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Keychron V1 Ultra 8K review
The Keychron V1 Ultra 8K is a 75% mechanical keyboard that delivers a surprisingly broad feature set given its price. Available at a price tag of just $115 — it’s currently only available in the US — it’s crammed full of features like 8,000Hz polling over both wired and 2.4GHz wireless connections, hot-swappable Silk POM switches, a dampened gasket mount construction, and a battery life measured in weeks.
I’ll start with what’s included in the box, because Keychron has thrown in a rather generous selection of bits and bobs. The standard gear is here, like a keycap removal tool, USB Type-A to Type-C adapter and an extension adapter for the wireless receiver. You’ll also find striking red replacement keycaps for the Esc and Enter keys, along with alternate caps to swap between OS-specific buttons like Command and the Windows key.
Build quality is a mixture of impressive and a little questionable, depending on where you’re looking. The PBT keycaps are a highlight with a premium feel and reassuring thickness. There’s very little wobble to speak of and even the biggest keys are well supported by pre-installed screw-in stabilizers.
It’s the outer frame that doesn’t hold up as well under pressure. There’s noticeable movement in the plastic shell, both along the front below the space bar and under any level of twist or strain when picking it up from the sides. I noticed this more when moving it around and fiddling with the keyboard itself rather than gaming or typing on it, but it’s not a great look compared to the best keyboards.
The Keychron V1 Ultra 8K only comes in one color — black with two shades of grey keycaps — and it carries quite an industrial vibe as a result. It’s a 75% layout, with 82 keys including a volume dial, and you’re given the choice of Keychron Silk POM Red, Brown, or Banana switches. I’ve been testing the latter, which sit towards the heavier end of the tactile range with a 57g actuation force. They’re fully hot-swappable too, so you can always switch things up later… if you’ll let me get away with that painful pun.
Hanging out under the keys is one of the niftier RGB lighting implementations I’ve seen in some time, as long as you’re willing to invest the effort in setting it up. You can go deep with dialing in exactly the look you want, with more than 20 effects in both per-key mode or what Keychron calls Mix RGB mode. The latter allows you to define two different zones, each with their own effects. I spent a good half an hour playing with different effects, even as someone who isn’t usually a massive RGB kinda guy.
The only downside is the keycaps are solid with no shine-through lettering, so while there is plenty of punch to the intensity and saturation of the effects, they are a little blocked.
Deeper under the hood, the V1 Ultra 8K runs on ZMK open-source firmware, which is a shift away from the QMK that powered Keychron’s previous wireless boards. Realistically, it’s not a change I imagine most people will actually notice day to day, but it’s the reason Keychron can claim a frankly absurd 660 hours of battery life. I’d like to tell you I had the spare 27 days of continual use to test whether Keychron’s claim is valid, but in my testing I barely noticed the battery percentage drop and it was quick to charge up again when plugged in, so I’ll take the company’s word for it. Connectivity covers all the bases with 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth 5.3 with support for up to three paired devices, and wired USB-C.
The headline spec is the 8,000Hz polling rate, which works across both wired and 2.4GHz modes. If we’re all being really honest with ourselves though, nobody outside of the absolute top end of esports champions is likely to notice the difference between 8K and 1K. You’re not suddenly going to get better at Fortnite, I promise. It’s impressive that such a high polling rate is an option on a keyboard of this price, but you’re probably better off running a lower spec anyway and saving any potential extra strain on your CPU.
You can tweak that polling rate, and the rest of the V1 Ultra 8K settings in the Keychron Launcher web app. I’m a big fan of this approach over a downloadable app and I found it to be loaded with options, snappy, and easy to navigate. You are limited to Chrome, Edge, or Opera, and you’ll need to be using the USB-C cable to make changes, but any settings you do tweak are saved to the keyboard itself so will carry across devices and connection modes.
So, what’s the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K like to use day to day? For most tasks, pretty great. Those Banana switches have an early tactile bump and fire off about halfway through their 3.4mm total travel distance. In practice, that makes them feel super responsive and capable of handling a lighter touch than their 57g force suggests on paper. While gaming I never felt like my actions were lagging behind and N-key rollover means simultaneous inputs all register together with no missed keystrokes.
