To those asking if Winmix responded to this: yep! Here's an email snippet. "Thank you for sharing your opinions. It is interesting to hear totally different opinions from people who are not into mechanical keyboards. A super flex plate is considered good in the keyboard community. A springy plate and soft bottom-up keypress are also what most, if not all, keyboard reviewers look for in their reviews. Your opinion is valuable for those who are not into the mechanical keyboard community, though, and that's what I wanted to hear from you. I hope there will be other opportunities to collaborate with you [...]. Again, I appreciate your honest opinions, as well as accepting the review request in the first place."

I'm so glad to know that even when given a free product, you're brutally honest about the good and the bad.

Props for being honest when receiving something expensive for free.

The "Don't Waste Your Money" key reminds me of the "Get me off this show before I kill myself" button on one of the bridge computer panels in Star Trek: Voyager. (I completely forget which documentary it was though which pointed that out.)

This is the keyboard equivalent of those modern cassette players that are designed to look retro but are actually just the cheapest mechanism in a metal case

$500 and it flexes like that?!?!? That is completely insane.

I got seasick watching that keyboard flexing

I've never seen a keyboard created by a trampoline designer before.

I'm actually so confused by the "Don't waste your money" key. What on earth was their thought process on adding that?

The flex of that board makes me physically ill.

Talking about retro-themed keyboards, 8bitdo made a mechanical board with a retro theme for a lot less with higher overall quality.

1950's baseboard heater parts used to make the wrist rest. My carpel tunnel feel worse already.

Lol the ending is perfect 😅

Every time that wrist rest clangs against the desk, I think, this has to be just a spare part meant for something else. You wouldn't want that scraping around a wood surface.

Wow, it's like typing in a dish of Jello

So they just painted random colored rectangles on some keys? It's all so weirdly surface-level, as if some marketing guy watched a couple of videos from mechanical keyboard nerds and made a list of keywords that are going to appeal to them without actually understanding anything. So they like these weird expensive switches, check. Case made of metal, check. Shaped vaguely like an old computer? Uh... maybe our concept artist can throw together something that looks like a cross of an NES and a Commodore 64 in 15 minutes. Weird labels on the keys I can't understand? They probably don't mean anything, let's just silkscreen some shapes on there. Some of these Japanese keyboards have two space bars, I don't know what that's about. Let's cut a notch in a normal-sized one, just to be safe.

The typography for the Reborn logo is giving me waking nightmares.

They're out of their minds with that price point.

I’m sorry but there no way that’s anywhere near the quality for that asking price, $500 USD = $750 AUD, Plus $150 AUD for the arm rest, $900 ! There trying to take the Mickey on this one.

I bought the 8bitdo NES keyboard for around 100 quid with accessories and I love it, it's full of great features and will use it until i, or it dies, which ever comes first. There is nothing a keyboard can offer to justify a $500 dollar price tag for me.

Custom keyboards, especially expensive ones, are built with multiple options for gaskets and with plate cuts for that flex. Even with Keychron only the first ones are case mounted, while the Pro, Max and budget V max boards have a more flexy plate and gaskets

$500 + that much board flex = not a chance in heck I would buy this

oh, a metal wrist rest with sharp slits cut on it. DELICIOUS. Also, who would want a small factor sized kb with those humongous bezels??

Keychron for life. Heavy AND well made.

bizarrely some people like keyboard flex so some exotic keyboards come like this. The remedy is to find something that provides a solid backplate.

Good gravy that deck flex is just unacceptable

I agree, the flexing is strange. Maybe it's so you can lie your head down on the keyboard and take a nap?

Thanks for the review, I love when you review keyboards! I'm not exactly a fan of all the flex-cuts and super flexy plates without structural support that I'm seeing in a lot of mechanical boards these days- but that flex is absurd. I recently grabbed a Class80 that definitely scratched the retro-inspired itch for me. It has a toggleable buzzer and solenoid with some pretty sturdy construction.

I do hope this is a prototype and not the final product. Because man, all it really has going for it is aesthetics at the moment. And I do hope that the company who sent this takes the feedback and improves the product more.

