Closer Examination

Now that the Kailh BOX keyboard is fully assembled, we can treat it as a complete keyboard and proceed with the review. This is indeed a 65% form factor keyboard, which adds to the smaller 60% form factor with dedicated arrow keys and a few others to the right. This is all still a single bank of keys, which happens by cutting down the length of some of the modifiers on the right and even a whole key to the right of the space bar. Notice the use of 1u keys there to still allow for three of the usual four keys, and the R.Shift is another that is clearly shorter than usual. This allows Kailh to add four keys to the right above the arrow keys, and it is a weird configuration at that with a dedicated Tilde (~) key combined with Del, Pg Up, and Pg Dn. This is the first time I have seen a dedicated Tilde key on a 65% keyboard, so programmers can relish something finally made for them.

The case is a striking red, one that is hard to photograph accurately against a white background without bloom surrounding it. Complementing the red case, which is made out of ABS plastic, is the use of some red keycaps, too. There are also dark gray and off-white colors, with lots of legends on them for the pre-programmed functions on top of the default ones. These also come as secondary/tertiary laser-etched legends in a lighter color at the bottom-right corner, and there are some in the same vein, but printed sideways at a 90° angle on the right. This too is new to me, and I am still not sure how I feel about it. I do acknowledge the functionality, however, which is really high for everything onboard. The keyboard as a whole is relatively light at just under 750 g, and the smaller bezels (overall size 313 x 104 x 43 mm including keycaps) coupled with the lack of any visible branding in use keep it somewhat clean, albeit definitely an eye-grabber owing to the bold colors.


Flipping the keyboard around, there is nothing of note, which is why I remain skeptical about this becoming a retail product, although it is easy enough to slap on the usual certification sticker. The ABS plastic case includes a set of two keyboard feet at the top, which can be raised for additional elevation. These have rubber pads on the bottom to prevent them from slipping, which continues with four large rubber pads at the corners when the feet are closed.


The Kailh BOX keyboard supports wireless connectivity, with two options at that. A cutout on the back holds a 2.4 GHz wireless dongle via magnets. This is a matching red and black for what is otherwise an averagely sized USB form factor. There are also two toggle switches towards the bottom. The first is a dedicated on/off switch to turn the keyboard on in wireless mode, which is already more than I could say for many such keyboards even today. The second switch has three positions for one of three connectivity options—2.4 GHz over the dongle, wired over USB, or Bluetooth 5.0 for a second wireless option.


Ah, there is some branding on the keyboard after all, even if quite subtle, a "BOX" on the front facing away from the user, which also provides us with a good look at the Caps Lock, low battery/charging, Bluetooth mode on, and 2.4 GHz mode on indicator LEDs here. A cutout at the other corner is for the Type-C port for wired connectivity. It is large enough to accommodate most, if not all, aftermarket cables should you want to go with an aftermarket coiled/split option. The stock cable is the usual 6' long and plugs into an available Type-A port on your PC, where USB 2.0 will suffice for power and data alike.


That dust cover we saw in the unboxing section serves a few other purposes, including as a stand for mobile devices and the magnetic wrist rest itself. This explains that weird cutout in the case, where the jutting section of the cover fits in to align the cover as a wrist rest. You do need to have it set on the desk properly as the magnets may not aligning perfectly otherwise. Once done, it works absolutely fine considering it is a makeshift rest, stand, and cover combo. I appreciate the multi-purpose nature of something that otherwise would not be used much.



A look from the side shows the medium to high profile for the case, as well as the two-part composition of the keycaps. The keycap profile is somewhat confusing since the closest I can think of is the Akko ASA profile in terms of it being average in profile, sculpted, but also more rounded than the standard OEM profile. It works out quite well in practice, although the actual keycaps are not my favorite. The contact surface is PBT plastic, but the sides are translucent ABS built in a way similar to the pudding-style keycaps that have become quite popular lately. This results in uneven lighting and most of the injected legends not being backlit uniformly. In fact, I would go further and say that most of the legends are not backlit at all, which results in an ugly look that is worse than fully backlit or wholly opaque. As seen above, the laser-etched legends are opaque. The larger keycaps use plate-mounted stabilizers that come lightly lubed—you may want to re-lube these yourself.


We saw on the previous page that the keyboard has hot-swappable switches courtesy the use of 3-pin switch sockets, each of which come associated with an SMD RGB LED. I also spoke more about the new BOX Hush switches before, so I will simply let the images above speak for themselves. This is a 3-pin switch with the Kailh branding subtly present on the side of the translucent blue top. The stem/slider is clear plastic, as is the diffuser itself.


Here are the red replacement keycaps for the arrow keys, providing a slightly different look to the keyboard itself. These are functionally identical to the gray ones, down to the secondary legends.