I tested the ‘world’s first ceramic keyboard’ and I’m officially converted from plastic for good

At first glance, the Keychron Q16 HE looks like, well, any other 65% keyboard. Maybe a little glossier than most, I’ll grant, but there’s nothing that gives away any abnormal design elements. As it happens, though, this board is made from the same stuff the ancient Greeks made pots out of. Well, probably not exactly… look, it’s a ceramic keyboard, okay?

So what does that mean? Pretty much exactly how it sounds. The Q16 HE’s case and keys are all made from a ceramic material, painted and polished to a gloriously smooth, glossy finish. And as tacky as I thought it would be when Keychron offered me one to test, I have to admit, I’m a little bit in love.

The Q16 HE is an absolute joy to type on, in large part thanks to its construction materials. It features Keychron’s powerful Hall Effect switches, bringing the familiar roster of magnetic gaming features those usually entail. And that’s really about it — as avante-garde as this keyboard may sound, it’s actually a fairly simple little thing.

So could it be one of the best keyboards for you? Find out in my full Keychron Q16 HE review.

Keychron Q16 HE review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 65% magnetic keyboard with a ceramic case and keys
• Who is it for? Gamers and typists, but predominantly the former
• What does it cost? $229 I’m afraid
• What’s good? The beautiful design, type feel and gaming performance
• What’s not? The price, plus limitations to switches, layout and connectivity

Keychron Q16 HE review: Specs

Keychron Q16 HE review: The ups

With a beautiful ceramic design, delightful typing experience and a complete roster of elite magnetic gaming features, the Q16 HE is a tiny powerhouse.

A visual and sensory experience

The light green, glossy elephant in the room is, of course, the Q16 HE’s ceramic design. Keychron calls it the “world’s first ceramic keyboard” which is half true. Ceramic keycaps have been a thing for a while, but as far as I’m aware, Keychron is the first to make a board with a ceramic case, too.

The Q16 HE uses “modern ceramic,” according to Keychron, whatever “modern” means in this context. I guess it’s some kind of finely-tuned composite ceramic — many generations evolved from the stuff people have been using to make amphorae for thousands of years. But whatever it is, it’s utterly gorgeous when you put it on a keyboard, especially on keycaps.

The ultra-smooth finish is just a sensory marvel. It took me quite some time to start typing this review (which I’m writing on the Q16 HE) as I couldn’t stop caressing the caps. Under fingers, the ceramic feels silky smooth, but it’s odd — at the same time there’s also plenty of friction there, so them digits ain’t slippin’.

And, while I know beauty is subjective, I think the glossy finish looks beautiful, too. Believe me, I can well understand how a shiny keyboard might sound tacky. I thought that too when Keychron initially offered to send me one for review. I still wasn’t converted even after unboxing it. Sitting down with it in earnest for testing, though, with the reflections of my monitor glimmering gently on the corner of each key, all backlit by the RGB — man, it’s so pwetty.

You can buy the Q16 HE 8K in either Light Green (so light it’s basically an off-white) or Navy Blue. I’m very happy I took the green version, as the lighter color blends better with the constant reflections on the caps. The blue, by comparison, always looks a little frosty in the light, as if someone spat on it.

The board’s RGB is also truly lovely. The LEDs are north-facing but nice and powerful. This means you avoid the lights glaring in your eyes from under the caps (as with south-facing), while the high power allows plenty of light bleed, giving you a beautiful holistic glow across the entire board. The Q16 HE also features per-key RGB and zonal configuration in the Keychron Launcher app, and I love the latter in particular. It allows you to set zones of color and mix things up a bit. Zonal RGB is a fairly new thing for Keychron as I write this, but I’m glad it’s been adopted — it’s one of my favorite elements of boards like the Wooting 80HE.

Delightful for typing

The Keychron Q16 HE is just delightful to type on. There’s those ceramic keycaps, of course, with their mind-bogglingly-juxtaposed combination of slippery and grippy feel. But the profile makes a big difference, too — Cherry, for that classic typing (and gaming) feel. Cherry profile is medium-low, making it fast and comfortable (by reducing the stretch your fingers need to make versus decidedly high or low profiles).

Look Mom! Faster than average speed while maintaining above average accuracy on the Q16 HE! Oh, she doesn’t care. Well, I do. The Q16 HE types good, especially when the actuation is backed off in the companion software (the sweet spot for me is 2.6mm).

