Welcome to the big leagues, SKYLOONG. From being mostly an OEM for other brands to a domestic player, the Chinese keyboard brand has recently been marketing itself globally with a new website and a revised keyboard lineup. I saw previews of some upcoming keyboards which look quite cool too but for now I can only talk about what's announced. This time round, SKYLOONG sent over the GK61 Pro—a 60% form factor keyboard that builds upon the older GK61 keyboards we've examined in detail before. Indeed, between those and a few other GK/AK keyboards sold under other labels, I had a decent idea of what to expect from a SKYLOONG keyboard. In some ways those expectations were wholly valid, be it for good or otherwise. I was also pleasantly surprised in a few other ways though, so let's talk about that first.

The split space bar concept has been tried by a few brands in the past although very few outside of SKYLOONG have consistently offered it on non-split keyboards. With the GK61 Pro, we get not only a split space bar out of the box—which you can easily convert to a standard single space bar key—but also a dedicated volume wheel in the middle, which I thought I'd not see on a 60% keyboard that didn't sacrifice something else. This is a fair use of that space on what is already going to take some getting used to if you are new to small form factor keyboards, so I agree with SKYLOONG on going this route. I also appreciate the accessories provided which can make it more standard as well as allow you to easily use the wireless connectivity options on board in addition to removing the orange accent keycaps if they were too much for you. Speaking of which, there are options of plastic or aluminium (+$60) cases with their own matching keycap sets, wired-only or wireless with Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz ($10), as well as three excellent switches to choose from even if two of them happen to be linear switches that feel quite similar to type on.

That wired-only version might be the way to go if you are not a fan of poorly optimized software though since it uses open-source hardware with VIA support. SKYLOONG's GK6XPlus continues to be frustrating and I can only hope that mentioning this directly to the source might result in some much-needed changes on that end. There are also some small things here and there which I would have liked to have seen updated from the previous versions, such as the use of silicone O-rings and a switch pad which aims to be a pseudo gasket mount but doesn't do so well. In fact, what it does is make for a mushy, uneven typing experience with keys around the space bar given that module is removable and not connected to the rest of the plate. So if you type with heavy fingers then you will certainly notice this discrepancy. Most others might well be fine though and I will give SKYLOONG props for making a keyboard that sounds quite nice at least. This is for the aluminium case version anyway whereas the real value is on the plastic case versions where the cons can be more easily forgiven. As it stands, the new GK61 Pro does enough to at least merit attention from those looking for a small form factor keyboard at a reasonable price.