Introduction and unboxing
Hello everyone! Today we are going to look at the best beginner keyboard of the time, the Boy GMK67. During my time in the hobby, I’ve built a lot of budget beginner keyboards, but this one is my favorite. Boy sent this keyboard in exchange for my honest opinion, and all opinions are of course my own. So, let’s dive in!
What is good about this keyboard? Well, the GMK67 is a gasket mounted 65% keyboard kit. It’s hot-swappable, has a Bluetooth-mode connection, and has RGB on the south side. I sent it in white, but they also sell it in black, blue, green, pink, purple, and red, so there are plenty of options for you to choose from. The keyboard has a lot of good features, and to make it even better, the availability is top notch. This is an in-stock custom keyboard kit that goes for $69.99 through Amazon, so shipping is quick and easy. You don’t even have to deal with shipping from China.
Ok, so you’ve heard the specs and all that, so let’s go ahead and take a look at what you get inside the box. Obviously you get the keyboard itself, which comes wrapped in a plastic sheet, but you also get some useful accessories. You get a switch and keycap puller, a braided cable, and finally, the manual.
GMK67 Design and build quality
Let’s take a closer look at the GMK67 and talk about the design and build quality. Being a plastic keyboard, it feels quite solid and well built. As you may have noticed, the keyboard has a volume knob, and to the left of the arrow keys, you have a blocker that shows the battery level. The design of the keyboard is quite ungainly but looks good at the same time.
The front lip is really plain; There’s nothing special about it, and the side profile has a bit of a curve. On the back, from right to left, you have the connection port with toggles for the operating system and connection. You also get storage for a USB dongle inside the keyboard, which is really handy. At the bottom, there are four rubber feet in addition to the height adjusters with the logo in the middle.
Tear
We’ve seen the GMK67 from the outside, but let’s open up the keyboard and see what’s inside. To open the board, you need to remove the volume knob and then try to open the clips on the case. I personally used a card; Although it’s a bit tricky, it worked in the end. Now that the top frame is off, we can see the purn gasket attached to it. We then proceed to undo the three cables, and now we have access to the polycarbonate plate. Underneath the PC plate, we find some porous plate foam and a porous switch pad sandwiched between the PCBs. The PCB uses Kailh hot-swap sockets and RGB on the south side. On the bottom, we find a thin piece of case foam and more gaskets. There’s also a daughter board, a 3,000mAh battery, and a rotary encoder.
Build
Let’s reassemble the keyboard, starting with the stabilizers. The plate mounted stabilizers come from the factory with what looks like dielectric grease, but I’m going to clean it up and apply some 205g0 and XHT-BDZ. Also, I won’t be doing any other mods because I want to see how capable this keyboard is with just its stock foams. For switches, I’m going with some lubed AO V3 cream yellows as they are one of my favorite budget switches. I’ll also go with the black and white keycaps of the PBT fans.
Conclusion
What are my final thoughts on GMK67? Well, I can’t really recommend anything other than this keyboard because it’s all there is to getting into the keyboard hobby for a newbie, except for the switches and keycaps. But you got my point. You get all the foam you need, bluetooth mod connection, south facing RGB, polycarbonate plate, and the list goes on. The only negative point is that the keyboard is not easy to open, but other than that, the GMK67 is a great custom keyboard for beginners. Even if you’re a seasoned keyboard enthusiast, I’m sure you’ll still find this keyboard a lot of fun. So, if you are interested in buying the product, the product link is in the description. That was basically it for my review of the Boy GMK67.
