So, you've gotten into mechanical keyboards and there's been a lot of buzz around the Glorious GMK. It comes with seemingly everything you look for in a keyboard: hot-swappable gateron browns, a removable cable, juicy red escape key, aluminum top plate, and your choice of size. However, there's a few reasons why we here at Tech Advantage Blog don't think the GMK is the ultimate enthusiast keyboard, especially for the price.
Let's start off with why we like this keyboard. There is no unnecessary crap, like mounds of multimedia keys or an obnoxiously large numpad. What you get is a simple keyboard that is ready for customization. Its sockets fit Cherry, Kailh, or Gateron switches, and you can even swap out the cable.
And the cable is where the annoying things begin. They say it's the small things that matters, and there are a lot of small things about the GMK that really tick me off. The cable is type Micro-B. This is an outdated type of cable, which cannot transfer data quickly, and most custom cables nowadays use Type-C.
Secondly, the keycaps. There are two schools of thought in keyboard keycaps: just throw the crappiest possible keycaps on because you expect the user to replace them anyway, or use really nice keycaps so they will last the user a long time. Glorious seems to think that they can make great keycaps, so they do put effort into them, and they look pretty good - but they're ABS. Since the keycaps are ABS, they are much more likely to be replaced by stronger and less smudge-prone PBT keycaps. And although that "ascend" keycap is also a nice touch, why isn't it shine-through? If you have such a cool keycap, wouldn't you want to display it? Lastly, my OCD is being triggered by the fact that the legend on the Caps and Ascend key is in the middle instead of the top like all the other keys. My OCD is being triggered even more by the fact that the Ascend key is in a different font than all the other keys. However, I really do like the Glorious windows key, I do think that one looks amazing.
And of course, the price. You are paying $110 here, for either the compact, TKL, or full size version of this keyboard. One of the main costs of a keyboard is its switches - and a full 120 pack of Gateron Browns is $40 on Amazon. So what does that leave the other $70 to do? Certainly not the keycaps. Maybe the RGB, but then again $15 keyboards have RGB. The build materials? No, although this is a decently built keyboard, there is certainly no aluminum, steel, or brass anywhere to be found on this keyboard.
Overall, this is not a great keyboard. Although it might have been new at launch date, most keyboards nowadays are hot-swappable and for the price, we don't see what all the buzz is about. Several keyboards, such as the Cooler Master CK series, the Drevo Blademaster, and the Dierya DK61 are all superior keyboards that cost far less.