Keychron's V5 Ultra 8K is a wireless mechanical 96-percent keyboard with a hot-swappable PCB, a programmable rotary knob, and up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate — plus up to 660 hours of battery life while using that 8,000 Hz polling rate. The battery life is the keyboard's primary selling point, as most keyboards and peripherals with an 8K polling rate have pretty abysmal battery life. The V5 Ultra 8K is available now for $120, which puts it around $40 over the price limit for the best budget mechanical keyboards, though it's still pretty affordable considering its features.

Design and Construction of the V5 Ultra 8K

The V5 Ultra 8K is a hot-swappable wireless mechanical keyboard with a 96-percent layout, which means it has almost all keys — a full function row, arrow keys, a 10-key numberpad, and a row of navigation keys, as well as a programmable rotary knob.

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The numberpad and arrow keys are shifted over so they're right next to the alphanumeric keys, giving the keyboard a much smaller footprint than a typical full-size keyboard. The keyboard measures 15.41 inches (391.5mm) wide by 5.85 inches (148.7mm) deep, and is 1.17 inches (29.6mm) high at the back, not including the keycaps.

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The 10-key numberpad is located next to the alphanumeric keys — it's cramped, though a little less cramped than the layout of the Asus ROG Strix Morph 96 Wireless that we looked at recently. There are three navigation keys above the numberpad (Del, Home, End), as well as a programmable rotary knob in the upper-right corner. The rotary knob is plastic, with a smooth top and textured side, and is notched and clickable.

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The keyboard features a plastic case, so it's not too heavy — but it's still pretty solid, weighing in at 2.17lbs (983g). It's a simple, well-made keyboard with a squared-off plastic top case with a matte black finish and a moderate bezel. It comes in just one color (black) and just one style (fully-assembled), with your choice of Keychron's Silk POM switches (red, brown, banana) already installed. It also features OSA-profile double-shot PBT keycaps in black and dark gray, with brick-red accent keys (Esc, Enter). The keycaps are not shine-through and feature white, printed legends. The Function row features white printed secondary legends for Mac users. Keychron also includes alternate keycaps for Windows users.

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On the back of the keyboard, you'll find two sets of flip-out feet for angle adjustment — the default typing angle sits at 3 degrees, and can be adjusted to 8 degrees or 10 degrees with the flip-out feet. Along the top of the keyboard, on the left side, you'll find a USB-C charging port and two switches — a power switch, for switching between 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and wired connectivity; and a Windows/Mac switch. On the right side, there's a small storage slot for the keyboard's 2.4GHz wireless dongle.

The keyboard comes with several accessories, including a 6-foot braided USB-C to USB-C cable with a USB-C to USB-A adapter attached, a USB extender, and a 2.4GHz wireless dongle (located in the storage slot along the top of the keyboard). It also comes with tools for customizing the keyboard, including a dual keycap/switch puller, a screwdriver, a hex key, and extra case screws.

Specs

Typing and Gaming Experience on the V5 Ultra 8K

The V5 Ultra 8K comes with Keychron's Silk POM mechanical switches in red (linear), brown (tactile), or banana (tactile). Our review unit came with banana switches, which have an actuation force of 57g and a total travel distance of 3.4mm. While I didn't love the extremely light tactility of the brown tactile switches in the Keychron Q6 Ultra 8K, the banana tactile switches have a more traditional tactile feel, with a light but noticeable tactile bump on the way down, and no audible "click."

Typing on the V5 Ultra 8K was a relatively pleasant experience — the switches still weren't my favorite, but they were smooth and stable and relatively easy to get used to. The OSA profile of the keycaps also helped — OSA keycaps are relatively close to OEM height, but slightly lower than KSA-profile keycaps (like we saw on the Q6 Ultra 8K), with wider, flatter tops and less aggressive angling. Typing on the V5 Ultra 8K wasn't quite like typing on a keyboard with Cherry-profile keycaps, but it was much more comfortable, for me, than typing on the Q6 Ultra 8K.

Of course, the V5 Ultra 8K features a hot-swappable PCB and comes with a keycap/switch puller, so it's pretty easy to swap in your own switches and keycaps, if you like. Keycaps and switches aside, the V5 Ultra 8K feels nice, thanks to its flexible gasket mount, and sounds decent, too — the case is pretty well-dampened, and the polycarbonate plate gives you a bright, crisp sound.

Gaming on the V5 Ultra 8K is solid, thanks to its N-key rollover and high 8,000 Hz polling rate, though serious gamers will probably want to opt for red (linear) switches instead of tactile switches. The V5 Ultra 8K does have plenty of extra keys thanks to its 96-percent layout, but if you're used to a full-size board, the layout may still throw you off. (I can't really get used to the location of the arrow keys on 96-percent boards, no matter how much I use them).

Features and Software of the V5 Ultra 8K

The V5 Ultra 8K is configurable via Keychron's web-based Keychron Launcher, which you'll need to connect to via a wired connection. You can use the Keychron Launcher to remap keys, set up "Snap Action" (Keychron's software-based version of SOCD), and customize the backlighting.

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There are several customizable lighting presets you can pick from, or you can choose per-key lighting, which lets you pick the color (and effect, though the effects are more limited) of each key individually. There's also an option for "mix RGB," which lets you set up two different RGB zones on the keyboard.

While it's not quite as robust as the layered lighting effects you can get from gaming peripherals apps, such as Razer's Synapse or Corsair's iCUE, the ability to customize per-key RGB is more advanced than you'll find on keyboards that rely on QMK / VIA for customization.

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You can also use the Keychron Launcher to update the firmware, test keys after hot-swapping switches, and record and manage macros.

Of course, one of the big selling points of the V5 Ultra 8K is its battery life — it gets up to 660 hours of wireless battery life over a 2.4GHz wireless connection with an 8,000 Hz polling rate (with the lighting turned off). Unlike the Q6 Ultra 8K, the V5 Ultra 8K ships with a standard 1,000 Hz polling rate out of the box — you'll need to connect to Keychron Launcher and switch the polling rate to 8,000 Hz manually (and you'll need to do this for both the wired and wireless connections, which have separate polling rates). Of course, if you want to use the keyboard with the backlighting turned on, the battery life drops significantly, even at the lowest brightness setting, to just 200 hours — which is still pretty good, considering.

The Bottom Line

If you don't mind the cramped 96-percent layout, the Keychron V5 Ultra 8K might just be everything you want in a keyboard — it's got all the keys you could ask for, an unnecessarily high polling rate, crazy-long battery life, and it's not too expensive, at just $120. And there's not a ton of competition, because 96-percent layouts aren't terribly common. There's the recently-launched Asus ROG Strix Morph Wireless, which has a similar all-plastic build and hot-swappable PCB, but lacks the 8K polling rate and somehow still manages to get worse battery life (590 hours vs. the V5 Ultra 8K's 660, so it's not that much worse) — and costs $20 more. And there's our long-time favorite Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless, which has a better build and a higher price tag (though it's currently on sale for just $136 at Amazon).

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware covering peripherals, software, and custom builds. You can find more of her work in PCWorld, Macworld, TechHive, CNET, Gizmodo, Tom's Guide, PC Gamer, Men's Health, Men's Fitness, SHAPE, Cosmopolitan, and just about everywhere else.