My results were similar to my scores on other Cherry-profile boards, like the NuPhy Field75 HE, which figures. Personally, I prefer Keychron’s OSA and profile, as you can see by my faster times on the Keychron K2 HE Rosewood. But that’s splitting hairs.

The Q16 HE’s switches are Keychron’s “Ultra-Fast” Lime switches, and they’re fine. They’re one of the handful of magnetic switches that Keychron sticks in all its HE keyboards these days, and they hardly set the world alight. But they’re extremely light, requiring just 30g actuation force for a lovely floaty feeling. If you’re mainly typing, though, I’d recommend a mechanical board like the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K ($114) or NuPhy Halo75 V2, which offer more switch variety, so you can choose the typing characteristics you prefer.

Admittedly, the fast and pleasant typing is all undermined slightly by a tray-mounted PCB, which is very firm in comparison to gasket mounted designs. It’s a little uncomfortable, especially with so little resistance coming from those light switches, and by this point in the review (almost 700 words in as I type the first draft) the ends of my fingers are feeling slightly bruised.

Remember, though, that while it may ostensibly be a hybrid productivity/gaming keyboard, as a magnetic deck, the Q16 HE is skewed decidedly towards the latter. There’d be little point in having 0.1mm switch actuation if the PCB moved by more than that due to springy mounting (i.e. a gasket mount), so the rigid mount makes sense.

Enjoyable(ish) sound

The first thing you’ll notice about the Keychron Q16 HE is that it’s hella loud — symptomatic of the ceramic caps and an aluminum plate. I share a home office with my wife, and her first words as I started typing were genuinely: “F***ing hell, that’s loud.”

The sound is rather enjoyable, falling somewhere between a thock and a clack; neither one nor the other. The ceramic caps and case, plus two fat layers of sound absorbing foam/latex underneath the plate give a deep, thocky resonance, which is lovely. But Keychron then tray mounted an aluminum plate, which results in a harsher, higher-pitched clack that feels a little at odds with the rest of the acoustic profile.

If acoustics were the primary concern, I’d have liked to see a polycarbonate or FR4 plate and gasket mount to reduce that clack, although again it’s important to remember that sound wasn’t Keychron’s only consideration here. The rigid plate and tray mount are better suited to gaming. And besides, while it isn’t as addictive as the noise of the NuPhy Halo75 V2 or Wobkey Rainy 75 Pro, I still enjoy the Q16 HE’s sound.

Cutting edge gaming performance

Although the Keychron Q16 HE straddles the line between a gaming and productivity keyboard, it’s indisputably more inclined towards the former.

Firstly, it’s a 65% deck, which while usable for productivity, is better suited to gaming (due to lacking the Fn row). I love a 65% layout for gaming — I prefer having my boards way out on the left, and a small board gives me so much flexibility with placement.

Oh, and it polls at 8K. Keyboard manufacturers love selling this to you as the be-all end-all, but it ain’t. 8K is snake oil. 1K boards poll plenty fast enough for gaming without hogging system resources. Thankfully, you can adjust polling in the Keychron Launcher companion app, scaling poll rate between 125Hz and 8,000Hz based on your requirements. Above 1,000Hz, you can choose 2,000Hz or 4,000Hz rates.

Switches

More important, though, are the Q16 HE’s magnetic switches. Keychron’s Ultra-Fast Limes are gaming switches through and through. Firstly, there’s the lightness of the things — they only require 30g of actuation force, making them feel physically extremely agile in use. On Counter-Strike 2, the switch-feel alone made for very easy and responsive play.

The switches also offer Keychron’s usual array of magnetic gaming features. You can adjust actuation down to 0.1mm for ultra rapid triggering — handy in fast-paced FPS games where speed matters. I tend to use this feature for movement keys rather than other actions, so I don’t accidentally throw grenades with a knock, for example.

There’s Rapid Trigger, which allows instant reset on releasing the key (as opposed to letting the whole key physically recycle, as with most mechanical switches). This lets you repeat inputs rapidly in quick succession — yes, in other words: key mashing.

And of course, there are selectable SOCD resolutions, defining how the keyboard behaves when two keys are actuated simultaneously. One SOCD is Last Key Prioritization, which (surprise, surprise) prioritizes the last key pressed, also known as ‘Snap Tap.’ This makes counter strafing much easier — basically, it lets you draw to a complete stop from sideways movement by pressing the opposite direction key, reducing accuracy debuffs in games where movement is graduated (slowing to a stop, with accuracy debuffed until you hit that stop). Expect to be kicked from Counter-Strike 2 immediately when you use it, although Valorant still lets you use the feature.

