In a dimly-lit corner in a room in Gigabyte’s massive suite in the Taipei 101, I found the company’s forthcoming XK700 mechanical keyboard. It’s part of a gaming line within Gigabyte that apparently is receiving some attention internally, but hasn’t been discussed publicly much at this point.
In fact, no one on the project was around to discuss it with me, so I was unable to pepper anyone with detailed questions about specifications, and I didn't find any materials mentioning specifications.
However, by prying off some key caps, we were able to ascertain that the GXK700 uses Cherry Red RGB switches and Cherry-style stabilizers. There are no passthrough ports.
One attractive feature is the adjustable feet. Instead of laying flat or flipping up, the feet can be adjusted by rotating a circular gear above each foot. That lets you precisely adjust the angle and height of the keyboard. An obvious drawback, though, it that it appears there’s no way to ensure that both feet are adjusted to exactly the same height, unless they’re raised or lowered to their maximum or minimum, respectively.
The GXK700 has a full numpad and a small Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming logo next to the Num Lock, Caps Lock, Scr Lock and Win Lock LEDs. Some of the F keys double as media keys.
Gigabyte appears to have copied a page out of the Corsair design playbook by mounting the switches directly onto an attractive, silver, brushed-metal finish backplate. It appears to be at least a few millimeters thick, so it should withstand flexion well. The bottom part of the chassis is plastic, and it bears the resemblance of a product that’s not quite finished yet.
It’s apparently still a prototype, although it seems close to being polished. We don’t know when it will be available, nor how much it will cost, and that’s because Gigabyte doesn’t seem to know yet, either.
Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.
