Closer Examination

As I mentioned before, Glorious had provided early access to the GMMK 3 Boardsmith, thus allowing me to design my own GMMK 3 unit to be used for this review. Keep in mind that no prices were shown on the configurator at the time and I only knew what the pre-built keyboards would cost. Still, I knew things would be on the more expensive side as I started putting this together. I decided to go with a 100% keyboard because it's increasingly rare to get one of those in for review these days. The Pro versions with the metal chassis also had a lot more color options, and I went with the HE PCB for two cool reasons we will talk about shortly. It was nice to see the configurator show real-time renders of how the keyboard would look, and I appreciated the vast amount of options available. You can of course spend a lot of money here or save a lot too, the biggest costs were going to the Pro version and the wireless HE PCB, for what it's worth. I've deliberately blacked out the cost of this configuration for the time being so we can proceed with a fairly open mind until the end.


Here is the final keyboard, as made by "Sway," a Glorious team member mentioned on the product box. It matches the renders extremely well and there will be a sense of excitement when you unbox the keyboard to see your keyboard. I went with the sage green top case and arctic blue bottom case, the rain forest gradient keycap set which has the spare keycaps separately provided as seen on the previous page, a sage green badge and an arctic blue rotary knob. There are plastic versions of all the metal parts, and of course different sizes too, so you can see where the billion+ combinations come from. The end result is a keyboard that weighed over 2.8 kg and looks/feels extremely well-built. If anything, it's not the easiest to pick up so I'd probably just leave it on a desk and go wired more often than not—something to consider as this can save a lot of money. The badge is held by magnets and allows for some further customization, although currently it's only used for branding. The metal rotary knob is made of aluminium and has a knurled finish, making it easier to rotate. The corners are slightly curved, bezels are about average in size and uniform throughout, except the top right corner where we could have had indicator lights along with the badge that does light up. There are two frosted plastic diffusers on the side between the top and bottom case panel for side lighting too. The keycap legends and whether they light up depends on the ones you choose, in this case the keycaps light up enough to illuminate the legends—especially the lighter color keycaps.


Turning the keyboard around provides a closer look at the arctic blue anodized aluminium bottom panel, which is by far the biggest contributor to the keyboard's weight. There's not a lot going on here outside the large Glorious logo etched in the middle, with no keyboard feet available on the metal chassis meaning the stock elevation is all you get. I feel Glorious had an opportunity here to provide clip-on feet to further add to the user experience. There are several rubber pads on the top and bottom to help add friction against the resting surface in addition to preventing the case from being scratched.


This version has hybrid wireless connectivity, so there's a 3-way switch in the back center facing away from the user allowing you to choose between Bluetooth, USB, and 2.4 GHz in order from furthest to nearest the Type-C charging port—if only there were useful markings here to indicate what position does what, instead forcing you to go to the online user guide or undergo the trial and error method. There's also a Windows/macOS selector switch on the other side, and I will say both of these plastic switches felt cheap, with more play in the enclosure than I wanted to feel. The Type-C port is inset into the metal chassis but has enough room here to accommodate most aftermarket cables in case you went with the standard free cable and wanted a more affordable coiled/colored cable from others. This particular coiled cable of course works nicely with the keyboard, albeit the $50 asking price is hefty, and goes to an available USB Type-A port on your PC where USB 3.0 (USB 3.2 Gen 1) will suffice for power and data alike.


A look from the side shows the built-in elevation of the keyboard, which I would classify as medium profile and can maybe benefit from a wrist rest if you are not used to touch typing with hands hovering over the keys at all times. Also note the flared back, with the angled wedge shape as a result of the two case panels coming together. This makes it so you can't easily use other keyboard cases, but then again I doubt anyone will after having paid for a specific GMMK 3. The provided keycap puller can help remove the keycaps but the space between these keycaps and the top panel was narrow, making it hard to use this tool. It feels like an oversight, and once again I feel Glorious should have just thrown in a metal wire-style puller. These particular keycaps are part of the Glorious PBT Rain Forest v2 131 keycaps set, which sells for $50 separately. There are various shades of green in a gradient, with opaque dye-sublimed legends on thick PBT plastic. This ensures longevity in use, although the actual keycap legends won't get backlit and thus the LEDs present on the keyboard will be for accent lighting only. There are other keycaps offering better backlighting support, as well as a more captivating RGB light show if that is more important to you.


You can get the GMMK 3 in your choice of Standard Hotswap (MX) or Hall Effect (HE) switch technology. This changes the PCB you get, with the former compatible only with Cherry MX-style mechanical switches and the latter, in a very clever implementation, allowing you to use not only Hall effect magnetic switches but also hot swap MX-style mechanical switches too. Going with the latter thus allows for far greater switch compatibility and makes for a more future-proof keyboard too. I went with the HE PCB here, and also chose one of the very, very few non-linear HE switches on the market currently, in the form of the Glorious Panda HE with tactile feedback. You have a choice of Fox/Lynx/Lynx Silent (linear), Panda/Panda Silent (tactile), and Raptor (clicky) HE switches too, making for the only such keyboard I have reviewed to date to offer all three feedback mechanisms with HE switches. The switches are installed in a north-facing configuration, so be aware of possible keycap compatibility issues with shorter profiles. The larger keycaps use Glorious-branded plate mounted stabilizers, although the PCB is compatible with screw-in stabilizers, which come lubed out of the box. There is no switch pad in use here, or any space bar dampening as seen with a few other keyboards. I also deliberately went with a brass plate over the other options to help minimize switch wobble, which can be a thing with some HE switches.


The switch remover tool is handy to remove the hot-swappable switches off the PCB where we see the use of what looks like a standard 5-pin mechanical switch hot-swap socket, as well as an SMD RGB LED firing upwards. The Hall effect sensor is on the other side of the PCB as usual, but you can see how the mechanical switches come into play here. In fact, you can even mix and match various HE and MX switches on this PCB if you wanted to do so! Here we also get a closer look at the Glorious Panda HE switch with clear housing and opaque orange stem with walls around for added dust/spill resistance. There are no support pins on the bottom, however, and this is why you might notice these switches wobbling in the switch socket, and going with a plate that has more give or lower manufacturing tolerance makes it more obvious. The GMMK 3 configurator allows you to choose between aluminium anodized in two colors (silver and black), FR4, polycarbonate, and brass—the brass plate is denser, dampens keystrokes and stabilizers further, and I've generally found it to prevent the switches from moving around too much as well. The acoustics are not for everyone since it can lead to a duller sound for some, but I'd take the more uniform switch feel any day of the week in return.


Remember when I mentioned our mice editor went to the Glorious product showcase since I was unable to? He was offered the same access to the pre-launch GMMK 3 Boardsmith and took some photos of his own keyboard here. It's funny to see he went with a full-size keyboard too, but otherwise you now have photos of another custom GMMK 3 Pro using a punk red top case, silver bottom case, a German (DE) layout, and what appear to be black backlit PBT keycaps.