REVIEW – I’ve gone through dozens of keyboards in my years working and gaming with computers, ranging from the worst mushy cheap keyboards in my college days to some very excellent mechanical keyboards in recent years. I even bought a couple of Keychron’s K1 Pro slim keyboards for me and my partner, which have been our daily drivers on and off for the past year or so. The new Keychron K4 HE keyboard model immediately caught my eye with its stunning looks and gaming-specific features, so I happily volunteered to check it out.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $144.99 (for the Special Edition), $134.99 for the standard version
Where to buy: Keychron
What is it?
The Keychron K4 HE mechanical keyboard is a 96% layout keyboard with Hall Effect magnetic switches, pre-lubed Gateron double-rail magnetic switches, and a premium base and case that includes materials like aluminum and real wood (on the Special Edition).
What’s included?
- Fully assembled Keychron K4 HE keyboard
- Type-A to Type-C USB cable
- USB Type-A 2.4 Ghz receiver dongle
- USB-Type-C Extension adapter for receiver
- Keycap and switch puller
- Screwdriver
- Hex key
- Manual/Quick start guide
Tech specs (Special Edition)
Length: 377.1 mm
Width: 126.4 mm
Front height: 31.7 mm (incl. keycap)
Back height: 40.9 mm (incl. keycap)
Weight: 1066 g
Keycaps: OSA Double-shot keycaps (opaque on Special Edition, shine-through on standard edition)
Bottom case material: ABS Plastic
Connectivity: USB wired/2.4 Ghz wireless/Bluetooth 5.2
MCU: ARM Cortex-M4 32-bit STM32F402RC (256KB Flash)
Stabilizer: plate-mounted stabilizer
Switch: Geteron double-rail magnetic switch
Key angles: 5° / 8° / 11°
Backlight: North-facing RGB LED
Plate material: Aluminum
Sensitivity: 0.1 mm
Rapid Trigger: Yes
Adjustable actuation points: 0.1 – 3.8 mm
Battery: 4000 mAh rechargeable li-polymer battery
Battery life: up to 110 hours with backlight off
NKRO: Yes for both wireless and wired modes
Hot swappable: Yes, compatible with Gateron double-rail magnetic switch only.
Polling rate: 1000 Hz (Wired and 2.4 GHz) / 125Hz (Bluetooth)
Design and features
The Keychron K4 HE keyboard is a 96% layout keyboard, which means it’s more compact than a full keyboard while still retaining the 10-key number pad. The photo above illustrates the size compared to a full 104 key Das Keyboard 6 Professional (with Comic Line keycaps from Keygeak.com). I love this layout, as it gives me more room to move my mouse without crowding the keyboard while keeping that essential-for-me 10-key pad.
The keyboard has premium components pre-installed like foam layers and acoustic pads, resulting in a very nice thocky-sounding keyboard.
The keycaps themselves are OSA Double-shot keycaps (opaque on the Special Edition, shine-through on the standard version). I love the squircle shaped keys and slight concave shape. Control/Option/Command keys are installed by default, but it’s easy to swap those out for Control/Windows/Alt if you’re a gamer and/or a Windows user like me.
When you remove the keys, the hot-swappable Gateron double-rail magnetic switches are visible. You can only swap these with very specific magnetic HE Gateron switches, though maybe there will be more options in the future. The three options available at launch vary only in spring strength, ranging from 30 g to 60 g starting force (the preinstalled switches are 40 g force versions). Besides that, you can change the actuation range through software. These are linear switches (non-clicky), and are very stable and smooth thanks to the double rail structure and the fact that they’re pre-lubed out of the box.
Like most keyboards, each row is at a slightly different angle for ergonomics, which you can see above.
The bottom of the keyboard has rubberized pads to prevent movement during use.
There are three adjustable heights/angles for the keyboard. The flip out tabs on the bottom are shown above, and also have non-slip surfaces. The keyboard is completely stable for me, only moving when I want it to, even during frantic gaming moments.
The Keychron K4 HE keyboard is available in black or white for the Special Edition, with brown Escape and Enter keys on both. Alternate black/white keycaps are also included if you don’t like the two-tone look.
You can connect the keyboard in three different ways: Wired (USB), Wireless with a 2.4 GHz USB receiver, and via Bluetooth (with three switchable paired Bluetooth devices). Polling rate is 1000 Mhz on both wired and 2.4 Ghz wireless, which drops to 100 Mhz on Bluetooth. There’s also a Windows/Android and MacOS/iOS mode switch.
The backlighting is great, with 22 different presents including reactive ones that splash animations based on your key inputs. However, there’s no per-key customization, if you want custom colors you can only apply a color to the whole board. Also note the light grey bluetooth symbols on the 1-4 keys in the above photo. I like that they printed these on the keycaps, on other keyboards in the past I’ve had to dig out the manual or try to find it online to remember how to switch/pair devices.
