like the CIA then _please leave._
That is why I build I have an athlon X4 dell, with a AMD GPU
It's amazing that they went to all the effort of creating the fake switches
Yeah, sounds like something a Chinese rip off company would do
I feel like they could have easily turned it into an optical switch keyboard with the right PCB lol
@@Billy_The_Frog 100%. Optical technically isn't mechanical actuation, but it feels sooo smooth and consistent. Let's not pretend this was anything other than a cost-cutting lie.
They probably saved a few pennies. This is infuriating.
And I thought no one but only the Chinese are willing to do that.
If I can give a bit of feedback about the graphs, like the one at 2:49, I feel layout of the graph could be improved by putting the name of the hardware (Havid KB487L) in the middle and placing the axis labels under it with a bit smaller font to help guide the eyes a bit (for example, giving a subtitle "force(grams) ↑ vs displacement(mm) →"). You can still put the labels next to the graph as well, but a I would make those a bit smaller as to not draw that much attention to them. Currently my eyes need to move quite a lot to find what I'm actually looking at. Also same for the labels "press" and "release": I feel they should be quite a bit smaller as they now the first things that draw the attention of the viewer. But those are my own two cents on it.
Agreed
Yeah no I couldn't tell what I was looking at in the graph so yeah it needs to be improved
Misinformation is the name of the game in the tech industry. I’m glad that we have people like Linus who don’t fall victim to the standard of business practices. Finally someone willing to expose them. Keep up the great work LMG❤️
I put my hamster in a sock and slammed it against the furniture.
Literally any tech shop you go to and ask for some tech product recommendation 99% of the time the sales guy has 0 clue of their products and just recommends the products that have high price
Every industry* if anything the tech industry is more wary about misinformation because tech enthusiasts are very particular
Don't use the term misinformation, it's a confusing term with inconsistent definitions. This is straight up false advertising.
LMG stands for Light machine gun ... 🤔
The lab stats + the input from keyboard enthusiasts has made these videos a lot more interesting, you guys did some good work
This video feels like original LTT (i.e. WAY more engaging) combined with awesome lab testing stats. Keep it up!
Perhaps he is getting back to his roots after losing some of his audience..
Labs is starting to show itself. I was sceptical about lab's, but fuck me that data is sexy and I now don't think I could buy a keyboard without it.
Labs will be a behemoth.
You know, things aren’t supposed to stay the exact same forever?
The box plots at 9:25 are really great, but it would be awesome if you showed them all side by side at the same time so that they are easier to compare.
Same with the displacement graphs. it would be nice to see how they compare to something like a logitech or wooting keyboard.
Agreed, may want to improve the contrast on it though
Look up "violin plots", you'll never want to go back to a boxplot again. Gives you all the same info as a boxplot but also additional information about the distribution of the actual datapoints.
This item was available in India and was the same price as other local mechanical keyboards (cosmic byte). Just because it was a product from a reputable brand, it sold more even with lower ratings and bad reviews. The reviews were fun to read though :)
I fell for it 😭
Which keyboard was that? I recently purchased a cosmicbyte keyboard (cb gk 27) and I wanna know if I fell for the scam?
@@AMANSINGH-yr5yg he was saying "this product" (so i'm assuming he meant the HP keyboard)... as compared to similar local keyboards like the cosmicbyte. if you compared the cosmic byte vs the hp, and went for the hp... then you fell for the scam.
The cosmicbyte is mechanical. Poorly built and has a really bad looking legend but it's still mechanical. I've replaced this with another HP, GK320. pulled a couple keycaps off before purchase, it is a genuine blue switch mechanical. Very loud though😂
For anyone buying mechanical keyboard in India, cosmic bytes are cheap yes but not really a good option, there are better options like rk84 but are more expensive. Pls avoid cosmic byte so that you won't have to throw it away in a year or 2.
I have used membrane keyboard for 15 years, and when i finally decided to try out a mechanical one, sadly i ended up with this one. It was on sale, i got it really cheap, but something just felt off about it when i first used it, and now i know why. A month later spacebar died... thankfully i got my money back. I added a bit more and got logitech g413 which felt miles better. Its good linus is spreading awareness about it so people don't get scammed like i did, i actually thought i had a mechanical keyboard... i fell for it...
Same... I just bought it what do you think I should do
"Words are not just words; they actually mean things!" Truly words to live by.
