The Glorious PC Gaming Race GMMK-BRN Modular Mechanical Keyboard Review
by E. Fylladitakis on November 1, 2016 10:00 AM ESTFinal Words
I always try to use every keyboard that we review as my personal keyboard for at least a week. My typical weekly usage includes a lot of typing (about 100-150 pages), a few hours of gaming and some casual usage, such as internet browsing and messaging. The Glorious PC Gaming Race GMMK-BRN with the Gateron Brown switches was an excellent keyboard for my professional needs. The tactile switches are great for typing and their low noise output helps with the long term comfort of the user. A wrist rest is a necessity for long term typing though, as the height of the keyboard is unforgiving to the wrists. Note that all mechanical switches, including these, are audible when the key bottoms down and when it resets, so they can easily become annoying while working late at night or near others. Audible tactile switches such as the Cherry MX Blue variants just magnify this issue.
The primary focus of this keyboard is gaming and while it works as a basic keyboard, gamers accustomed to advanced features commonly found on today's high-end keyboards will find it inadequate for the task. It is of high quality and responsive, but lacks virtually any features that would assist gamers. There are no extra macro buttons or dedicated media controls and no programmability capabilities at all. For all practical purposes, the Glorious GMMK-BRN is just a typical mechanical keyboard, without any advanced functions at all. This may be suitable for certain types of games, such as most FPS/Action games, but it's more likely to be an issue for advanced MOBA/MMO/RPG gamers, where macro use is more common.
Glorious PC Gaming Race markets the GMMK-BRN as a minimalistic design, with even the LED indicators being discreet. The aluminum top cover with the chamfered edges and the floating design do enthuse elegance, but we feel that the reddish ESC keycap intrudes into the overall design theme. We also feel unsure about the glossy sides of the keycaps, especially when the LEDs are turned on. Some people do like glossy surfaces but they can be a pain to keep clean. They are also easily scratched, requiring great attention when using a keycap puller.
The ability to remove and replace the switches is the primary selling feature of this keyboard, allowing the users to easily mix and match several switch types. This is interesting as a concept, but we feel that few users will find it actually practical, especially considering that the keyboard is lacking any advanced features whatsoever. There are very few users that actually want to mix different switches onto a single keyboard, and we struggle to come up with scenarios where it makes sense to do so. It could be a useful feature for separating different groups of keys to generate a layout purely designed for gaming, but the mixing of different switch types on a keyboard that cannot be reprogrammed in any way simply does not make much sense.
The true advantage of having modular switches on such a keyboard is the ability to change to a different type of switch without having to buy a whole keyboard. The disadvantage is that the ability to remove the switches raises reliability concerns. The board is designed so as to have gold-plated contacts on the PCB pressing against the contact pins of the switches. These contacts can need adjustment after several switch changes, especially if switches from different manufacturers are being used. Glorious recommends that the contacts should be adjusted using tweezers. With the plating on the contacts being just a few μm thick, they can be damaged in the long term, eventually forcing the user to either replace the contacts or buy another board.
Overall, the Glorious PC Gaming Race GMMK-BRN Modular Mechanical Keyboard is a fine quality product, with an attractive, minimalist aesthetic design. The board lacks any significant advanced functionality though, and the ability to replace the switches without the keyboard being capable of any advanced programmability functions means there aren't very many useful applications for that ability. Ultimately we believe that though solid, the keyboard is too simplistic to be priced against advanced gaming keyboards; that buyers are unlikely to benefit from the $99 keyboard's minimalism. With competitors offering fully programmable keyboards using original Cherry MX switches attached for less than what the GMMK-BRN currently retails for, the keyboard occupies an odd niche as a minimalist keyboard for gamers willing to pay premium prices, and a niche that we feel will cause it to struggle to compete in today’s cutthroat market.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
37 Comments
View All Comments
Icehawk - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
Chiclet/short keys suck IMO - our work desktops from HP come with very flat keyboards and short travel and it was the very first thing I changed out. I find them super annoying when I type on them at other users desks. Tall keys just need a decent wrist rest for me to use comfortably but of course YMMVIs there any silent mechanical board out there? I have a Corsair (hate the key spacing, too narrow causing mistypes) and even with o-rings it clacks more than I like.
FUBARette - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
@IceHawk: Check this out for silent mechanical keyboards. I cannot vouch for the veracity of their claims, but it seems worth a look. They've included audio clips comparing their keyboard decibels to the louder mechanical decibels. http://matias.ca/quietpro/pc/DanNeely - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
At $150 for what's otherwise a no-frills design that's a really high price. Depending on what the R&D for the new switch cost it might be justifiable from a financial perspective. Not something I'd even thing about buying sight unseen though. I wonder if they'd be willing to send a review sample?Lord of the Bored - Thursday, November 3, 2016 - link
"Chiclet/short keys suck IMO " I didn't wanna be the one to say it, but... yeah.Super-short throw and as an added bonus, I use the raised key edges for tracking my location on the board and they tend to have flat keytops, leading to a lot of looking at the board.