Finally, there are some macro and gaming specific functions to discuss. You can set up quite complex macros, which can be useful for both productivity and gaming situations. There are four programmable layers on the keyboard, and you can assign macros to nearly every key, for hundreds of macro possibilities. I was much more interested in the gaming features though, many of which are only possible because of the Hall Effect magnetic switches.
One such feature is an analog joystick emulation feature, where the keyboard can mimic a gamepad or joystick, so you can press harder or softer to give more or less input to a specific direction. This makes driving or flying games SO much easier than with a traditional keyboard. I tested this with ArmA 3 (helicopter flying) and Forza Horizons (racing) and I could see this becoming a must-have feature for me for gaming. The GIF above shows me pressing a key with varying force.
Another cool set of features are Last Keystroke Prioritization and Snap Click. LKP prioritizes the last key pressed, making movement very snappy in fast action games – so even if you have two directional keys pressed at the same time, the most recent one takes priority. Snap Click is a bit different, prioritizing the key that is pressed harder, if two are pressed at the same time. This can help eliminate accidental keystrokes (a common problem for me when gameplay gets stressful). Finally, a Dynamic Rapid Trigger feature allows you to hit the same key repeatedly without fulling depressing it between clicks (so you’re basically fluttering your finger rather than fully pressing and releasing in rapid succession). For certain gameplay scenarios this can let you repeatedly press the same key much faster than with other keyboards.
All of the above features are fairly situational and have to be turned on through Keychron’s customization software. Another fantastic feature is the ability to easily adjust the actuation point (across the board, or even for specific keys). The default actuation point is great for me, but if you like lighter or harder keypresses, you can change that through the software. With other mechanical keyboards, you have to change the actual key switches to have different actuation points, but all it takes is a click of a button with the Keychron K4 HE keyboard. On the lightest setting, you can barely graze your fingers across the keys to register presses. On the heaviest, you can thunk away with as much force as you’d like since the keys won’t activate until near the bottom of the switches range.
Assembly, Installation, Setup
The Keychron K4 HE keyboard comes pre-assembled, so unless you want to change some of the keycaps you can get right to connecting the keyboard to your device. If you’re going USB wired, the keyboard is completely plug-and-play (though you’ll want to change the Windows/Mac mode switch to the appropriate mode). The 2.4 Ghz wireless mode is as easy as wired, you just select that mode on the keyboard and plug the receiver dongle into your device via USB. The keyboard auto-sleeps and wakes up almost instantly when pressed later. Bluetooth mode is only slightly more complex, you select a device by pressing Function+1-3, then start pairing with Function+4 and add through your device’s Bluetooth settings menu.
Once plugged in or connected, the keyboard is ready to go, though you can go pull up the customization website if you want to mess with macros, actuation settings, or the special gaming features: Keychron Launcher
I found the customization software to be one of the easiest I’ve ever used, and I especially love that there was no software install at all, just a web browser page. Other companies could take note of Keychron’s strategy here, I much prefer it over the half-dozen programs I have to install and run for other peripheral devices.
Performance
The Keychron K4 HE keyboard was very easy to adjust to coming from other keyboards, except for the right Control and Shift keys, and the position of the 0 key on the numpad. Compared to a full 104 key keyboard these keys are slightly shifted to squeeze into this smaller size, but the adjustment period wasn’t too bad for me (though I still hit the right arrow key instead of 0 when entering numbers sometimes).
I love the sound and feel of the keyboard (video above shows the backlighting and the sound of the keys). I played many hours of games and wrote multiple reviews while testing this keyboard and loved every minute of it. This feels like the type of keyboard I could use for a decade or more rather than needing replacement sooner.
Final thoughts
The Keychron K4 HE keyboard easily earned the daily-driver spot at my desk. It looks absolutely fantastic, feels premium, and performs better than any other keyboard I’ve tried so far. I look forward to years of gaming and working on this lovely keyboard.
Update 4/12/2025: My wife stole this keyboard because SHE liked it so much. So, I had to order another one just for myself.
What I like about the Keychron K4 HE keyboard
- Great looks and build quality
- Useful gaming features like analog input and rapid trigger functions
- Excellent for both productivity and gaming
What needs to be improved?
- No per-key lighting customization – almost everything else about the keyboard is highly customizable so this is a surprising limitation.
- I’m a sucker for knobs or spinners for volume control, but this keyboard uses function keys to adjust volume.
Price: $145 (for the Special Edition), $135 for the standard version
Where to buy: Keychron
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Keychron. Keychron did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
Check out these other keyboard reviews!
- Keychron K2 HE magnetic switch mechanical keyboard review
- Keychron K1 Pro wireless mechanical keyboard
- Das Keyboard 6 Professional mechanical keyboard review
Gerber Gear 22-47162N Fast Draw Folding Assisted Opening Pocket Knife, Fine Edge, Black
$50.00 (as of April 12, 2025 14:06 GMT -04:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
