Written By Alex Jiang, and Ka Lap Ng

Do you want to improve the aesthetics of your computer? Is it looking bland? Then, look no further! Keycaps come in all shapes, sizes, and colors and this article will help you select from a variety of choices on how you can beautify your keycaps, and beautify your computer!’
I bet that you can find at least three different types of keycaps to your liking! For example, my favourite color is blue and I want to get blue colored keycaps! Therefore I would go for the GMK Striker, GMK Firefly, or GMK Blue Samurai models of keycaps. I will explain this later on in other parts.

Keycaps in the mechanical keyboard community are very interesting. They are split between different keycap profiles, which refers to the shape of the keycap. These profiles include OEM, cherry, DSA, XDA, and SA. Each of these types come in various lengths, thickness, and angles!

Profile Types

Keycap Materials

Of course in the world of mechanical keyboards, the keycaps are made with materials either PBT, ( polybutylene terephthalate) ABS(acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene plastic), or POM. (acetal, polyacetal, and polyformaldehyde). We will not discuss POM due to the small number of keycaps that uses it.

PBT material keycaps are often sought and used by writers and gamers since it is made out of plastic material., this means that the keycaps are synonymous with hardness and durability, making it able to last for years and resistant to lots of aggressive and daily typing by writers and gamers. PBT material keycaps can also help eliminate typing sounds from the keyboard itself, and it suits people who prefer to hear their music, game sounds, or their surroundings even though these facts sound convincing, there are some cons. This includes that it’s very expensive, and most of the keycaps aren’t as high quality and good looking like GMK.

ABS material keycaps are often found in normal / office keyboards. They are hard to find in more elite gaming keyboards. but most of the time ABS keycaps are much cheaper than PBT. (except for GMK). ABS isn’t are durable as PBT, they are also prone to grease from food and fingers which is one disadvantage of this type of keycap. One of the disadvantages of ABS material keycaps is that it isn’t as durable as PBT. It is also prone to grease from food and fingers.

The Problem with GMK Keycaps

A lot of problems with keycaps are the ridiculous prices, and how ridiculous it is to find them. As I mentioned, cherry layouts are one of the most popular layouts for keycaps. Don’t get me wrong, these keycaps sold online are fantastic, but it will literally bankrupt me. Some of these cherry layout keycaps have an average cost of around 1556 HKD. Customer reviews state that their keycaps have been manufactured poorly, including some crooked keycaps (sidesareen91).

Adding onto these ridiculous prices, it takes incredibly long to produce, and the primary distributor of these keycaps is known as GMK and they have received widespread criticism for taking a long time for products to get to consumers.

GMK is a well-known source of keycaps for every single person in the custom keyboard community, but buying from them can take a while. Since a lot of the keycaps are sold right after it’s released,, people set up these things called group buys, where they try to pay for the keycaps before the initial release of them.

Giving them a higher chance to get it. It’s crazy how much people will wait and try to pay for these keycaps. At the bottom below I will show some places/shops new keyboard enthusiasts can go and buy not only keycaps but keyboard-related parts. I can understand the pain of how a lot of the shops that are in America either take way too long to ship or do not ship to Hong Kong/China.

Where can I buy these very very cool keycaps?

Of course even though saying, that it’s really hard to buy these cherry profile keycaps. There are some places where you can buy the keycaps much quicker and possibly even cheaper!

Some shops include:

• Drop (an online shop that sales GMK without GROUP BUYS!!!! But is partly limited)
• Kinetic Labs ( an online shop that also sells GMK! Partly cheaper also!)
• Kbdfans ( China company very useful for buying other keyboard parts also)
• Banana Key Co. ( new business. Sells high-quality assembled keyboards with a choice for good quality keycaps on them.)
• Bokkey. me (A place you can actually go in Hong Kong, that sells all types of keyboard parts including good keycaps)(Fo Tan, Room 4, 12/f, Block E Wah Lok Industrial Centre Phase 2 THEY ONLY OPENS AT SATURDAY AFTER 1PM)

Comment:

As a person who grew up in Hong Kong, and has a keyboard addiction. It is a must-to-know iconic Hong Kong places that sell keyboards. Hong Kong doesn’t normally have any “custom keyboard” parts besides the Bokkey. Me shop to my knowledge. It’s annoying to wait more than a few weeks to get some parts online. People who are getting into the keyboard hobby in Hong Kong can be very frustrated, what is that? What’s a gmk? what’s a budget build?

Questions like these seem to be everywhere. It took me years to learn what to do and what to avoid. Unfortunately, there aren’t many resources available for beginners in Hong Kong who want to have fun and learn about the keyboard hobby. I’m here to offer some guidance across various aspects of this community. I’ve discussed different components of keyboards, including switches, stabilizers, and now keycaps. My goal is to cover everything over time, but most importantly, let’s enjoy the community together!