Ahh, if only you'd typed something that meant things, but it's only words!
I die by those words every yesterday!
If we look closelier
Words mean whatever we want them to mean . . .
Good to see Redragon's hard work being acknowledged in the budget keyboard space. They've released a low profile TKL keyboard. Check them out.
So far, im loving my vata. Good quality board.
Low profile for those who are just nostalgic for the short travel of a laptop keyboard lol.
@@thedanyesful So you mean by chosing a low profile keyboard we are somehow inferior to you ?
@@victorpublic why so defensive lmao
keychron >>, just spend the $20 more.
Had a k551 with blue switches for a few years, it held up pretty well but the cookies were fixed so I recently upgraded to a k580 with browns. Love it so far. Preference is absolutely right.
Like 10 years ago I got my first mechanical, a CM Storm. The switches were soldered, and that caused one of the keys to blow out the substrate. Was able to solder a wire across the previously connected pins and it's been working flawlessly since. Instantly made me a mechanical keyboard fan for life.
I've had multiple devastator sets, and I very briefly had a storm. Great gear for the price, and if I return to being a daytime person I'll most likely get a storm again.
It’s crazy to see how far LTT has gone in terms of keyboard reviews, now that the lab is here. Compared to the GSkill cherry red keyboard review from a few years ago the production and testing quality have gone so far
Really nice to see, that the lab finally provides the graphs of how a switch performs and feels!
you know what would be sick? if LTT push’s the industry towards actually making great products that aren’t misleading by calling them out every time through the Lab.
That's kind of the point of the of the Lab 😅😁👍🏻
And LTT is going to be rolling in the cash, LTT is going to have a line in everything tech that they tested and designed. That screw driver and backpack got them that lab.
@@jmtholmbo Good brands will start fighting each other to get the Linus Seal of Approval to put it on Amazon without a doubt
Idk you need other labs still, one group can always be bought out or have biases.
There's only so many videos they can put out in a week
Doing like a full suite of Redragon product reviews would probably do the biggest favor to most consumers. I took the K552 pill recently and it's been an amazing keyboard so far, although I'm saying it as someone who's been living and breathing rubberdomes all my life.
I have the K556. Amazing keyboard. Aluminum top. Feels solid. Has num pad. Amazing back light. Brown switches (comes in red variant too) and you can switch to the type you like. I'm enjoying it alot
I have the K618 at work and love it. Plan to get another for home use. It may not be quite as good as the Logitech G915 but at 1/3 the price, it's a no brainer for me.
They're solid. Was looking at one handed board they have but can't stand the weird space bar. They've come a long way in the past 3 years
I have a Redragon mouse and it's amazing
I daily drove a Razer Ornata hybrid mech keyboard for years until it quite literally broke. I love the tactile sound and feel of a mech board, but that Ornata had the feel I liked, quick typing, and it wasn't deafeningly loud. Definitely my favorite hybrid keyboard I've used from a regular store bought brand.
I'm glad to see all of the data the lab can gather, I am also very thankful your team is making this happen.
Thank you for giving solid data and great reviews all these years.
I like the inclusion and styling of the graphs from the lab data but I think it would be easier to parse if they showed the tests for different products at the same time. Graphs are great for showing comparisons between data. I could barely understand the latency graphs until you showed the latency graphs for the other two keyboards.
I still don't understand what I'm looking at with the other graphs for context.
Don't you mean the displacement graphs? There is only one latency graph.
The displacement graph is a measure of "pressure required" vs how far the key is pressed. For a linear switch the force required should be the same no matter how far the key is pressed. A curbed line suggests that the further you press the key the harder it becomes to press.
@@SyntheticFuture I'm pretty sure they showed other graphs (A simple bar graph) for the Apex 3 and another keyboard by the end of the video
@@GentleWruzzPuppet They're box plots. The box is the first to third quartile and the top and bottom lines are the range. It took me forever to figure out as well because they're formatted so badly.
@@nairocamilo oh you are correct. I missed those when rewatching for graphs because they aren't back to back 😅
I ought this exact Havit keyboard a couple of months ago. And, I was honestly very impressed. Yes, it has flaws and shortcomings, but for the price I paid (35-40$ CAD), It's miles better than some more expensive mechanical keyboards I've tried that were between 70-90$.