The gasket mount and polycarbonate plate give the V1 Ultra 8K a more cushioned feel, and the multiple layers of foam inside keep each press sounding deep and rounded. It’s a nice, grown-up sounding keyboard.
All those internal layers add up to make this quite a tall keyboard, however, both in terms of its frame thickness and the height of the keycaps themselves. I’m more sensitive to this than others as I daily drive a low-profile keyboard, but the V1 Ultra 8K felt even taller than most I’ve tested. I’d have appreciated a wrist support to counter that cliff of a front edge, and even without the feet extended I felt as though my hands were needing to lean back in normal use. Keychron will sell you a silicone or resin wrist rest, and I’d say it’s well worth considering.
Typing was a bit of a mixed bag. For chatting in Discord, general browsing or productivity, it’s entirely pleasant. For more dedicated writing sessions, I found the sculpted keycaps bundled with that lofty overall height a little harder to adapt to. Each has a noticeable dip that’s useful for keeping your fingers locked in on WASD, but that starts to get in the way when your fingers are flying around typing out a review. It’s workable: I still maintained 113wpm, which is about my normal pace, but accuracy dropped to 92% instead of the 96% I usually hit.
Keychron V1 Ultra 8K review: price & release date
- Available for $114.99
- Released in January 2026
- Not currently available in the UK
At $115, the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K sits in a compelling spot. It’s one of the cheaper wireless mechanical keyboards to offer 8K polling and undercuts major players quite convincingly. There’s a lot on offer for the price here, though it does skimp a little on build quality to meet that budget.
It was released in the US on January 2026. Unfortunately, though, it’s not available in the UK as yet, so gamers and keyboard connoisseurs there will find themselves waiting a while to get their fingers on it.
Keychron V1 Ultra 8K review: specs
|
Layout |
75% |
|
Switch |
Keychron Silk POM (Red/Brown/Banana) |
|
Programmable Keys |
Yes (Keychron Launcher / ZMK) |
|
Dimensions |
328.5 x 148.7 x 29.4mm |
|
RGB or backlighting |
Yes (customizable |
Should I buy the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K?
|
Attribute |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Features |
8K polling, tri-mode wireless, hot-swap switches, dual RGB, ZMK firmware, N-key rollover. |
4.5 |
|
Performance |
Responsive switches, cushioned feel and nice sound profile, sculpted keycaps are not ideal for extended typing. |
4 |
|
Design |
Industrial vibe, solid PBT keycaps with no shine-through, screw-in stabilizers for larger keys, but plastic case flex and tall profile are drawbacks. |
3.5 |
|
Value |
Packs a lot of features into quite an accessible price tag. |
4.5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Keychron V1 Ultra 8K review: also consider
|
Keychron V1 Ultra 8K |
Gamakay TK75 V2 |
Razer Huntsman V3 Pro |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Layout |
75% |
75% |
Full size |
|
Switch |
Keychron Silk POM (Red/Brown/Banana) |
Mechanical (Pegasus/Phoenix) |
Razer Analog Optical Gen-2 |
|
Programmable Keys |
Yes (Keychron Launcher / ZMK) |
Yes |
Yes (Fully programmable) |
|
Dimensions |
328.5 x 148.7 x 29.4mm |
325 x 136 x 28mm |
445 x 139 x 39mm |
|
RGB or backlighting |
Yes (Customizable) |
Yes (Customizable) |
Razer Chroma RGB |
How I tested the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K
- Used as my primary keyboard for a week
- Connected both wired and wirelessly, on Mac and Windows
- This review was typed entirely on it
I tested the Keychron V1 Ultra 8K by making it my daily driver keyboard across all work, productivity, and gaming for a week. I used it on both an Apple MacBook Air and a Windows desktop PC, jumping between wired and wireless connectivity modes.
I swapped out a few keycaps using the included tool, uninstalled and reinstalled one of the switches just because I could, and played around with the full suite of settings in the Keychron Launcher web app.
Read the full article here
