Disassembly

Given the hot-swappable nature of the switches and this being my first time with these switches, it only made sense to take one of the Gateron G Pro 3.0 Brown switches apart. This is a tactile switch that supposedly has even tighter manufacturing tolerances compared to the previous version, but otherwise is very similar in use. It features a pre-lubed stem, which in turn is shorter than usual and is paired with Gateron's longer 2-stage spring. There's also the expected bump in the pathway of the stem for tactile feedback, and the switch design is otherwise similar to other such Cherry MX-style switches in that the stem pushes the copper contacts in the bottom housing together to initiate switch actuation that is read by the microcontroller on the keyboard.


Disassembly of the keyboard itself is best not done at all since the two pieces of the ABS plastic case are put together with an extremely tight tolerance. They have interlocking plastic tabs that I had to separate by digging into the gaps using a thin flat metal prying tool. You are likely to leave scratches here, and there isn't a lot to benefit from unless you wish to thoroughly mod the keyboard—you might as well get a better standalone kit for a similar price at this point. The knob cover also has to be pulled out before the keyboard comes apart enough to fully remove the top panel and then have enough room to dislodge the two internal cables going from the battery and a daughter board in the bottom panel to the primary PCB as seen above. We also see Montech has filled out the space in the bottom panel by incorporating two layers of custom sized foam sheets to prevent reverberations and further dampen keystrokes in conjunction with the other foam sheet between the plate and the PCB. Identifying the battery capacity was not easy given the glued plastic cover on top, although Montech does tell us it's using a generous 6000 mAh battery in the MKey Pro. Then we get down from this high and see a really mediocre "gasket mount" that relies on just thin and soft foam pieces glued on the corners only. I really could not tell you this was a gasket mount, and your keystrokes are certainly not well-supported unless you exclusively type in the corners. This is a big step-down from the MKey TKL's proper silicone gaskets.


The primary PCB is black similar to the daughter board in the bottom panel, with clean assembly throughout. Montech seems to have cut more corners here with the MKey PRO no longer using the high-quality Kailh hot-swap switches we saw in the MKey TKL. I was also unable to identify any of the primary components here, with the wireless transceiver being deliberately marked against identification and the USB microcontroller being the same as what we saw in the GMMK2 series from nearly three years ago, so take that for what you will. All the components, including the switch sockets and SMD LEDs, are soldered to a multi-layered PCB.

Before we move on, be advised that disassembly may void the warranty and that TechPowerUp is not liable for any damages incurred if you decide to go ahead and do so anyway.