The Lofree Flow 2 is the most beautiful mechanical keyboard I’ve tested — but there’s one huge drawback

The Lofree Flow 2 is the successor to the beautiful-but-flawed original Lofree Flow, and comes hot on the heels of the affordable-but-flawed Lofree Flow Lite. The Flow 2 addresses the key issues of both its forebears, namely battery life and software customization.

As such, I was pretty excited when I first saw this board. Finally, could this be the Flow for me? Well, it certainly has some things going for it. In Lofree fashion, it looks and types beautifully. It’s exquisitely built and, as I mentioned above, runs QMK firmware for software-based customization.

Unfortunately, this board is very far from perfect. Firstly, its touch bar, while good in theory, is so annoying as to be pointless, and you’ll find yourself disabling it before long. But that isn’t the really bad news. In very un-Lofree fashion, the Flow 2 sounds pretty darn awful thanks to stabilizer issues and the board’s unique internal acoustics.

So, could this still be the best mechanical keyboard for you? Find out in my full Lofree Flow 2 review.

Lofree Flow 2 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A low-profile, hot-swappable custom productivity keyboard
• Who is it for? Typists and casual gamers who want a sleek, portable deck for work
• How much does it cost? From $149 at Amazon
• What’s good? Virtually everything: styling, typing, build, battery and firmware
• What isn’t? Heavy keystrokes ricochet and the touchbar is annoyingly placed

Lofree Flow 2 review: Specs

Lofree Flow 2 review: The ups

The Lofree Flow 2’s styling is on point, the typing is great and it boasts long-overdue upgrades to its predecessor in the battery and firmware department, too.

Beautiful to behold

The Lofree Flow 2’s most obvious asset is its looks. It’s a gorgeous keyboard in either the black or white guises. Both employ the Flow line’s typical minimalism, and there are many similarities between the new and OG Flow: the anodized aluminum case, a simple white backlight and understated keycaps. It’s sleek enough to sit in the most fashionable of offices, and an excellent alternative to the Apple Magic Keyboard.

The Flow 2 gets a wider case than the equivalent OG Flow variants, with a ledge that juts out on the right-hand side — this is to accommodate the touch bar hardware internally, but also hosts the status light and a rather charming engraved Lofree logo.

Build quality is exquisite. The matte aluminum case (milled from a single block of aluminum), doubleshot PBT/PC keycaps and extensive attention to detail on the underside exterior elements all speak to a board that’ll outlast its own switches.

The Flow 2’s natural rivals are the low-profile NuPhy Air75 V3 and NuPhy Node75 (in its LP variant). The Air75 V3 is an equally dashing board, but employs a cutesy, colorful minimalism versus the Flow 2’s monochromatic, almost Scandi vibe — it just depends on what you want. The Node75 is closer to matching the Flow’s achromatic wavelength, but the NuPhy’s plastic case doesn’t exude anything close to the classiness or quality of the Lofree.

As enjoyable to type on, too

The Flow 2 is an utter joy to type on. The keycaps are doubleshot, with PBT on the top and polycarbonate on the underside for shine through. They feel lovely to the touch — very slightly textured, enough to provide grip without feeling too rough.

Lofree has reshaped the caps from the OG Flow, too. The surface area has been increased and the chamfer steepened, both to help you more quickly and accurately find and hit keys. As you can see from the results below, on the Flow 2, I saw a roughly 4% accuracy increase over the OG Flow while maintaining the same type speed, which is two points above my average. Not that the OG Flow was a bad board to type on — far from it. The Flow 2 is just better.

The board feels great to type on. Partly that’s down to the switches used, but those are getting their own section below. It’s also down to the internal construction: a gasket-mounted PCB, two layers of foam and a couple of layers of plastic damping. It isn’t the softest or bounciest board, and the gasket mount in particular is fairly firm, but it’s far from an uncomfortably hard setup to type on.

Kailh switches feel lovely

The Flow 2 uses new Kailh x Lofree Cloud switches, available in three guises: Surfer (Linear), Void (Silent) and Pulse (Tactile). I’ve tested the Surfer and Pulse switches.

