Thoughts on GMMK years later

The GMMK1 was one of the earlier prebuilt hotswap keyboards that was made available in 2016. It’s offered in three sizes, 60%, TKL, and 100%. It is also available in both ANSI and ISO layouts. My first board from them was a 60% ISO board as it was one of a small handful of ISO hotswap prebuilt keyboards that were available at the time. I later bought an ANSI TKL board later. They definitely feel of that era, mostly plastic, aluminium top housing, 3-pin hotswap, and no compatibility with VIA or QMK. In hindsight, they feel quaint and simple, primitive even. The market of mechanical keyboards has changed quite dramatically in the ensuing 7 years.

In my case, I chose them because they were an inexpensive entry into customising my mechanical keyboard without paying for an expensive kit. I was mostly interested in having the ability to hotswap my switches so that I could explore the growing number of options that had come to the mechanical keyboard space. What started as mere clones of the Cherry MX switches quickly expanded into new and unique designs with different materials, characteristics, and a much larger offering of switch aesthetics. I’ve gone into these changes before in other articles so I’m not going to go into them here, but I feel they’re important when considering a product that dates to near the beginning of those changes. It obviously will not have those years of growth and evolution to draw from, instead being locked into a time period before all that development.

Firstly, these keyboards are very cheaply designed. Even entry market boards today are better in many respects. Being that the PCB is mounted directly to the plate the board is very stiff for typing on. Things like flex cuts and gasket mounting aren’t found here and it is extremely tangible when typing. There is no give to the board, it stays planted and stiff. The only give I have is from the fact I have the board on a rubber desk mat, and that is quite minimal in itself. The only ergonomic feature is a pair of plastic flip-out feet on the bottom to increase the angle of the board. Otherwise, it’s very spartan in the features.

The case is thin and light. In fact, the 60% board is actually thicker than the TKL variant with a deeper plastic bottom. That makes the TKL surprisingly thin yet still hollow sounding. If you’re looking for deep resonance, marbly sound, and smooth tones you’re looking in the wrong place. The board, even with a thin foam layer added, is deeply hollow sounding. It also has a strong plastic sound to the resonance, accentuated by mounting the switches to the top shell, leaving them with no surrounds like in most modern keyboards. The exposed switches are an interesting choice, aesthetically, but does nothing to dampen the switch sounds nor does it appear as premium because of that. It certainly shows off the RGB backlighting more, but that also isn’t as bright as some newer boards even with the switches more directly exposed. They’re also north-facing sockets so that has the potential to have more compatibility issues with lower profile keycaps, such as Cherry profile, but the trade-off is that if you’re using shine-through keycaps the legends will be brighter.

The board design continues to be spartan, bland even in my opinion. The bottom housing is lightly textured black plastic. The top housing is black anodised aluminium aside from a small chamfered edge that circles around the top that is mirror finished. Because of the exposed sockets, it also means that many of the screw mounts are visible along with the stabilisers. That makes the stabilisers prone to gumming up because of their open exposure. The screws themselves aren’t colour-matched to the housing and are instead bare steel, making them stand out from the rest of the frame. Depending on how you sit, you may only see a handful of them but they will stand out from the black that is the rest of the frame.

For the sound, I have done a couple modifications to improve the acoustics of the keyboard. Firstly, though the stabilisers come lightly lubricated they are cheap, plate mount stabilisers. I clipped them and applied more lubricant and they sound remarkably good considering the rest of the keyboard. That said, even with greatly reduced rattle and ping, the stabilised keys are still loud, in a wholly unpleasant manner. They echo terribly, partly because they are so exposed and partly because they face over the aluminium plate. I think a layer of dampening foam between the PCB and the top housing/plate would help reduce these sounds but I doubt much can be done to truly eliminate them. I did add an additional layer of thin foam under the PCB, which does have an already nearly paper-thin sponge foam. Again, it didn’t do much but there’s reduced echoing from the chamber inside the keyboard so any improvement is welcome really. Amusingly, the 60% board is more dampened because it is so much thicker than the TKL board. That helps with its dampening more but you’d need to be very aware of your switch choices with both boards because the switches are exposed.

In that regard, exposed switches can be particularly problematic if they aren’t tuned well. Currently I have Kailh Pro Plum switches in the 60% and I would describe their sound as frankly horrendous. They have terrible spring ping that resonates through the board. Dampening the internal portion of the board is all well and good but with no dampening around the switches themselves, and no housing to contain them, they echo freely into the environment. These are loud keyboards no matter what switches you choose to use with them. They will remain loud no matter how much you dampen them. They become even louder if you use the legs to prop them up, which I do because I find the typing angle more comfortable. In the end, the acoustics surrounding these keyboards is really where keyboard development really becomes noticeable. In particular, the backspace, return, and right shift keys are irritatingly loud, with a loud plastic tick with each keypress. You may be able to dampen them using some keycap dampening but I’m not quite sure what would possess you to put in that much effort for such an old keyboard design outside of the sheer force of will for doing so. The TKL as I am using it on the other hand has the Akko Jelly Black switches which at the least eliminate any spring ping or scratchy sounds because of their factory lubrication.

You’re going to have some interesting choices with regards to switches on these keyboards as well. Though they are hotswap, they are not 5 pin hotswap. That means that if you do want to use switches with the plastic stabilising pins, you’ll have to clip them off to use them with these boards. I did that with some of my switches when these were my primary keyboards but as I use five pin hotswap boards otherwise, I wouldn’t do that anymore. Three-pin hotswap was more common in 2016, even the Drop ALT and CTRL keyboards feature three-pin hotswap. But, these days? I honestly wouldn’t suggest any board without five-pin hotswap. It’s such a ubiquitous feature, and does help with switch stability and retention into the board, that it seems odd to seek out a board without that feature at this point.

Customisation is another area that is deeply antiquated with these keyboards. They require Glorious’ proprietary software to do any sort of editing. Changing key layouts is outright out of the options in fact. Though you can create and save macros, you can’t change key layouts at all. To change up RGB you also are using that software. And though you do have the option to have three profiles, that’s pretty much the extent of the features of the software. Again, barebones and spartan describe the software. Antiquated as well.

It's interesting going back to these boards, to see where we’ve advanced. To see where we’ve come from. Even entry boards today feel more complete. And they certainly feel more user-friendly. Even just the interface of the board feels old by using USB micro-B for connectivity when most other boards have been years in using USB-C. Having that connector was always a sore spot, even when these were new, because of how fragile it is. Ultimately, I’m more than a bit confused why these are still offered for sale today. Even the GMMK2 is more advanced and just as cheap. These feel like they are from a bygone era and, really, they should be left there. It’s one thing if you’ve had them for several years as your sole keyboard. Look into improving them, extending their lifespan. But if you’re buying a keyboard today? Nearly anything else is going to feel, look, and sound better.