Keychron Q3 Max review: Why everyone should consider this keyboard masterpiece

Having tested out a wide number of gaming keyboards in the past year, most of them have the same bells and whistles – but most of them have the same sort of flavour. 

In comes the Keychron Q3 Max, a keyboard that wasn’t on my radar. Keychron is for keyboard enthusiasts who want to customise and configure their keyboards from the keycaps, the switches and the board. They offer a wide range of different keyboards, switches and configurations.

During my few months with the keyboard, I can say this might be one of the best keyboards I’ve used – for gaming and productivity. 

The Keychron Q3 Max is an 80% tenkeyless keyboard with an aluminium body along with multiple different layers of acoustic foams interlayered within the keyboard. Keychron explains the layout of the keyboard on its website right here. 

There’s also double-shot PBT keycaps which are printed at the side which isn’t to everyone’s taste as well as a side knob which allows you to mute and slide the volume of your PC to your taste. It can also be customised through Keychron’s software to whatever you want it to do as well as other parts of the keyboard as well. 

It also comes with 2.4G wireless connectivity (a dongle is included in the box) as well as Bluetooth and a USB-C connection. You can also choose to have Gateron Jupiter Red, Brown or Banana installed on the keyboard and we chose the bananas.  

In hand, the Keychron Q3 Max feels like the best quality keyboard I’ve ever felt. The heavy aluminium body feels like a super-premium product. Even with the aluminium body, it doesn’t sacrifice with acoustics at all. Each keystroke feels extremely satisfying in terms of sound and feel – something other pre-assembled gaming keyboards have failed to accomplish.  

Everything seems extremely well thought-out with the Q3 Max and it really feels like you get a massively premium product for the price you pay. The only real annoyances we had was the side-printed keycaps aren’t for everyone but you can change that on the configuration and the keyboard is heavy so don’t expect to carry this around.  

The Q3 Max hasn’t failed a beat since we’ve been testing it. As we briefly mentioned, our model came with Gateron Jupiter Banana switches which is exclusive to Keychron. They come pre-lubed in the factory and have an earlier tactile bumps and stronger tactile feedback than a regular brown switch. 

Under my finger, the banana switches feel like a smooth and more consistent Cherry Brown switch that provides satisfying feedback with a shorter travel time. I honestly absolutely loved this switch, and it has become one of my new favourites since using it. 

One thing that absolutely knocked me out of the park was its performance in gaming. The Keychron Q3 Max doesn’t market itself as a gaming keyboard, but it has killed it in every game we’ve used it with.  

I used the Keychron Q3 Max for Final Fantasy XIV’s new expansion Dawntrail and it was flawless, quick and snappy. The wireless connectivity never skipped a beat, and I was easily able to use the USB-C connector when battery life started to drop.  

In terms of battery life, I have only needed to plug it in three times in the past 2 months which is brilliant – and this was with some heavy usage. It is rated for 180 hours of battery life without any RGB, but it can get up to 100 hours of battery life with RGB on. 

One thing that I moan about with when it comes to gaming keyboards is the fact that most of them are not hot-swappable. The Keychron Q3 Max is hot swappable and it’s a breath of fresh air. The PCB supports both 3 pin and 5 pin MX mechanical switches which means you can swap out switches or customise it as much as you want if you feel so inclined.  

If you really care about features like snap tap or rapid trigger on some keyboards, you won’t get this with the Keychron Q3 Max which might turn off some hardcore gamers.  

Keychron has killed it in terms of performance and typing with the Q3 Max and I believe every single gaming keyboard manufacture should take note.  

The Keychron Q3 Max has its own launcher which is an open-source QMK firmware means there’s tons of choice for remapping keys, keybinds, macros and much more.  

All the remapping can be done through your web browser without needing to download any 3rd party software so there’s less bloat on your PC. However, one thing we did notice was how the updating the keyboard PCB can be a bit confusing and complicated.  

It took us a while to understand how to do it which may be a bit frustrating and seems a bit overly complicated compared to some other programs we’ve used. It took us a couple tries to update the keyboard which occasionally didn't seem to work. However, it seems this has been fixed in a recent update. 

You can get the Keychron Q3 Max for £189 on Keychron’s website which also allows much more customisation. If you want to build it yourself with your own custom switches or PCB, it also offers a barebones version that you can get for cheaper.  

Keychron also has its own Amazon storefront with the Q3 Max set to hit the store soon but there are other alternatives you can also check out right here.