u/Crookfur

I suppose a more apt question might be: What could possibly go right?

However £16 for a "hall effect" TKL board sounded like it was worth a punt...

So after waiting a month or so for it arrive by land and playing with it for a bit I though some of you might be interested to read my thoughts/review.

The AFGVK CZJP01

I will say I went into this with the expectation that if the board plugged in and I could type on it then it was a win. As such this is indeed a winner! It works, it lights up and the the RGB can be controlled (a bit).

Build quality

In short pretty crap. Its cheap, light and has a plastic mounting plate that is visibly curved and perhaps slightly cracked at one of the screw holes. Whole thing flexes if you put any pressure on it. The outer case material feels on par with my Ajazz ak680he v2 (not a good thing) and the key caps are fine.

Oh and as you can see from one of the pics above the switches were not not all inserted in the same orientation most were faced to allow the north facing led to shine through but a few were the other way for some unknown reason.

Switches

God knows what these are. The aquamarine, clear and yellow colour scheme isn't too common but its been used a few times. I though they might be Aula Sea Emperors but those have a fully enclosed stem box.

Whatever these are they are not terrible. Fairly smooth and light, reasonable wobble and a creamyish clack sound somewhere between a MAD68he and an Win68HE max.

Usage

It works, it types and it feels OK. The flexible plastic plate, light switches and reasonable lightly textured key caps means its fairly soft and comfortable to type on. It works fine in games but I'm not any kind of competive player.

Software

Hahaha...

Yeah, when the instructions are:

1.plug into usb

2. No drivers required for basic functionality

You think there going to be software?

Well maybe there is but I'm damned if I can find it...

Conclusion

Is keyboard, does type, RGB is there but is limited and the short cuts give you very limited control over it.

Can I recommend it?

Not a chance but seeing as it has disappeared from TEMU that's a bit academic. Will it return? Who knows but if it does avoid.

In the end I bought this out of sheer curiosity and as what is essentially a functional ornament. It's a fun thing to have in a collection but that's are far as it goes.

I bought one...

Despite warning others away from this company and their boards based on some of the Amazon reviews I have been intrigued by them personally.

As such when I found a Flux 68 on Aliexpress with local availability for less than £18 I threw caution to the wind and within 36hrs I had one...

**First impressions**

The box is nicely printed, the packing is basic and the extras are "fine" (basic usb c to a cable, nasty keycap/switch puller and a few extra switches). The board itself is noticeably light, even compared to an Attack Shark X68he, and flexes quite a bit. Definitely no metal plate here.

In short it, unsurprisingly, feels cheap. The switches on the other hand are not bad, nicer than the attack sharks stock switches. Despite feeling cheap the board actually feels not bad to use and it is fairly quiet, this possibly because of the fairly flexible construction making it feel softer to the touch.

Oh and once you plug it in its instantly in rainbow wave mode and there are no instructions, in the box or on their website, for changing the RGB mode or turning it off.

They mention Fn key combos but what those actually might be is left a mystery.

Instead Dark Beacon are very insistent that you install their software.

**DarkBeacon.ai aka the software**

Now this is where the reviews indicated problems with a barely functional and untranslated website. Happily this is not the case anymore. Software DL was easy and yes you still need to register with an email and your date of birth but as long as the email address you give can get the verification email there is nothing stopping you making unfortunate errors in your personal details.

Once registered the software opens, detects your board tells you the firmware is out of date and then freezes doing nothing. Restarting the software and manually running a firmware update works. Now you get asked to calibrate. Naturally with an unresponsive calibration screen. Luckily there is a working skip button and doing calibration manually proceeds perfectly.

Now you are in the software and settings and its... good.

All the usual HE board options nicely and clearly set out. Not a lot of preset rgb modes but they obviously intend you use the AI mode for that sort of stuff (a bit more on that later). Any setting you make in the software can be saved to the board so you don't need keep it running as seems to have been the case previously.

Now here is the surprising thing. This £38 rrp plastic board has game pad mode. Yes game pad mode and it seems to work pretty well.

Lastly is the "AI" features. They push these heavily and the website makes a big thing about how you can talk to the software to set it up how you like. Indeed when you open the software you get prompted to sign up for it and receive free "credits". Naturally as an old luddite I gave that a massive swerve but I did notice that a new little app had turned my microphone on. Well that got promptly turned off and I'll need to investigate further.

So with the software explored, my rgb set to plain green lighting with blue side bars it was time to play some Forza, where it was perfectly good. A bit on the soft side as I mentioned previously but sharp enough to lay some top 4000 time attack scores (not that impresive but about where I normally sit).

Next steps are to investigate if the software is communicating and if so how much as well as if bits of it keep running even if you close it completely and don't run it on start up.

Then its just spending more time with the board to get more of a feel it and do some side by sides with my Aula win68he.

**Conclusion**

It's cheap, it feels cheap but it works. The software is equally really good and potentially iffy.

At under £20 its probably worth it but if you have £20 then you likely have enough extra cash to look into the £30-40 bracket where there are a bunch of budget 65% HE boards including the ACE68 which i have coming next month.

If you have any questions or if you want some videos or anything I'll do my best to oblige.

My attempt at a ThermalTake livery for their competition.

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Aston Martin Vantage 2019

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