Plus, it fits my whole rig's color scheme of orange and black
I do still believe that, building your own mechanical keyboard is much better and a great project that doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg
Not even surprised HP lied. They basically became that one person that says lying is their toxic trait
It's amazing that they put real effort into deceiving customers, rather than just offering a real mechanical keyboard!
i love lying. lying is so much fun. i can't even imagine getting paid to lie, it's like a dream job.
@@recurveninja Become a marketing guy at HP, then.
@@recurveninja you would bea great politician
Oh, a belated thank you to the LTT community regarding mechanical keyboards. This was where I learned that Outemu switches had smaller pins, and where I could find a compatible switch alternative (Akko) for my board. I'm using Akko "Sponge" alternatives to the brown switches in a K556-RK, and it has been fantastic.
I made a mechanical keyboard from the scratch using cherry browns, a teensyduino 2.0 and 3D printed everything else. I also had to program the code that runs on the Arduino myself. My design has a 6 key roll over, fully programable, RGB lights and you can even code your keyboard to do complicated mouse and keyboard actions with a press of a button. The whole thing costed me just under $50. It is the size of an envelope, has 58 keys and have been running flawlessly for the past 4 years. So I am proud to say I make better mechanical keyboards than HP!
'3D printed everything else'.. Yeaaaa you should include the cost of your 3D printer to
@@thiccbaron probably less than $5! Filament is cheap!
There should be a way to hold them accountable.
Ye u can probably sue for false asvertisement
class action false advertisement lawsuit
Move to the EU?
Typically once you grab the bad press from someone like LTT, they tend to make some changes based on that alone.
This is the way. Spread awareness, and don't buy their products
My friend got one of these, I honestly thought it was mechanical when he showed me over the phone, felt it once and could tell, sure was a shame that hp was being this sneaky
@@bobmarley2140 he doesn't really care that much considering he keeps his desktop backwards with the cables facing out and uses a super bad Logitech mouse from 10 years ago and it's a wireless one. New Logitech wires mice are like 5 bucks
@@chrisbarnard3946 Is a 10 year old functioning Logitech mouse even possible?
Mine always broke right after their 2 years warranty period ended. The plastic mold would usually wear out, there where it touches the internal switch. Causing missed or double clicks at times.
Have been using a Razer Atheris for the past 2 years, it's great besides requiring new batteries every three months...
@@timmy7201 yeah it's an old dongle only wireless one, only the rubber is worn down
@@chrisbarnard3946 It probably slides better when upside down, due to hand-grease...
@@timmy7201 idk it's pretty wild. I can feel the latency when I use it. He also likes turn based strategy games so they don't exactly need precise movements
Glad Linus recommended reddragon. I've been using their k570 for the last 7 years and it's been ne of the best keyboards I've ever owned.
i sell computer products, 10% of that piece of shit stops working around 3-6 months - you got lucky, but be careful.. next time, if you can choose a "good brand"
@@j1tapper I doubt it's a stroke of luck when there are so many people that swear by Redragon's durability.
Most of their mice suck badly, admittedly.
@@j1tapper interesting. I guess I did get lucky, but I sure am happy with this one!
Having multiple keys being pressed at once is actually important for genres that require multi-button inputs, such as fighting games (which isn’t anywhere near as hellish as trying to play DMC on a keyboard, an example pointed out the video). Speaking of which, keyboard switches are actually becoming quite popular with leveless controllers. It’s because of those kinds of controllers that SOCD (simultaneous opposing cardinal directions) has become a hot topic in the FGC.
Although another pet peeve of mine that carried over for this keyboard is the fact that the cable is hard-wired to the PCB. It’s a nuisance that’s also pretty commonplace with arcade sticks, so stick manufacturers really need to just do detachable USB-C ports across the board like most keyboard makers already do these days.
Uhh, i think its important for more than just fighting games
In fact, i believe that N-key rollover should be the only standard, and everything under it should be left to the dustbin of history.
@@nemtudom5074 Implementing NKRO is more expensive. If the intended customers aren't ever going to need more than 6KRO, keeping prices down by omitting NKRO can be a good thing. As long as the company doesn't lie about it...
