What are mechanical keyboards ?
Mechanical keyboard, unlike membrane keyboards, have physical key switches. This keyboard has a richer feel and are made to last long, really long. Common keyboard (or membrane keyboard) uses rubber dome where as mechanical keyboard uses high quality switches. Mechanical key switches gives an unmistakable, stronger feedback as you type. The feedback can be in form of a bump, hearing a click, or bottoming out to the switch.
Mechanical keyboards are also highly customizable based on key switches, LED lighting, keycap material/colors, legend printing method and much more. This keyboards can be your best partner whether you love gaming, typing or are a casual computer user.
Why is GK/SK keyboard popular ?
These budget mechanical keyboards have an awesome build quality with a great typing experience at an affordable price. Moreover, these are hot swappable keyboards which allows its users to swap between any key switch of their choice.
What is difference between GK & SK keyboard ?
This is probably the most common question we come across, and there is a lot of confusion regarding this. Let us give you some background to make it easier for you to understand the choice of naming behind these keyboards.
Initially, GK keyboards used to come in two variants:
- Optical GK – IR PCB supports Optical key switches
- Mechanical GK – Normal PCB supports Mechanical key switches
Most people refer to these keyboards as only “GK” and tend to drop “optical” or “mechanical” from its name. It started causing a lot of confusion in the community. Therefore, the manufacturer of these keyboards decided to rename the Optical GK to just SK.
- Optical GK -> Renamed to SK
- Mechanical GK -> Still referred as GK
To align with manufacturer’s guideline, Meckeys has renamed its GK61 keyboard to SK61. SK keyboards (including SK61 and SK64) comes with optical switches and all the GK keyboards (including GK61 and GK64) comes with mechanical switches.
Quick Summary : The SK61 keyboard which is currently available @ MECKEYS with brand name as “Skyloong” is the same product which used to be called as GK61 in the past under the brand name “6+”. So, the GK61 keyboard prices haven’t been jacked up, rather the product name got changed.
Why are the product images for SK keyboard different on Meckeys?
SK keyboards comes with both ABS and PBT keycap variants. The ABS keycaps are backlit where as the grey-white PBT keycaps are non-backlit. Given, most of our customers tend to show-off the RGB effect on their keyboards, we decided to go with the ABS keycap variant. Having said that, we are constantly gathering feedback from the community and keyboards with stock PBT keycaps could be made available in the future.
SK61 with ABS keycaps
SK61 with PBT keycaps
Can I customize GK/SK keyboard with different key switches or keycaps ?
Both type of keyboards are hot-swappable, however, the compatibility varies. SK keyboards are only compatible with MX style optical switches, but are not compatible with mechanical switches. On the other hand, GK keyboard are only compatible with MX style mechanical switches, but are not compatible with optical switches.
Regarding the keycaps compatibility, both these keyboards are compatible with MX cross stem style keycaps.
Where can I buy these keyboards?
GK/SK keyboards, in both black and white variants, are currently available at Meckeys for pre-order. Head over to the product pages to buy/learn more about these keyboards:
- SK61 – https://www.meckeys.com/shop/keyboard/60-keyboard/sk61/
- GK61 – https://www.meckeys.com/shop/keyboard/60-keyboard/gk61-rgb/
- SK64 – https://www.meckeys.com/shop/keyboard/65-keyboard/sk64-rgb/
- GK64 – https://www.meckeys.com/shop/keyboard/65-keyboard/gk64-rgb/