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Keychron has packed loads of other features, too, including an analog gamepad simulator, customizable long press behavior (where a long press can repeatedly trigger the command), and up to four commands per actuation cycle. Essentially, there’s about as full a roster of magnetic features as you can expect from any gaming keyboard today.

Decent customizability

As with most Keychron boards, the Keychron Q16 HE is fairly customizable. Now, as a magnetic board, that modding potential only goes so far — hot-swap switch choices are non-existent, but I’ll cover that more later.

Still, there’s plenty of scope to customize the board from a software standpoint. It runs Keychron’s proprietary firmware, which allows you to tweak almost every aspect of the board’s function from the Keychron Launcher companion software: key assignments; macros; lighting; gaming features; poll rate; debounce; you name it.

Lift up those ceramic keys and you’ll see the screws of the tray mounted plate and PCB assembly, allowing you to open up the board from the top to mess around with the internal composition — to add or remove acoustic damping, for instance.

You could also replace the keycaps, but they’re so inherent to the spirit of this board that I’m not sure why you’d want to.

Keychron Q16 HE review: The downs

For all its virtues, the Keychron Q16 HE is let down mildly in a few areas, although for the most part these are just things to be aware of pre-purchase, to make sure you’re happy.

Quite pricey

The Keychron Q16 HE’s only major con is its price. It costs $229, which is objectively a lot of money. Now, the $200 mark is de rigueur for elite magnetic gaming keyboards, but usually only the 75-100% layouts. $229 is especially steep for a 65% — for context, the similarly tiny NuPhy Air60 HE (60%) costs just $139. The counter to that argument is, of course, that the Q16 HE offers something special with its ceramic build, and I can get on board with that. I wouldn’t judge you for making the spend, let’s put it that way.

Oddly, the Q16 HE is unavailable via Keychron U.K., but can be purchased in the U.K. ISO layout via Keychron’s U.S. website. Now, if you really, really want a Q16 HE in the U.K. and you’re prepared to pay for international shipping on top of the $229 price, well, you’re crazy — but don’t let me stop you. The thing is, that target market seems like a pretty small number of people. So are the U.K. (plus German, Nordic, Spanish and Swiss) ISO layout boards ostensibly aimed entirely at… expat communities living in the U.S.? So odd.

Wired only

The Keychron Q16 HE 8K is wired-only, which may affect your decision to buy it. This is fairly normal for 8K magnetic boards, like the NuPhy Air60 HE and Lemokey L5 HE. Still, if you want the flexibility of a wireless keyboard, you’ll currently need to opt for something with a lower 1,000Hz poll rate like the fantastic Keychron K2 HE (and as I pointed out earlier, 1,000Hz polling is totally fine).

65% only

While I love a 65% layout for gaming, I’d really like to see Keychron bring the ceramic design to more boards — currently, 65% is your only option. The Q16 HE is great for gaming, but that’s mostly to do with its layout and switches. In my opinion, the look and feel of ceramic are much better suited to productivity keyboards, where 75% and upward layouts dominate. If Keychron launched this thing in a 75% mechanical guise with a PC plate, it’d have to shut up and take my money.

Limited switch choices

Another pre-purchase consideration is the Keychron Q16 HE’s lack of hot-swappability. See, magnetic switches are a lot more software-driven and therefore more complicated than mechanical switches. Firmware needs to be aligned with the switches, and we still aren’t seeing any magnetic boards that can use magnetic switches from different manufacturers.

So, while the Q16 HE is technically hot-swappable — you can remove the switches — in reality, it ain’t really. There just aren’t any switches you can swap to. Here’s what Keychron’s website says under the ‘hot-swappable’ marketing header: “The Q16 HE 8K currently isn't compatible with Gateron, Jade, or other magnetic switches.” So what switches does that leave, Keychron?

Keychron Q16 HE review: Verdict

The Keychron Q16 HE 8K isn’t perfect, I know. It’s expensive and limiting — only available in a single layout, a single connectivity configuration and with a single set of switches.

But… I love this little keyboard. It’s utterly adorable, in large part thanks to the gorgeous ceramic design, which looks and feels incredible. It’s been a joy to type on and, although loud and a little unrefined, its acoustics are pretty good, too. It’s also a monster for gaming, thanks to the compact layout, Cherry profile keycaps and enormous roster of magnetic gaming goodies. Consider me converted to ceramic.