@@TheUnlocked While technicly true, its an abysmally small cost. Its just a bunch of extra traces and resistors, maybe a slightly more expensive controller that can handle N-key rollover. It shouldnt increase the price by more than a couple dollars (unless the manufacturer is using it as an excuse to inflate the price of the keyboard)
I really dont think this argument holds water. Technicly you're right, but its inconsequential. For a 10$ membrane keyboard, sure. For a mechanical keyboard, nahh. Even the affordable redragon keyboards have n-key rollover. it doesnt matter in end cost.
thank you for shouting out the rhythm gamers!! back in the day on garbo keyboards, i thought i was just bad at mania games- surprised to learn it was likely (mostly) rollover! thanks for the interesting and informative video as always!
I chose the Logitech G413 for my dad, because the brown tactile mechanical switches are PERFECT with their high required actuating force for my dad’s Parkinson’s hands (people with Parkinson’s tend to get tics in their hands where their hands constantly flap around). He can bang on that keyboard till the cows come home, and it will take that punishment and more! And that also means he doesn’t have to worry so much about mis-typing stuff, as the higher resistance means he can press harder to press the keys down, so he doesn’t have to worry about a stray hand flap bashing a wrong key as often.
Browns are great for doing angry paperwork.
Bash away as much as you like to a satisfying clicky rhythm.
I would like to add, the LTC nimbleback is also a great option. It is completely hot swappable, and around the 50 dollar mark... It's full mechanical, and feels and sounds great. I have been daily driving mine for a little over a year, and i am in love with it. If I decide i dont like the sound of the switches, i just swap them out for something else. I currently run mine with a set of silver speed switches. It sounds great, and the key presses are responsive.
wow... this one hits close to home. I also bought this keyboard and returned it in a heartbeat after experiencing how bad it was... Ended up getting the G512 Carbon.
@@luis_lantano The thing is it isn't even that cheap. It's essentially a $5 keyboard pretending to be a $50 keyboard, but of course it's HP and as usual they are scamming customers just like they did with my laptop, HP is really a shit company
@@luis_lantano The problem is that it isn't a mechanical keyboard, and you would be better off buying a membrane at a cheaper price and saving up for something better. Of course you thought it was a good price but that was only because of HP's false advertising.
same i have same keyboard after losing my sanity trying to fix membrane keyboard
@@triadwarfare Nah. GX Brown (the only one left in the store), but thank you for that explanation. My brother has another keyboard (not the same one) and it does double click a lot. Now I know a possible cause.
Glad you mentioned the G413. I have a G413 Carbon I picked up at Best Buy for $32 on sale about a year ago for work because the cheap membrane ones they kept giving me broke within a month (I work in a manufacturing plant). That keyboard is amazing for the price. It has held up extremely well in the harsh environment I have it in, the switches feel great to me, and the metal chassis just feels nice. The only complaint I have is that the keys are a bit smaller than I prefer, but that’s just a me thing. I actually just bought a second one for home use the other day. Definitely highly recommend it!
I accidentally bought a keyboard like this once but it was advertised as "mechanical feel". It was much cheaper though and also came with a mouse.
i actually almost bought this keyboard thinking it is a "mechanical keyboard", back when i didnt know anything about mechanical keyboard. Thank god i found another mehcanical keyboard at that pricepoint and its a real mechanical keyboard
Love the stats. Consider using violin plots instead of boxplots. Same principle, but it's a superior method of conveying all the same data plus some additional underlying information about the actual distribution of the raw data itself.
Linus, I'm an old guy who when I first found your channel years ago, I was like "this guy got this part wrong!"
Here we are years later and now your schooling me.
I never knew the term "key rollover"! Finally I know the name of what used to grind my butt playing quake or doom on particularly bad keyboards in the 90s.
Thank you. Channel has come a long way.
The force graph claim is interesting. Even linear switches can have a curved force curve because some switches uses a progressive or even a dual stage spring that have harder bottom outs the further you go.
can you DEFINE "linear" then?
@@stclaws9580 linear simply means that there is no perceptible tactile "bump" when pressing down on the switch.
the only other two switch types are tactile (with the bump) and clicky (with an audible click).
@@stclaws9580 I would have defined it as "linear switch go up and go down"
@@stclaws9580 yeah I agree with what Elmo said. It’s simply a tactility term. It’s not to characterize the springs behavior. If you try different premium switches in the custom world you will feel a difference when comparing these types of springs
That's springs for you, if you use the full travel you are not likely to see anything approaching linear.
Hey LTT,
You were talking about Rollover in the rhythm game scene which reminded me of a very annoying fact a lot of us face, NKRO is actually bad for precisely timed inputs due to limitations in the USB-protocol causing us to prefer 6 or even 4 KRO. It's hard to find good mechanical keyboards that meet this requirement.