I do find it funny how we've ridden the ramp of increasingly cheaper keyboards for so long. Early home computers had flat membranes and rubber calculator keys(Atari 400, TI 99/4, Sinclair's garbage), and then backed off of that approach for full-throw microswitches even on cheap machines like the C64... and we've steadily slid back from that high standard.
We finally hit the point where completely flat keyboards were an available option again right as the market started to swing back towards microswitches.
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
The height of the mechanicals is slightly misleading, since the switches actually activate a couple mm(2mm for Cherry brand) into the switch travel. Once you feel the bump of the switch(assuming it's a tactile switch and not linear), you can release and move to the next key.Lord of the Bored brought up some good points too. Not bashing your fingers on the dome's bottom-out is nice.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, November 3, 2016 - link
"Not bashing your fingers on the dome's bottom-out is nice."That's really not a problem if you're not heavy-handed about typing. I know a lot of people get into their games and really smash the keys as they experience a variety of emotional responses they have trouble controlling, but in those situations it's better to learn how to pay attention to and manage your emotions (or at the very least, exit the situation causing them until things get under control) than it is to buy equipment to compensate for that lack. After all, despite the "no bottom out" being espoused as an advantage, the vast majority of people will still depress the keys to their full length of travel and do the same things to their fingers they would on a rubber dome keyboard. At least with rubber domes, much of that shock is absorbed by the bumper-like soft cap under the key which minimizes shock and helps greatly with finger health versus an undampened mechanical switch.
Mr Perfect - Thursday, November 3, 2016 - link
For me, the issue was still the switch design. Rubber domes literally don't activate until they bottom out, contacting the PCB and completing the circuit. So no matter how calm someone's typing it's necessary to have an impact.On the other hand, the Cherrys activate 2mm into a 5mm travel distance, so it's really easy for me to float around without ever hitting bottom. Especially with MX Clears, there's no way I can miss the tactile bump on those suckers.
YMMV
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, November 3, 2016 - link
That just seems like such a rarity. I've watched people play video games before and they get pretty intense with the button bashing (moreso the guys since they tend to experience more intense emotions and are a lot more competitive when playing). Even typing is usually a "press down all the way" sort of thing. I think it's really wired into human minds to force the key down. Without a layer of rubber down there to soak up shock, the finger joints ultimately absorb all of that impact which really takes the wind from the sails of the different activation point argument. As durability is already a questionable benefit in the cost vs longevity argument when the mechanical costs +$100 and the membrane board retails for $15, there's just so little left to hang onto for vendors and their customers to hang onto in order to justify the costs.Anyway...since I've spent pretty much my entire working life tapping away at keyboards because of IT jobs, writing novels, and playing computer games, I've gone through a few keyboard designs to try to sort out inevitable joint issues (moreso in the past few years since arthritis and repetitive strain injuries are really catching up with me for all those decades of abuse) and I've been most comfortable with short travel distance membrane keyboards. In particular, the keyboards on the past few Dell Latitudes I've used (e6420 - e6440 and other non-ultrabook e-series notebooks in the Sandy Bridge to Haswell generations) are the most comfortable keyboards I've put my fingers on. Most desktop keyboards with membranes are pretty good for shock absorbtion, but my knuckle joints and the first finger joint beyond that are really not happy with mechanical keyboard impact at all. In that way, I sort of agree with the argument in the comments box that chiclet keyboards are a really good alternative since there's a lot less joint motion which, as anyone with a replacement knee can tell you, is responsible for wear and tear of things that don't grow back.
I can't imagine what my kids' friends are going to be like when they hit their 40s and 50s. A lot of them bring mechanical boards along with them to LAN parties we host here (big driveway so all their cars fit in it without anyone having to park on the street) and none of them pay attention to how they're typing on those things. It's only a matter of time before doing that catches up with you. I just don't think it's worth trying to justify the higher price of a mechanical keyboard with some of those vendor-invented reasons. If you do find yourself bottoming out keys anyway when you type like most people do, you're going to be doing yourself a huge favor by giving your joints some rubber cushioning even if that amount is minimal.
Mr Perfect - Friday, November 4, 2016 - link
Yeah, it's definitely human nature to bottom out. Not doing that was something I had to intentionally learn when I grabbed a used mech board.Keyboards are all so subjective anyhow. Even in the mech niche no one can agree on which switch is easiest to use. Cherry, Topre, Alps, buckling spring, linear, tactile, light springs, heavy springs, tall caps, short caps, plate mount, PCB mount etc... Definitely a first world problem.
Sudarshan_SMD - Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - link
This is certainly no the second keyboard in the market with ability to swap switches.One that I know is Teamwolf Zhuque TKL keyboard.
https://www.amazon.com/Teamwolf-Zhuque-Backlit-Mec...