Love at first click

You might be wondering if I am crazy but I am not! I recently acquired a POK3R mechanical keyboard and I love typing on it! It is a cherry mx blue keyboard with PBT keycaps.

What’s so special about this?

Well it is a 60% keyboard, which means it doesn’t have arrow keys, it doesn’t have the numpad, none of the extras. The form factor was one of the biggest appeal for me, apart from that it is also a programmable keyboard but I haven’t gotten to that yet because I just only received this keyboard.

Nearly a month back I got all crazy and obssessed with mechanical keyboards, and thats when it all started - the quest for the best mechanical keyboard. I spent time reading about the various switches and gouging through various reddit posts. After spending hours researching and reading posts online trying to figure out the kind of switch I should be buying I decided to get a cherry mx blue keyboard also known as the loud clicky switch keyboard. Because I was obsessed about mechanical keyboards, I wanted to avoid taking irrational deicsions like buying the hacking keyboard pro which is $200+(which did cross my mind), instead I went for CM storm quickfire rapid. After a week or so of purchasing that keybaord I got a mail from massdrop about an ongoing drop on the KBP V60 keyboard. That is when I learned about the 60% keyboard. The idea of having a compact keyboard without arrow keys or the extra keys for delete, insert, pageup…etc. kind of piqued my interest. I could see how it would be useful, because you don’t need to leave the home row for using the arrow keys which I always felt disrupted my typing and workflow.

My new found addiction was 60% keyboard at this point and that addiction took the better of me, so I went and ordered the KBP v60 matias version on mechanicalkeyboards.com. Quickly after getting the keyboard and using it, I got hooked to the 60% form factor but after using it for a while I realized that it would be nice to have the arrow keys on “jikl” as opposed to “lp;’” on the V60. That is when I started searching to see if there were any keyboards out there that actually had that and voila “POK3R”. So I returned the V60 in favour for the POK3R keyboard.

To my dismay, all the POK3R’s online where either sold out or were available on other switches like cherry mx brown, green etc. Because I was desperate to own a POK3R I went and bought a switch tester to see if cherry mx brown or clear switches would be something that would be good to type on or if it sounds that good. Unfortunately none of the 2 switches came close to the feel and sound of Cherry mx blues.

By some stroke of luck I found one cherry mx blue POK3R on amazon which was backlit and had ABS keycaps. This was when I started researching about the keycaps and in my research I had alot of people say PBT keycaps are nice to type on. But I went and bought the abs backlit version of POK3R anyway because I couldn’t wait. However, the backlit version had a loud hissing noise whenever I turned on the backlight, Google-ing revealed that it was a known issue and that a firmware update would fix the issue. The firmware update was only possible on windows machines and I had a macbook pro. At this point I had no other option but to return it and so I did. Soon after I went back to mechanicalkeyboard.com to pre-order a RGB version of POK3R, to my surprise I found a POK3R cherry mx blue with PBT keycaps, without any hesitation I placed an order.

And after a week here I am typing this blog post on this awesome keyboard. In hindisght I am so glad I returned the KBP v60, and that the backlit version of POK3R had the hissing noise otherwise I wouldn’t have found my true best which is this POK3R with cherry mx blue switches and PBT keycaps. I also noticed that the PBT version of POK3R cherry mx blue makes less noise compared to the ABS keycaps version.

Now for the review: I will keep it short and sweet as there are good detailed reviews out there on the internet. The keyboard is compact as it should be because of its 60% form factor. But don’t be fooled by the size, the keyboard is quiet heavy and the build is quiet sturdy. I love the Cherry mx blue switches, with the PBT keycaps it certainly doesn’t make that much noise compared to the abs keycaps. If you like the cherry mx blue switches or any switch for that matter and want to try out a 60% keyboard I am sure you wont go wrong purchasing a POK3R keyboard.

Link for purchasing the keyboard (it isn’t any affiliate link, just so you know :P)

Link to my keyboard(I am still trying to figure out how to resize the image to that I don’t need to scroll in Hugo)

Something I left out in this post was that the I lost considerable amount on the return(just be aware that there is a restocking fees on mechanicalkeyboards.com and I sent my v60 through fedex so lost considerable moeny on the return) but it was all worth it in the end.