It might make an interesting video to analyze the delays the different kinds of rollover introduce, it'd go wild in the rhythm game community if you guys did a video!
I feel you. Even fighting games alone can infuriate anyone trying a keyboard as a controller.
Thank you for your work advocating for consumers! Tech feels like one of those places, where companies feel they can get away with lying because so many consumers lack the knowledge. It's amazing to see an account with such wide reach calling them out.
Never knew about key rollover before. Found an online test and was pleased to see my G610 Brown got up to at least 26, making me believe it's probably just NKRO since I ran out of ways to press keys lol.
Just flip the keyboard over and push it into the table lol
As someone who hates replacing stuff regularly i appreciate the repairability of real mechanical keyboards. I own an old Cherry keyboard with MX black switches. It's one of the first that got manufactured with a black casing instead of beige in the early 2000s and features USB but it's still the classic design. Yes it's nearly 20 years old but i still love it to this day. If some day a switch dies i could simply replace it in a few hours although it would involve soldering. Despite its age this wasn't necessary yet. As someone who has his desk directly under a window and has spitted Pepsi over the keyboard more than once I can confirm cleaning it with water and isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry afterwards always did the trick for me. In contrast the traces that are printed to the layers inside a membrane keyboard corrode in minutes when they get in contact with liquid. Even if you are fast disassembling the keyboard and drying everything I experienced most keyboards are trash at this point.
yep that was my first "mechanical" keyboard. Returned it the day after. I remember it actually blocked the spacebar when you held two directional keys at the same time (WASD not arrows) which meant you couldn't jump while moving diagonally in games all thanks to it's amazing anti-ghosting feature!
Damn, i dont remember that i ever suffering keyboard ghosting issues in any game i ever played even on integrated keyboard on cheap non gaming laptop i used to have long time a go, what an overpriced piece of 💩
4:43 They should've edited in Steve from Gamers Nexus for the Tech Jesus bit.
Just put the cutout in a GN tshirt.
I just tested the key rollover on my $34 Velocifire and I couldn't find a limit other than not being able to press both shift, ctrl, or alt keys at the same time. Plus it uses real mechanical switches. Just saying.
I was recently in the market for a cheap mech keyboard, and this was being promoted on Amazon. I look for reviews, and surprisingly I couldn't find any review of it from the usual cheap keeb review channels, so finally went with the redragon. After seeing this video, glad I did!
Are you in India? I wanted to specifically find this keyboard just to see a listing for it. I specifically had to go to HP India and Amazon India just to see it online. Its from the Pavilion gaming line, something we don't get in North America. Here we only get Omen or Victus (part of Omen).
@@matthewjbauer1990 hey, yes I'm referring to Indian Amazon here. Interesting! Pavillion isn't considered "gaming" here too, it's usually the go-to laptop range for first year college students - cheap and from a known brand
super interesting to see this video against that "Sh!t manufacturers say" on the mem-chanical keyboard with luke. hadn't thought about it but having so many more people in the office gives you so many more people to do the side-by-side comparison than just having luke come in vlog-style.
I daily-drive a local gaming brand keyboard called "Gamen Titan Elite". Some simple mods like switching the alphabet and spacebar to brown switch (they only ship the keyboard with blue switch), filling it with some padding foam, trimming and lubing the stabilizer turned this $15 keyboard into my favorite keyboard mainly because of the layout (78 keys but instead of having function keys, it has NUMPADS! which is a godsend for someone who used Blender a lot).
6:54 Thats because X-key rollover (excluding N-key), is based on zones, and hitting many in one zone will disable the rest while still allowing keys outside that zone. Worse yet, the zone layouts are not standardised, and whatever the manufacturer decided on
To elaborate on zones a bit, they are statistically derived based on workflow... But what workflow? Who knows.
Chances are it's not gaming, and whether it is something you actually do, unless this machine is sitting in an office you likely multitask. Good luck when you find a program you use a lot is particularly affected.
For the handful of zone layouts actually informed by game input, they appear to have bodged that on top of an existing zone based design, losing any real benefits. N-key solves all of this, and there really is no excuse at this point as the cost difference in mass production would be hard to even calculate with any confidence.
Bought a 122-key IBM Model M keyboard years ago and it's been my main keyboard ever since. Buckling springs are glorious to use and it's such a massive keyboard. I absolutely love it.