Gone is the OG Flow’s clicky option, but good riddance — this is a keyboard for grown-ups after all, and will feasibly sit in many offices.

Each of the new switches requires just 40g of force to actuate, which is lower across the board from the previous gen and makes the Flow 2 feel a little lighter to type on. Although nowhere near as light as the floaty Gateron LP 3.0 switches in the NuPhy Air75 V3, with their long 3.5mm travel (versus 2.8mm on the Kailhs).

I wouldn’t say the Flow 2’s switches are better than the OG Flow’s, though. I loved the slightly more elastic Kailh Phantom tactiles in the OG Flow, but I’ve enjoyed the new Pulse tactiles, too. The new switches do have a larger LED window than older ones, though, which allows for brighter backlighting — so that’s a bonus.

There’s a bigger problem with the sound of the switches, which I’ll cover later on.

Adjustable feet (on an aluminum board!)

I’ve tested a lot of keyboards with aluminum cases, like the Keychron Q1 Pro, NuPhy Nos75, Wobkey Rainy 75 and MCHOSE GX87. I can’t remember a single one with an entirely aluminum case that has had adjustable feet.

See, adding adjustable feet to an aluminum case requires more complex and costly machining. Full metal-cased boards, therefore, usually make do with fixed feet.

Lofree has expended some effort and cost to give the Flow 2 flip-out feet by simply splitting the aluminum into different bits, allowing it to machine feet mounts and recesses more easily.

You can either lay the board flat or at 7°, which gives you a little control over your typing angle and comfort. The feet themselves are aluminum, with anti-slip rubber tips to prevent movement. They flick in and out of place with a satisfying little clunk and, best of all, the connectivity switch sits under the top right foot — neat.

1,000Hz polling

Make no mistake, this isn’t a gaming board per se. But it polls at 1,000Hz to reduce missed inputs, and the switches are fairly responsive, making it fine for a spot of gaming. I played a variety of games using the Flow 2, including Counter-Strike 2 and Isonzo, plus slower-paced titles like Cities Skylines 2 and Crusader Kings 3. No issues here. I particularly enjoyed using the 65%, as it gave me lots of flexibility with keyboard placement on my desk.

Long overdue battery upgrades

Finally! Lofree has fitted the Flow with a proper battery. The OG Flow used a 2,000mAh battery in the 75% variant and a 3,000mAh cell in the 96% model. With the 75% Flow84, that netted you only around 40 hours of use.

40 hours is a week’s work, I guess, but that figure pales in significance to the several weeks I’ve been able to get from the 4,000mAh unit in boards like the NuPhy Air75 V2 and Keychron K2 HE.

In the Flow 2, Lofree has boosted battery life across the board. The 65% Flow 2 68 variant (no predecessor) gets a 2,000mAh cell for 90 hours of use, while the 75% Flow 2 84 and 96% Flow 2 100 get the 3,000mAh cell, now rated for 120 hours.

Funnily enough, as I’m typing this section, my Flow 2 100 is flashing a red light at me after around three weeks of work, with the backlight at full brightness. Much better!

And long overdue QMK

Finally 2x! Lofree has fitted the Flow2 with proper firmware: open source QMK firmware, which allows customization via the VIA web app. The OG Flow, Lofree Block and the Lofree DOT are not customizable at all. The Flow Lite is, but only via Lofree’s proprietary software, which is currently in a poor state.

When a manufacturer has good proprietary firmware and equally good software to customize it, I’m a fan of proprietary. When a manufacturer, like Lofree, hasn’t quite got there yet, I prefer QMK and VIA — it’s basic, but it works.

Using the VIA web app, you can customize the Flow 2’s key bindings, macros and lighting, although you can customize what the touchbar does. The latter isn’t unexpected — VIA is super basic. That’s why manufacturers like Keychron and NuPhy are moving away from QMK/VIA and (in some cases) back to proprietary software for magnetic boards like the Keychron K2 HE and NuPhy Air60 HE, which VIA simply doesn’t have the functionality to support.