I like honest review.. Good job!

this is the "omg so retro" of enthusiast keyboards

Guess I'm a weirdo, I actually love the "bubble wrap" sound this thing makes and the custom design decisions. Also, some people find the flex plate more comfortable to type on. It's supposed to make the "bottoming out" more pleasant to type on, I've never tried one though.

With all the cuts in the pcb and the level of detail one would assume that it is intentional, does people in the comments not think before typing. Anyways it's a flex keyboard PCB which itself is gasket mounted(entire pcb,switch and caps are suspended with rubber gasket inside) in the chassis. The beauty of custom stuff is if you don't like then just change the pcb or get a rigid keyboard like what LGR likes. Edit- wrote it a little early, 500 is too much and aesthetics and layout aside It doesn't have functional knobs.

Thanks for the Blerb.

The keycap at the end of the video says it all! LMAO!

love the idea loathe the execution i have been looking for a Sinclair QL style key board for my PC

the pricepoint is nuts!!

Not a keyboard guy exactly, but I know that the flex is something that (some) people like. You can tell by the cuts in the top plate(?) thingy around every key that the flex is engineered in. I'm forgetting the word for it but veritasium made a whole video about it. But yeah that amount of flex is wild. I bought a Keychron Q-whatever and the top plate thingy is foam mounted so the whole deck has a little bit of flex, but it's uniform across the board. The Reborn67 looks like basically every key is in it's own flex zone (I'm just making up terms now) so the whole thing doesn't flex evenly which seems like not something I'd like, at all. I'm sure it's the perfect keyboard for someone, but I feel like they made a very niche keyboard in an already very niche market.

Wow what a dumb product. That amount of weight, but still flexes like cooked spaghetti...

That looks solid, I hope it doesn't fall on your foot.

I had to catch myself, for a moment I thought you had uploaded a WinMX retrospective first thing in the morning.

WAUW! This has to be the most ridget and flexible keyboard at the same time 😅 Do like the color scheme.

With a PCB that mushy, I'm surprised it's not marketed as an official Kirby keyboard.

Had them working on that Deck/Patio, I see! 😁👍

gotta say you got me back into mechanical keyboards. logitech k845 is what i rock nowadays. but it is sooo good for 90s gaming.

Thanks for the heads up on what not to buy! This is absurd.

For some reason many modern keyboard enthusiasts like flexible mounting plate and "gasket mounts" but with super heavy metal chassis (and many openly despise clicky switches). Frankly I'm fine with a plastic chassis but with solid metal mounting plates, I have a Keychron K10 Pro and an old CM Storm quickfire full size on two different machines that don't flex at all and that's how I like it. It's sort of weird when the best keyboard of a manifacturer has "bonus features" that are actually a turn-off like a flexible polimer switch plate.

That wrist rest is an extra $100.

You need this on the Heart Of Gold just in case you're feeling like a sofa.

Yay, more blerbs ❤

This looks awesome! The operative word being "looks". "Don't waste your money" indeed! I'd be kinda tempted to try the 70's-style shiny keycaps, and I love that the letter keys have the binary on them that corresponds to that letter's position in the alphabet (since that's also what the ASCII codes are based off of). You could basically instantly reference it for translating short bits instead of having to work it out or use a tool. ----- For anyone in Today's Lucky 10,000: What I meant by the letter position/ASCII code thing is that ASCII arranges things so that the capital letters start with A at position 65 and lowercase a at 97. This isn't arbitrary, it actually makes it simple to convert, because that means capital letters are 64 + letter position, and lowercase numbers are 96 + letter position. 64 is 01000000 and 96 is 01100000 (being 64+32). So since the keys have things like 00101 (5) for E (5th letter of the alphabet), or 10011 (19) for S (19th letter of the alphabet), you could basically combine them. 010 00101 (69) is E 011 00101 (101) is e 010 10011 (83) is S 011 10011 (115) is s, and so on. So you can also go from uppercase to lowercase, or vice versa, by just adding or subtracting 32. They're all just one bit apart! And now you know how ASCII text works! Anything that doesn't start with 010 or 011, or starts with those but the last part isn't between 1-26, means it's not a letter. Could be punctuation, like: Space is 00100000 (32) Comma is 00101011 (43) Period is 00101110 (46) Underscore is 01011111 (95) Tilde (~) is 01111101 (125), and so on. Look up an ASCII chart for more information! Or just open up Notepad/something similar, and experiment. Hold down the ALT key, and type numbers with the number pad. When you let go of ALT, you'll get a character! Try any of the ones above, or go wild! Some of my favorites include 130 (é - Now you can spell Pokémon correctly.) and 147 (ô - I like to use this one for a "raised eyebrow" face: ô.o) Though, the numpad bit's a little old, and now that so many things use Unicode, it can be a little strange. Like, some of these might only work on certain code pages, or certain languages. It's easy once you know the trick! Everything is just numbers, when you get down to it. Aren't computers great? ^_^ (And ^_^ is 94-95-94, or 01011111 01011110 01011111.)

