mpantone

poisednoise said:

mpantone said:

n2macs said:

How did the battery charge last 6 months? The diver must have plugged it in.

The lake water is frigid which acted literally as cold storage (like a refrigerator). Remember that we are talking about a lake in British Columbia. Look at the snow-capped mountains: their runoff feeds this lake.

The hyperlinked article notes that the diver just turned on the phone (no note about charging it).

Apple's iPhone standby durations are based on ordinary room temperature conditions -- not near-freezing submersion.

He says towards the end of the video that he plugged it in. Battery performance is severely impaired at low temperatures, not improved.

Batteries lose their stored charge more slowly at lower temperatures. Their operational performance is negatively affected by low temperatures.

Heat is the true enemy of batteries. This is not specific to smartphone batteries.

One can get years of additional storage life from batteries if they are stored at low temperatures (like tossing your alkaline cells in the refrigerator).

macgui said:

The key feature for me of this KeyChron is the BT/Cable switch. But battery life is important. If it can be used while charging via cable, then it might be a contender.

I use all of my Keychron keyboards wired. My understanding is that the battery lasts about a month on a full charge.

darkvader said:

Is it sufficiently heavy to do damage when used as a clue-by-four?

Because that's really all mechanical keyboards are good for.  Anybody using one when someone else is in the building deserves a hefty LARTing with a type M.

If you're considering getting a mechanical keyboard and work or live with other humans - don't.

I don't know what a clue-by-four is. Feel free to elaborate.

All of the Keychron keyboards have a selection of switches. Most them have both Gateron mechanical and optical variants so if you prefer a relatively quiet keyboard, just select it.

Some people mod their Keychrons nevertheless.

Like Longterm I actually own a Keychron keyboard, several in fact: two K1s, a K8 and one of the just-released C1s. I favor the quietest Gateron Red mechanical switches.

The K8 and C1 are pretty equivalent in feel. Both are the best keyboards I have used in the past twenty years. Maybe there was an ALPS based keyboard in the Nineties that was better. I loved the keyboard on the old IBM Selectric typewriters. That's about as close as these two Keychron keyboards get.

While I'm sure my comments here will fall on deaf ears, you really need to try this keyboard to fully understand its pros and cons.

However, this keyboard is now in its fourth iteration and has undergone some rather drastic changes in terms of appearance and feel. If you bought this keyboard nine months ago and bought the current shipping model, you might end up with two very different ideas about how good they are.

I have a Keychron K1 version 2, which means flat keycaps and no adjustable feet. The former makes it feel more like an old Apple keyboard (my K1 replaced an old wired Apple Keyboard with the chiclet keys, model A1242, circa 2008).

I bought the white LED backlight version so any disdain about the garishness of the disco-like RGB backlighting is irrelevant. Keychron apparently also improved Bluetooth performance compared to the original v1 model and they ditched some of the old keys (voice dictation is one) that some of the early reviewers covered.

With K1 v2, Keychron also added several switch options. I opted for the quiet Gateron reds (they also offered brown and blue); early reviews of the Keychron K1 v1 mention that the keyboard was limited to noisy/clicky blue switches. The v2 version also has black keycaps for a very harmonious look. With the v3 and later versions, Keychron moved to a two-toned sculpted keycap color pattern which I find rather ugly. Unfortunately, they have not offered the old black flat keycaps as a built-to-order option for the v3 or v4 nor have they offered the flat black keycaps as an add on replacement set.

It did not take me long to get used to the K1 v2.

More recently, I picked up a Keychron K8 for use with another computer (a Windows PC). It has the ugly two-tone keycaps but with sculpted tops. This is the best feeling computer keyboard that I have used since a mid-Nineties SGI keyboard. Again, I picked the Gateron red switches for my Keychron K8 with the plain white LED backlight. With Apple's own keyboards, there is no choice of switch type.

At some point I might replace the K8 keycaps with some other set of Cherry MX-compatible keycaps but I'm in no rush. At least the K8 is compatibile with those standard keycaps.

The K1's low-profile keycaps don't really allow for many customization options.

Like all input peripherals (mice, trackpads, gamepads, digitizing tablets, etc.), keyboards are highly personal devices and what is ideal for one person may be someone else's nightmare. 

For sure no one can please everyone all the time and it's unclear if the review author actually understands this given the heavy use of superlatives (maybe they're hyperboles, hard to tell). One thing, some of the commenters here don't seem to recognize this.

In any case, I have given Keychron my money for a couple of keyboards and didn't send them back for a refund.

The review author did get one fact correct: the Keychrons are cheaper than the Apple equivalents.

The Keychrons are also compatible with Windows/Android devices and include replacement keycaps (Siri/Cortana, alt/command, Windows/option) as well as a convenient keycap pulling tool. There's also a physical switch to go between Mac and Windows/Android mode.

In summary, the various Keychron keyboard models should be a consideration for anyone looking for an alternative to Apple's own offerings. For sure, the Keychron keyboard aesthetics don't have the same harmony as the Apple keyboards but I'm using my K1 with a Mac mini parked out of sight driving a 32" Dell monitor. My Apple keyboard model A1242 remains mothballed in a closet if I ever want the Apple typing experience.

rob53 said:

We did and used our one free overage so next time it will cost. We have gigabit service and because of COVID we’ve been watching too much TV. Big Sur is a 12GB download so we’ll eat up a bunch with that. 

Big Sur's 12GB download is chump change.

Blu-ray discs hold more than that and that technology is about a decade old. And that's just the 1080p stuff, not the more recent 4K Blu-ray content.

Today's modern videogames are FAR larger than Big Sur.

Marvels Avengers is 133GB. And that isn't even the record holder. One of the Call of Duty games clocks in well over 200GB. For PC games, 50GB sizes are pretty routine these days.

I think Microsoft Flight Simulator is about 80GB but requires a high-speed broadband connection because most of the database is stored in the cloud. Apparently all of the data comprises petabytes and keeps growing.

American residential broadband is slow and overpriced compared to what Southeast Asia and Europe gets. US broadband is downright ghetto.