I have two, one at home and one at work. I've gotten a lot of comments about it at work, my keyboard is older than a lot of the people I work with! And it's such a big, solid thing in a pinch it can be used as a blunt object!
I have one given to me by my dad when he worked for IBM as a repair tech. I have some spares, but I still use the same "M" one. The PS/2 port fully supports N-key rollover, so online games where you can literally be pressing 5 keys at once for an instant when running diag and need to jump and/or change weapon.
I was building my PC a few months ago and almost bought this keyboard. Good thing I've decided to read some reviews and ended up getting a pretty decent hybrid keyboard from Cougar for the same price
I'm curious how much hp actually saved, if anything, by not using a standard mx style switch. I imagine the pcb and some cheaper switches from the likes of Greetech or Otemu couldn't be much more than a membrane pcb and a custom "switch" to make it look mechanical.
Exactly my thought. They had to make 90% of a switch...
@@GuyGamer1 even when its only 5$ per keyboard its still worth it for them because they will sell at least a few thousand so like 5$ x 9321 keyboards = 46000$ extra profit for the rich CEO so he can use his private jet when he's flying to Paris to eat breakfast.
so glad the LTT team is here to call them out on this BS it's kinda wild they can get away with it so easily tbh
I bought a keyboard named E-Yoosoo Z686 for around 30USD. For this budget,it may not feel very good to enthusiasts but it has Hot swappable switch and Detachable cord and software controlled RGB for more fps. for this budget i was surprised and happy with the purchase.
8:33 Canadian Rubles? That's a new one for me
I can guarantee 0:01 is already someone's wallpaper
Oh shit, that orange switch used as a prop for an actual switch is a Tangerine, Stealthily showing off a top notch switch :D
The Q6 from Keychron is actually really nice!
Its deffinitely an upgrade to standard keyboards like redragon or the glorious 1
I recently bought a K4 as my first proper keyboard. I cannot recommend it more. Its the size of a 80% board and is hot swappable. It fits perfectly
I have a Tecware Phantom L TKL which has the slightly better Outemu low-profile browns than the equivalent Havit keyboard with low-profile Kailh switches.
Best buy for a $30 tactile 👌
@@handlemonium Honestly, the fact that you can get a decent mechanical keyboard for so low is just shocking to me.
There's absolutely no reason for membrane keyboards to even exist at this point.
@@nemtudom5074 Yep and full-size Keychron C2 tactiles are going for $60-$80.
My guess as to why membranes still exist is profit cuz it almost definitely costs only $10-$15 to make them but Big Tech can dish em' out en-masse for $20-$30 a pop.
Sure I guess the "90% of people don't care enough about keyboard feel" argument still stands, but why reduce your bottom line when you can rake in 35-45% via membranes in profit instead of only 20-30%?
I'd love to see you guys test the dropped key presses in the ltt lab
Just wanted to say, great work to the Linus team.
I believe you guys are improving and innovating your content and that goes great lengths to help responsibly-educate anyone who’s exposed to your content.
Caught myself writing few pages length of what I mean, but just know, I appreciate how well-written and responsible the channel is. Good job everybody at Linus. This is important work. 🙏🏽
4:02 nice
had to scroll way more than I should've to find this, nice
The Razer Ornata Chroma is a "Hybrid Mechanical" that works very similar. It's a mechanical top with membrane under. I tried it out a couple years ago when looking for keyboards, and it sounded like an interesting notion. After feeling the mechanical part's switch engage occurs, you still have to press down even further for it to contact the membrane. It has an awkwardly delayed response because of this. Typing is extremely annoying because there is a visual lag from how it actuates. Gaming is near impossible because the travel distance is deceiving with that click to finally pressing the membrane difference. 1/10 do not recommend. Only giving it the one because it was funny to see other people try to use it and notice something was off. Replaced it with something else.
One could say this was no surprise given Razer’s reputation.
@@CoolJosh3k I have had relatively decent experiences with all of my Razer products and that includes the Blade. However, I do still remember that camera debacle.
I do think actually conceptually the Ornata is worse. It has no mechanical bits beyond the keycap having a nub that hits against a clicker that generates minimal, if any, tactility. The clicker really is just there to make noise, to give the illusion of being mechanical, that's all, the Ornatas are just rubber dome keyboards.