First really negative review I've seen from LGR : )

Sounds like that 500 dollars is towards all the metal bits and they cheaped out on the rest minus the key switches, Ive heard theyre alright.

Looking for something to chill to. Lil cheeky Blerb pops up. Thank you youtube gods.

Today I learned that the minimum number of rows for a usable keyboard is 6.

I love my mechanical keyboards, but I would never ever want a keyboard that flexes that much. I want it sturdy, so saying it is "considered good in the keyboard community", well, I doubt it.

Whose idea was that metal wrist rest? Whose idea was any of this

It comes with its own cattle guard 😂😂

Keycap design looks like what AI would do. Random shapes and stuff without any logic. And the oddities of the case too, it just does not make sense. The plate is cut in such a way that it bends as you type, which is odd because it is gasket mounted. Gasket mount already softens the feel of the typing but with a flex plate it's just too much.

WOW that's a lot of $$$ the flex was disturbing. Really, really nice looking key caps though, that takes me back.

I'm not a keyboard guy (I use a Logitech MX Master) but I like looking at them, usually with bewilderment. I've never tried to install keycaps on a pillow before, but I imagine it would work a lot like this.

The 8bitdo retro mechanical keyboard is definitely worth a look. Great functionality: Wired, 2.4gz wireless, Bluetooth Wireless, Rechargable. And great quality. What you get, for the price, is pretty impressive.

That price is insane!! I am pretty hard on my keyboards so I never spend huge amounts, I got a Ajazz AK820 pro for about £50 and im loving it so far even the keycaps are very nice.

i find it really funny, even as someone who likes mechanical keyboards as they are now with the linear/tactile switches and such, how divorced the idea of mechanical keyboards has become from the original retrocomputing-enthusiast-focused ideal, where everyone wanted nice, satisfyingly clicky switches like box jades/Navys because that was how old keyboards sounded! i still have something with nice, loudly clicky Alps switches on my keyboard "bucket list" as it were...

Extreme board flex: for people too proud to admit they prefer the feel of silicone dome switches.

All that crappiness for $600 (Keyboard and wrist-rest....no function keys)....no thanks!!!

I asked for a flexible keyboard, but I just meant one that works with AT, PS2, and USB protocols.

With that amount of flex consistently across the whole board, you'd think it was intentional

In 2022 I bought a gaming keyboard for about a dollar on Black Friday, really cheap plastic and it has no weight to it, but still it flexes less than this 500$ thing. 🤯

without the wobbling it would be a killer product... i love the looks and the metal chasis!!

All that metal work and they didn't think to do the same for the switch mount, what an odd choice.

The VIA support may be coming to the official VIA release in an update. I've done a little keyboard development. In the mean time there'll be a JSON file you can sideload into VIA dev mode to get it to talk to the keeb. If they've got a support contact they should hook you up with that.

I've never seen a keyboard bend like soft rubber before (unless it was made by soft rubber)

Oh my god they put the little default Substance Painter brush looking doodads you see all over the cars in Cyberpunk 2077 on the back. I've never seen one that existed in the real world and was solid, and this keyboard has four.

Hilarious how many people here have no concept of custom keyboards and flexible PCBs and mounting designs. No, its absolutely nothing like membrane. No, it doesn't affect accuracy or gaming ability. Rather, it makes for an incredibly comfortable and fun typing experience. I daily drive a plateless, PCB gasket mount board with flex cuts. I adore it relative to a super stiff build. Layers take care of the "missing" F row. It's no different than using shift to access seconded functions on keys like apostrophe and colon. You can completely customize your layout and layers 'till your heart's content. If the board isn't automatically recognized in VIA or VIAL, you can load the definitions manually to edit. Preference is one thing, but not understanding (i.e. ignorance) is somwthing very different. Until youve actually tried it, don't knock it.

