Summary

• Analog switches offer new customization at a lower price point for an excellent typing experience.
• The Keychron K2 HE provides satisfying key presses, comfortable typing, and vivid RGB lighting.
• The compact Keychron K2 HE is a great keyboard for the price, with excellent analog switches.

Analog switches seem to be the latest trend in mechanical keyboards, and Keychron is fully embracing them. After the absolutely fantastic Keychron Q1 HE, which is aimed at the premium market, the company has now brought the Gateron purple analog switches to its most popular keyboard, the Keychron K2, to birth the new Keychron K2 HE.

Now, popular often doesn't mean high-end, and the K2 HE definitely isn't the most premium keyboard in Keychron's lineup. But as far as the typing experience goes, this is still an excellent keyboard. It's very compact, but it has all the keys you need with a satisfying feel when you press them, backed up by nice RGB lighting. It may not have the sheer quality of its more expensive siblings, but this is a great keyboard for the price, and the addition of analog switches makes this an easy recommendation if you want that additional level of control.

About this review: Keychron sent us the black standard edition of the K2 HE. The company had no input in the content of this review.

Pricing and availability

Keychron launched a Kickstarter campaign for the K2 HE on August 7th, 2024, and it's still ongoing at the time of writing. A full launch should come soon after the campaign ends.

During the Kickstarter campaign, the standard edition of the K2 HE, which is what I got for review, costs $125, with the MSRP being $130. The special edition, which features wooden accents on a white or black frame, costs $135 during the Kickstarter campaign, going up to $140 after launch.

Design and looks

A sleek-looking board with just the right amount of flair

The Keychron K2 HE comes in two primary editions. The standard edition is all black, with just a couple of keys having colored keycaps (though you can swap them for an all-black appearance). This model has an all-metal frame over a plastic body, so it feels fairly premium but avoids being too heavy. It also comes with see-through legends on the keycaps, which make for a beautiful way to show off the RGB lighting. I love RGB, and having see-through keycaps is always very fun, especially considering Keychron tends to be very muted with its keyboard lighting.

I'm a little jealous of the special edition, which is available in either white or black, with both models featuring wood accents on the side. This is real wood being used in the frame, and just based on the renders, it looks super cool. The downside ot these models is that they ditch the see-through keycap legends, so the RGB is less noticeable. It's a matter of preference, though, and I would have loved to see the wooden look in person.

Otherwise, this is a very compact 75% keyboard. The frame itself is barely any bigger than the key area, and there's no unnecessary spacing between the keys, so this is a great option if you want to have a minimalist setup. It lacks the volume knob of some other Keychron models, but that kind of helps it be more compact.

Even though it has some nice shine-through keycaps, RGB customization is still far from comprehensive, which is typical of Keychron. Using the Keychron Launcher app, you can apply effects to the entire board, but that's about it. Also, weirdly enough, there are fewer options available in the Launcher app than the ones you can switch between using the backlight key on the keyboard itself. There could definitely be more options here, but that just doesn't seem to be Keychron's thing.

The typing experience

It's very comfortable and satisfying

Moving on from looks alone, the Keychron K2 HE is, as you might expect, a great keyboard. Featuring analog linear switches, the typing experience is just to my liking, being super smooth while still feeling satisfying to type on. I've always preferred linear switches, and it's no different here. Typing feels really good, and even the sound of pressing each key is satisfying, even if the space bar is sometimes a little louder than I'd like.

That's the big thing I notice with this board compared to the more expensive Q1 HE. That board has an insane amount of sound dampening built in, and it's the quietest keyboard I've ever typed on. The K2 HE doesn't come near that level, maybe because the body is made of plastic instead of metal, so it's not as stiff. There probably aren't as many dampening elements, either. If you even someone else in the room with you, this may not be the absolute best keyboard, but the sounds it does make aren't that loud, and I ended up really liking the audio feedback from the keyboard as I typed. I'd still prefer a quieter board, but this is far from a bad experience.

Analog switches are very versatile

Of course, the big selling point for the K2 HE is the HE part, otherwise you could just buy the standard K2, which is noticeably cheaper. Analog switches have been blowing up in the keyboard seen. I first saw them in the SteelSeries Apex Pro, and I loved them there, but it was the Keychron Q1 HE that really sold me on them.

What do analog switches do? While a typical switch has a set actuation point after which a key press is registered, analog switches detect the entire range of distance between the top of the switch and the board, and they simply activate at the distance you set. By default, the actuation distance is 2mm, and I never felt a need to mess with it. But you can make it as low as 0.2mm, or as high as 3.8mm, so it truly fits your typing preferences.

Another thing it allows is using a "rapid trigger" mode. In this mode, keys immediately reset upon releasing part of the pressure on the key, allowing you to repeatedly press a key without having to fully lift your finger from the key. Rather than resetting at the actuation point, keys reset as soon as the travel distance decreases.

That's just the beginning. Using the Keychron Launcher app, you can map analog controls to the analog switches on the trigger. For example, if a game is designed for a controller with analog movement (because it has analog sticks), you can map the sticks to specific keys on the keyboard, which use the analog switches to mimic the analog movement of the sticks. Another option allows you to assign multiple actions to a single key based on how far you've pressed it. You can basically create a macro using a single key, with different actions for pressing a key up to a certain point, releasing it, and more. You can even adjust the curve of the analog switch, so different levels of pressure correspond to different travel distances in the software. If you're more inclined to press heavily in the initial part of the movement, adjusting the curve can change the sensitivity of the switch to that initial movement, so you don't accidentally press harder than you want to.

I personally haven't found a use case for this kind of capability, but the possibilities are vast with this kind of switch.

Should you buy the Keychron K2 HE?

If you can see the usefulness in having analog switches, the Keychron K2 HE is easily the best way to get into this market. It's significantly cheaper than the Q1 HE and even the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL, while offering a typing experience that's significantly better than the latter. It does miss out on some things like deeper RGB customization or the top-tier sound dampening, but this is still a very satisfying keyboard to type on, with RGB lighting that makes it that much more fun to look at. If you can get your hands on the special edition, you'll also be adding a very unique piece of hardware to the collection, though it does come at an extra cost.

If the analog switches don't mean much to you, you may be better off buying the standard Keychron K2, which costs under $100. Though I haven't reviewed that one, so I can't personally vouch for the typing experience on that model. Another good option for $100 is the Lemokey P1 Pro, which also lacks analog switches but is still great to type on.