Also, some mechanicals can use a membrane and there have been slider over dome (like Topre) and spring over membrane deaigns (like Oki switches, or even buckling springs) that did work and were still able to actuate part-way. The problem is bizarrely HP tried to mash the two together and thought they needed a dome that shouldn't been there, by having the red linear slider directly plunge into the dome instead of directly onto the membrane, making it a mushy and crappy experience.
Then again spring/slider over membrane sucks for linears too due to the need to bottom out unless done intelligently. Even buckling springs only had a flipper that then hit the membrane rather than being directly over a membrane, and Topre is capactive to be able to actuate part way and has no membrane.
@@bbking006 Apparently some of their products are okay, but way too many that die young due to cheap internal parts. It is the kind of company that relies on marketing instead of product quality.
@@CoolJosh3k Absolutely. I had to replace the bulging battery on a $4000 machine thrice in 3 years and also made 2 fan replacements. No attention or caring paid to details.
at 7:35 it wasn't the keyboard that got Andy killed, but actually the lack of a bar light on the top of his monitor.
I actually loved my Mecha-Membrane Razer Ornata. I’ve given up MX Brown, Gatheron Red and Gatheron Silver keyboards for it.
But the way it’s mecha-membrane is that it had the actual metal push bar, I don’t really know how to call it properly but it was guiding the key. So it had the resistance profile similar to Blue keys, without being super noisy, had much lower profile and was not kinda swallowing down on press (I actually don’t mind rubber mushiness if done properly). It’s a bad keyboard overall but the concept made sense. This case with a spring I’m not sure it makes any sense.
I literally bought this keyboard at a thrift shop for $4 and thought I found an amazing deal only to get it home and realize it's not mech.
honestly, if there were pressure differential offset springs... tactile release to bottom out, it might be serviceable
It's disappointing that HP would try to market this keyboard as a mechanical one when it's actually a membrane keyboard. It's frustrating to see companies using such misleading tactics. Thanks for making a video about it and bringing this to light.
Having experienced many, many HP keyboards throughout my office life, I think I have a solution.
Governments just need to come together and agree HP shouldn't be allowed to call anything "gaming" anymore.
They clearly can't be trusted with the word.
The argument about "I only have 4 fingers and a thumb why would I need more then 6 buttons pressed at once" is irrelevant since they they claimed it's 10 and it doesn't do that which doesn't matter how much you need it's still false advertising
For us GTAO players, while flying a helicopter, the optimum control layout is WASD for engine power up and down and tail power up and down and also 8456 on the numpad for rotor tilt.
Add in tab to scroll through weapons and space to use them and you could actually be pressing 10 keys at once just to fly a helicopter... in GTA.
A simple way yo see how many keys your keyboard SHOULD rollover is to look at your drivers, the USB keyboard driver can only support up to 10 keys per instance, but many keyboards actually connect to your pc 3 or 4 times, you will literally have 4 parallel keyboards in your device manager, and that exists only to allow more simultaneous key presses.
And yes, some keyboards do allow 40 keys at once.
Which all pale next to old school ps/2 keyboards which can actually have every single key pressed at once. And old games like Mech Warrior 3 actually needed it.
Membrane keyboards fill an important gap that mechanical keyboards can't, and I think it's important to highlight the actual reasons why you'd choose one. First the membrane helps protect against spills, having less functional components makes them more reliable (not less), they are often a lot easier to clean, they are a lot quieter (important for the workplace) and they tend to be cheap. I use a Corsair K55 membrane keyboard and it's brilliant for what it does. I'd never game on it, but for coding it's the perfect compromise.
Is anyone surprised that HP is lying? I expect all OEMs to be lying
Speaking of NKRO, it'd be great to test that feature for some popular gaming keyboards in your new lab.
3:37 Closelier sounds like it should be a word lol
Loving the labs data Linus. Hoping you’ll be able to keep up with them.
5:38 words are not just words they actually mean something - linus
Linus came a long way with keyboard reviews 💀
Would have never though that HP would do this to us
I got a blue switch mechanical gaming keyboard for about 40 USD. Wired, BT and 2.4GHz connectivity. No special software needed. It's an F11 from FL eSPORTS. It's a Chinese company (I think) but it works absolutely great. I honestly don't need to go searching for another keyboard since. Been using this since 2021. Works great. Sounds great (oiled or no oil). And it got a dozen light modes with various color schemes.