Refreshing to see someone bounce as hard off of current mechanical keyboard trends as I did. The tiny layout, intentional mushy flexy feeling, linear switches, just not for me. Beautiful case though. If i had a ton of money burning a hole in my pocket i'd hope they make an 1800 or something,

Ready for a WinMX retrospective! Went to that after p2p napster died

The positive side is if the people at Toshi Industrial Design wanted a cyberpunk aesthetic in the packaging of their products and in the company's name, congratulations, they nailed it.

I'd love to see a teardown of this keyboard, so we can see what is causing all of the flex.

I hope this doesn’t dissuade WINMIX from continuing to develop a product. They’re onto something, even if this is a full miss. I really like the lifetime build idea.

The flex you felt is a "wanted" (yeah no idea either) feature these days in mechanical keyboard scene they say it's "more satisfying" even though I'd say a hard bottom out feels way better

Well, I'm happy for two Blerb videos from you in such a small amount of time. Obviously bad keyboard. Kinda wonder if a support bracket was missing or something? That flex is wild. You should take it apart and see if the weight is the construction, or if they just added weights to make it feel more premium?

I am really into retro-keyboards. This was an absolutely brutal review. Respect to you and certainly also to the vendor for agreeing to all this. Maybe they will fix some of the problems. I actually sort of like the style.

If I'm forking out $500 for a keyboard and it flexed like that I would be livid and returning it so fast.

For $500 that can absolutely get in the sea.

I love the metal and the retro styling, but man... That flex is a no-go. At that price, it needs to be PERFECT....Or reasonably close to it. I feel like the inclusion of function keys wouldn't have interfered with the styling either.

It's so weird to me how flex has become desirable among high-end keyboards in the last few years. Flex cuts and gasket mounts exist to try and add as much flex as possible, and rigid plates are seen as "cheap" now. I guess the notion is that flexible boards are less fatiguing over a long period of time, but that strikes me as something far better solved at the switch level if it's an issue at all (and I doubt it actually is). Fads are gonna fad I suppose, and keyboards are definitely at the point where the high-end market has to invent SOMETHING to create demand since durable keyboards are otherwise a solved problem.

If it weren't for the flex and price, this looks like something Strong Bad would type on

Looks cool, but not $500 cool. I will take a hard pass on this one! Thanks for reviewing this one Clint! I really enjoyed the video!

Man! I think I just want a keyboard with those color key caps, and normal legends for a Keychron keyboard (probably a V/Q6)

Hi Clint. Good review, bad keyboard! :) I was having a look at another review of the same keyboard and apparently that keyboard flex is an intentional design. The flex is designed as a "shock absorber" for when you press down on the keys. No amount of flex will absorb my shock at how terrible that feature is. UUGGHHH I agree with you mate, absolutely horrible.

Wow, even my noname plastic keyboard I got for free with a cheap case doesn't flex like this 👀

The Keychron C2 is a great retro-inspired yet modern keyboard. I think it's around $70? At least mine was. It has Keychron's blue switches so it's nice and clicky. The only issues I have with it are that the print screen and surrounding keys are different, the included key caps on the numpad don't have home, delete, arrow keys etc on the legend; and it doesn't have PS/2 for old computers. That's easily rectified by some of those DIY adapters or, in my case, having an old PC that supports USB keyboards in legacy mode.

Any chance you will be checking out the IBM Model M inspired keyboard by 8BitDo?

Looks neat, but I really want the 8bitdo C64 keyboard

what has the company said in response to the video? I’m dying to hear them defend their choices.

Sunday BLEEEERRRRBS.

Instead of that wrist rest I'd just go to the kitchen and grab a cheese grater

That's a pretty metal keyboard. Just look at this flex

for anyone confused about the flex it's important to note that in custom keyboards that kind of flex is desired by some people and is absolutely intentional. i'm not a fan of flexy keyboards but a substantial part of the custom keyboard community is.