Lofree Flow 2 review: The downs

Unfortunately, the Lofree’s otherwise fantastic performance is let down by a metal ricochet sound from the switches. Plus, the touchbar is also extremely poorly placed.

Serious ricochet sound

The Flow 2 sounds mostly OK. Fitted with the Kailh Surfer linear switches, the acoustic profile is a medium-soft clack that sounds pretty good. With the Pulse tactiles, there’s an added poppiness, which sounds great. Thanks to the plastic plate, the general sound profile is also a little muted, giving the board a creamy edge.

Unfortunately, the above is undermined by some truly terrible ricochet noise. Every time a key (particularly a larger one) is hit, there’s a metallic echo sound. This happens regardless of switch type, although it’s much worse on linear switches, and most noticeable on the bigger 96% board, thanks to the increased echo chamber inside. It’s at its very worst on the larger stabilized keys.

A quick browse showed Reddit putting this down to spring ping, where the switch spring isn’t lubed properly. However, I was doubtful this was the only issue at play: it also sounded like a case acoustics and maybe a stabilizer problem to me, because it’s much worse on the stabilized keys and wasn’t fully fixed even when I removed, opened and re-lubed switches. Lube helps dampen the sound by simply damping the switch impact a little, but the noise is still there.

I got in touch with Lofree as I wrote this section, and it turns out I was right:

Basically, noisy stabilizers are most of the issue, but due to the particular shape of the case’s inner chamber, and not enough damping therein, noise bounces around inside the board regardless.

Here’s Lofree’s potential remedy (and note: “Significantly reduced,” not eliminated)...

That sounds all well and good, but I wouldn’t blame you if even the potential of this problem is enough to put you off in the first place. I’ve asked Lofree for a later production model (mine may have been an early production unit).

Personally, I don’t think this is going to be an easy fix by just re-lubing stabilizers (because I’ve tried that). I think the board needs more sound deadening — maybe a bit of tape modding, too. I’ll update this review once I know more. Admittedly, on the smallest 65% tactile board, the sound is much quieter and certainly bearable.

Very annoying touch bar

The Lofree Flow 2 has a side-mounted touch bar that controls volume by default, but can be switched to controlling screen brightness. As I mentioned above, touch bars are a fantastic idea… until you put them on the side edges of a keyboard — as I experienced with the HHKB Studio and now the Flow 2.

On the smaller Flow 2 variants, you’ll find yourself knocking the touch bar constantly, resulting in the music you’re listening to suddenly playing back at full, deafening pelt. It's an especially common occurrence if, like me, you sometimes brace your hands with a pinky on the edge of smaller boards. Even on the larger 96% board, it still happens enough to warrant disabling the feature completely (thankfully, you can turn it off).

The NuPhy Node75 demonstrates ideal touch bar implementation — its bar is located on the front (key) face of the case, above the Fn row. You can use it quickly, but you can’t knock it by accident.

Steep-ish price

The Lofree Flow 2 starts at $139, rising to $169 for the full-size board at Lofree. Although it’s slightly pricier at Amazon, where it starts at $149 rising to $179. Now, good keyboards with premium build quality, excellent switches and refined acoustics demand a premium. So, I don’t think the Flow 2 is unfairly priced, although it is sitting at the steeper end of the market.

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to reconcile that price given the acoustic issues of the board — at least the two I tried. If you want a great-sounding low-profile for a similar amount of money, your cash is much better spent on the NuPhy Air75 V3 (although the V3 is not currently available in 65% or 96% layouts).

Lofree Flow 2 review: Verdict

The Lofree Flow 2 is a very good keyboard, and demonstrates excellent and long-overdue progress from Lofree as a manufacturer. It’s great to see passable battery life for once, not to mention the addition of QMK firmware/VIA compatibility. These solve my two main frustrations with the OG Flow, while the new model looks and types better, too.

Unfortunately, though, it’s very difficult for me to award this keyboard a higher score and one of our Recommended or Editor’s Choice badges. Not while the two units I’ve tested make such a tremendous racket. And that’s a real shame. I’m hoping to see further production units solving this issue, at which point I can revisit this review. Until then, the Lofree Flow 2 just leaves me longing for what could’ve been.