It's legit. I've opened it and oiled the switches. Also swapped out a couple blues for Razer Green switches
oh yeeeess! i bought this keyboard like two years ago, with the intention to mod it and solder on some other switches. imagine my disappointment when i took it apart and i saw rubber domes under what looked like just basic clone red switches. 😂
Funny thing is that one now old video on this channel did a shootout fir the IBM model M keyboard, which I used as a child. Then discovered the Unicomp recreation and I ended up with one. I am not sure it is the best for gaming, but I am so much in love! I am always looking for an excuse to use it. Keyboards are more important that one might think
My last mechanical keyboard was 50$, and it was honestly great. Lasted me quite awhile and I'd definitely get it again.
I really don't see the point in all the super expensive ones that are 100+, there's just no way they justify that price.
I'm with you. I have a Krom Kernel for gaming and it's just great for what it does. On the other hand, as I have big hands and fingers, I used a Dell membrane keyboard for typing and coding. First, I just can't bear the sound of continuous mechanical beating for 8 hours a day and second, I tend to hit collateral keys now and then and it just pisses me off ... I'm 47 so I can really remember when they dropped mechanical for membrane back in the 80's. There was just no PC gamming scene at the time and a room full of coders hitting mechanical keyboards all day was just bad for your ears. Current mechanical switches are much better but I'm out for a working scenario. Mechanical keyboards are better for gamming but membrane are more comfortable for typing long hours. You can just rest your hands on the keyboard as well. Most mechanical will just type ...
@@cameronsprague101 Paying more money for something that isn't better is just dumb.
Proud owner of Redragon Draconic K530. Got it for 2500 russian rubles (about 30 USD) on a sale as a first keyboard i modded. Replaced the stock Outemu Brown switches with Akko Rose Reds, lubed them with some universal spray lube and dampened. Very happy with result. Bluetooth up to 3 devices, RGB lights, pretty small size (get used to button combinations for stuff like F1-F12 and so on tho). Great keyboard if you want to get into modding for cheap.
I just miss the days of prolific analogue keyboards. Particularly in driving, stealth and escort missions, being able to feather your speed is such a boon. It is also an absolute necessity for emulations of console exclusives and 3DS games.
The 10KR is an absolute must for some older games as well. Many early games didn't utilize the mouse leaving you with WASD+IJKL, WASD+ Numpad 84562 or (rarely) top-row 12345678+arrow keys. Eragon is a great example of this where you regularly get to 8+ keys in open combat.
My friend bought this keyboard recently. Thanks to your video he will be returning it to shop soon.
Loved this video. I agree with other comments about the value of calling companies out on their BS.
On another note, I'm suprised the venerable Model M did not show face in this episode! No harm done. I was waiting for it though. :D
What they mean is you have to operate them mechanically, with your fingers, not telekinetically with your mind.
I am not surprised like at all. I had some experience with HP support, it was 5 years ago or so. They always redirected to the same clerk, and no assistance at all. We had some trouble with service center, and after a month I have written again, and the same clerk just answered that she asked for a report from service center and it satisfied her. That is all. "If you have evidence you may go to court" - she said.
man redragon have been killing it in the budget keyboard space for a while now. i also recommend epomaker, yunzii, and royal kludge for the best bang-for-your-buck . a lot of them offer gateron or other high quality switches and dual-shot pbt keycaps. with both of those things combined you're pretty much set and can easily replace things if they break down the line. typically they even come with extra switches just in case.
Redragon upgraded their pcbs to 5 pin now. Their k550 barebones has the standard 5 pin sockets.
Still rocking Ducky Shine 3 with black Cherry MX switches here, couldn't be happier. For me, the Cherry MX black is the way to go. This and an SSD were my best upgrades. Thanks LMG!
I have an HP laptop that experienced the weird inconsistent, zoned, key roll over. I discovered this when designing a rhythm game for a university project, it was the bane of my existence.
I am grateful for the key rollover review. I play Rocket League on PKB, and kickoffs use about 5-6 keys at once.
I bought the Logitech G413 for a home office setup and it's been great. Nice solid frame and good action without being loud.
Personally, even for my desktops, I've always just gone for scissor switches. I just type a bit better with the lower travel and like the look better.
Holy moly. I remember considering buying this for my sister as a cheap mech keyboard. Thank god reviews that said that the keys often get "stuck" made me buy another keyboard.