By: Aaron Lai
September 11, 2020
As you may or may not know, a few of my friends and I have been meeting up on Sundays to eat lunch after our online church service just to catch up with each other while also chatting about random topics. A few weeks back, we somehow got on the topic of hoarding. One of my friends mentioned his friend had a basement that was filled with items hoarded, but it had to be cleaned out after some flooding occurred. We joked about how we could flood basements to get rid of hoarded items. At this point, you probably would think the easiest way to flood a basement is to either clog something to stop water from draining normally or attach a hose to spray water inside. However, my friend suggested that he would "come over at night with a pack of 24 500mL water bottles" to start pouring out the water and flood the basement. We all stared at him in disbelief, but everyone soon followed it with laughter, including the friend who said this. The idea of someone wanting to flood a location, yet showing up with water bottles to make his catastrophe happen is one I find amusing. It either shows how civilized we are as people or how inexperienced we are as law-breakers. Flooding things is not exactly what we normally talk about in our daily conversation or here at APH Networks, but this was the first thought when Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kwan received our shipment box today. Obviously, what matter is the contents of the box, which is the Gigabyte AORUS K1 mechanical keyboard. How will this keyboard perform, and will we be flooding this product with praise? Hopefully, the only water we see today are the tears of joy when using the AORUS K1, so let us read on to find out!
As you can see from the photo above, it does look like this box went through some water damage as well as some drop-kicks along the way. I doubt Gigabyte would send us packages like this, so I think the blame falls solely on FedEx and their International 2Day service. Gigabyte did seem to also package their product well with a slab of foam and many layers of plastic to create a cushion for the keyboard. Fortunately, we did not have any leaking water bottles packaged with this box. Otherwise, this shipment traveled from City of Industry, California, to our APH Networks offices here in Calgary, Alberta. We will see what the retail box looks like as we continue on.
Opening up the sorry excuse for a shipping container, we are greeted with a more familiar sight in the retail box of the Gigabyte AORUS K1. After seeing the outside, I was pleasantly surprised to see the internal packaging and retail box of the AORUS K1 was in pretty good condition. The typical black and orange color scheme is very gamer-centric, but I appreciate Gigabyte sticking to their colors. As usual, Gigabyte shows off their gaming brand "AORUS" in big letters on the top and bottom edge of the front panel. The product name is shown at the front with a description of "Mechanical Gaming Keyboard" right above. The keyboard is shown off in a scaled down fashion. The front also shows off some main features, which refer to the genuine Cherry MX switches found here, RGB Fusion 2.0 software to control the keyboard, and its "full range anti-ghosting", which is really NKRO. We will explore these features later on in our review. Around the back, Gigabyte has further expanded on the aforementioned features and listed some specifications.
For those interested in the specifications, I have obtained them from the manufacturer's website for your perusal:
Interface: USB 2.0
Activation: Cherry MX Mechanical Gaming Switch
Switch Type: Red
Switch Life: 100 million times
Key Profile: Standard
Travel Distance: 4mm to the bottom
Activation Distance: 2mm to actuation point
Peak Force: Red : 45g +/- 15g
Dimension: 440*130*40 (L*W*H mm)
Weight: 1125(g) ±10%
Software: AORUS Engine
OS Support: Windows 7 / Windows 8/ Windows 10
Cable Length: 2m
Simultaneous Key input: USB N-Key Rollover (NKRO)
Report Rate: max 1000Hz
Backlighting: RGB fusion 2.0 - Per key 16.7M customizable color
Multimedia Hotkey: 22 function keys, combination work with “Fn” key
Out of the box, we have the Gigabyte AORUS K1 packaged in side the cardboard box and enclosed in a plastic bag inside. The keyboard is really the only product inside, as there are no other accessories like a key puller, additional keycaps, or a wrist rest. In addition, the cable comes already attached to the keyboard. There is some documentation inside however, which shows off some quick instructions for the secondary functions of the AORUS K1. If you were interested, Gigabyte also provides a two-year warranty with their keyboards, which is pretty standard across peripheral manufacturers.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
3. Conclusion
