Anyone have experience with Redragon mechanical keyboards?
Looking into getting my first mechanical keyboard and want to dip my toes in the pool. Just wanted your guys perspective. I might swap the switches for some gaterons since they are hotswappable.
I'm pretty sure some of the Reddragon boards got ported to QMK via SonixQMK. If you at all interested in whether your board can run QMK or not, that might be worth a search (personally, it's not a killer for me - I use a software to remap in my OS).
I don't personally have one, but back on /r/budgetkeebs they were considered a perfectly reasonable brand for first keyboards and modding candidates. Reasonable build quality for the price, many of them hot-swappable (though double check that hotswap socket type before buying your new switches). What you won't get is QMK levels of customizability or meticulous attention to detail in regards to sound or build quality.
Honestly, even a no-name FIlco-knockoff 104-key gamerboard with rainbow LED and generic blue or brown switches is a step up from most membrane keyboards; the bigger issue with a Red Dragon is that you won't stop there. :-)
Thanks for the info! Yea i have been mech-curious for a while and just recently heard about them and liked the price point. Just need to take the plunge, here we go!
My VERY cheap board is a weird little e-yooso Z19 with aliexpress switches and keycaps, and a quick tape mod. It has the outemu socket style hotswaps, which made it distinctly unpleasant to change out, but it was indeed hotswappable for about $22. I am an edge case in that I type heavy and like things clicky and loud, so I don't need to lube everything. I used Auto-hotkey to tweak the layout a bit on the single PC that I use it with, and made sure I got keycaps that had a tactile bump on the arrow cluster. So I was all in on a 94-key board (it has a weird but functional numpad in the footprint of a "ten-keyless" 80% board) to my liking for under $50.
My "nicer" board is for work and is still a value board, an FL-Esports FL980, an "1800" style with a compressed but complete numpad. I told myself I was going to sell the Kailh box white switches after I changed them out (much nicer on "normal" hotswap sockets, btw) for Box Navy, but... hobbies happen by accident sometimes. I wanted that one to have a proper numpad and not to need any software to do what I wanted, and I found it on Warehouse deals for $43. The stock keycaps would have been fine, but I had an unused XDA set lying around from a previous evening on AliExpress.
I also have an ortholinear with 50 keys that I handwired and configured using KMK, but to date that one has not forced its way into daily use. There are also a couple of the aforementioned gamerboards floating around my home office. They're not half-bad if you change the keycaps and turn down the LEDs :-)
I've heard things about redragon boards having somewhat bad latency, though I don't know if that's still true. If you play competitive video games, I'd maybe look into that, just in case.
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