Software

There are software drivers for the 1stplayer LANG MK8 keyboard, though unfortunately still not unified. Indeed, every single 1stplayer product with software support has its own skinned software, and the LANG MK8 version can be downloaded here. The download is a zip archive folder with the installer all of 17 MB, and the installed driver takes up ~55 MB on your storage drive. Installation uses a generic skin and has a Mandarin product name, which will irk some users no doubt, and this falls on 1stplayer to appeal to a broader audience. System utilization is minimal, so there is nothing to worry about on that end if you have a decent processor from either camp. Making things worse, there is no opaque icon associated with the program, so it shows up as a transparent icon with just the name in the system tray.


Unfortunately, this is another case of poor English and formatting errors across the board from a predominantly Asian company that wants to be taken more seriously in the west. This is not to say that navigating the UI is tough as common sense is sufficient, especially so because the software is device-specific, so having the home page mostly empty aside from the LANK MK8 in the middle is telling. Clicking it takes us to the real homepage, which should have been the case from the beginning.

The hamburger menu for settings gives the options of language and color scheme, in addition to the user preferences of start-up with the OS and minimizing to the system tray. You can create software profiles, rename them, and associate them with programs such that they can be activated when the program is running as long as the LANG MK8 drivers are also running. These profiles can be imported/exported to another computer should you be traveling with the keyboard. Key mapping is also not the most obvious to get to, especially with that truncated word next to the profile name. Once done, it is fairly complete in offering a virtual keyboard for key mapping and several options to choose from as seen in the video above.

There is a dedicated macro page for creating, recording, and editing macros. Here too we come across the language barrier, but not to where it is a deal-breaker. Once saved, the macro can be assigned to a key in the mapping section. Keyboard illumination comes in the form of another option on the home page that we now know to check for with icons instead. The virtual keyboard lights up to preview the currently set effect, which is a nice touch and better than a lot of contemporary solutions from the region. As with key mapping, preset options provide more customization for lighting and any associated sub-functions, such as direction of effect, brightness, speed, and the actual color/colors over an R/G/B 16.8 M color selector. These effects include static, dynamic, reactive, and per-key custom configurations, so you are able to customize this keyboard in both function and form in the software. Just not very well, and these things all add up in preventing smaller regional brands from being taken more seriously globally.