MIIIW BlackIO 83 Mechanical Keyboard Overview
As I mentioned the BlackIO 83 has a very unique design. While it might just appear to be a black keyboard from further way, upon closer inspection you’ll see that the casing as well as the keycaps are transparent. It gives the keyboard a really cool look and allows you to see the components inside.
There are three different color options for this keyboard, we have the “Golden” version which has a gold accent bar across the top of the keyboard as well as gold keycaps for the arrow keys. This is an 83-key or 75% keyboard, which many people cool a Mini-TKL. With this layout you get your arrow keys, full function row, as well as a handful of function keys. On the layout that MIIIW is using the Print Screen, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys are slightly separated from the rest of the keyboard. For those wondering about size the keyboard has official dimensions of 336.3 x 158.7 x 38.1 mm.
Instead of PBT or ABS keycaps MIIIW has gone with clear polycarbonate keycaps. This is going to allow the RGB lighting to shine through quite a lot (more on that in a bit). These keycaps sort of have a glossy finish, which is really noticeable when you don’t have the lighting on the keyboard turned on. The legends on the keycaps are white, with a few exceptions being gold. The spacebar says “Innovation in the Open”, which seems pretty fitting for this keyboard.
Removing these keycaps you’ll find your mechanical key switches which are the Kailh Jellyfish box switches. MIIIW is using the “Y” or linear version of the switch that has an actuation force of 50g, pre-travel of 1.8mm, total travel of 3.6mm, and a really low (15g) return force. This keyboard is hot-swappable, so you can easily swap out the switches down the line if you want.
On the gold section on the top of the keyboard there are six indicators that will light up when they are in use. The first will let you know if you are charging the keyboard, the second one is for caps lock, the next three are for Bluetooth and the last one is for the 2.4 GHz connection.
The gold section actually extends half-way down on the edge of the keyboard, which will give it a good look if someone is sitting in front of you. On the edge of the keyboard it says “IT RUNS QMK ON THIS DEVICE” and on one side you’ll find all of your buttons and connections as well as a the USB receiver for the 2.4 GHz connectivity. I really like that there is a place for the USB receiver as I tend to end up losing those. As far as buttons and connections you have a power button, a switch to select cable or wireless mode, a switch to select the Windows or Mac layout, and a USB-C connection.
By default the keyboard sits pretty flat. There are two levels adjustment that you get to put the keyboard and more of an angle. Flipping the keyboard over you find the pop-out feet that give you that angle as well as five rubber feet.
