Author Topic: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D  (Read 7729 times)

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Offline GL1TCH3D

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GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« on: Sun, 28 December 2014, 12:04:29 »
GoN MobiK
 
Review by GL1TCH3D
 


Review date is December 28th, 2014
 
Info:
This came built/assembled by GoN
This has the modded GoN ergo mx clears with the lubed cherry stabilizers.
He uses his personal mixture of lubes and the 55g korean springs.
The keyboard is a 40% layout that he designed to be able to fit more standard keycap sets.
There are options for Bluetooth connectivity that you can purchase.
For backlighting there's the side lighting as well as in switch or on pcb lighting. (I got on pcb in case I want to swap out the keys later which I doubt I'll do but will make it easier for that if I decide to).
The keyboard without keycaps or the cable weighs in at about 230g.
It's under 30x10x5cm including the feet and DSA keycaps.
The Mobik's battery while connected to my phone lasted over 24 hours of intermittent use.
 
Part 1,
Aesthetics and Portability
 
Why am I reviewing aesthetics for a keyboard? Well considering this is a MobiK (Short for mobile keyboard) I assume you'll be taking it outside like myself! 40% is a lot less effective than 60% or MXMINI since you're forced to move a lot of essentials to other layers. The best thing about it is the insanely small size and the fact that you can impress people being able to type better on a smaller keyboard. (That last part is a joke)
But for portability the smaller size could be highly valued for some people like myself.
 
What sets this apart from the other keyboards in the 40% group is that GoN is really the only custom Korean board makers that implements Bluetooth into the boards and for a portable keyboard that can make a large difference to some people. Obviously for a desktop that really won't matter as you'll have yourself a nice fancy USB cable but on my tablet with a single USB port that Bluetooth connectivity can really come in handy to keep typing away while inserting USB drives and whatnot (the tablet hasn't had much success using non-powered USB hubs).
 
It's also really one of two more readily available 40% boards (the other one that I consider readily available is the JD40 which I also owned with ergo clears). 40% really isn't for everyone since it involves using Fn layers even for something basic like numbers but allows for some fun use of the keyboard as well in this respect.
 
I'll discuss the build of the MobiK in a later section.
 
On to actual criticisms. The switch stickers were basically all perfectly aligned with no keys misaligned (the switch sticker comment is more in respect to the crystal TKL form GoN which I mentioned in my review that some of the stickers were a bit off).
 
The keys were perfectly aligned (I mean I'd hope so at this price right?).
 
The case is really clean and simple. What really struck me most is the way the lines curve around the bolts.
 

 
I thought it was a really nice touch and added some nice aesthetics to it. The curving around doesn't stick out around the corners and it's less than half a millimeter out in the front and back side. Not enough to be a problem for anything really. It won't catch and get in the way.
 
As for the LEDs, it should be noted that the LEDs only function over USB and not over bluetooth. Pretty sure GoN set this so that you don't drain your entire battery in 15 seconds but I never really asked him about it. The LED lighting is really nice with the crystal casing (light diffusing acrylic) giving off a really nice even lighting for the side lightning (the pictures don't do it justice. It's a lot deeper blue in person and much more vibrant than my computer can seem to reproduce). With the on pcb lighting it makes a really nice transition effect between the vibrant blue to the top side white lighting.
 


No faults there, the lighting is extremely even, transitions well and is very colorful and vibrant.
 
The biggest fault that I have with the aesthetics of the board is really in the feet being rubber feet. I realize that rubber will slip a lot less but maybe a low profile acrylic with rubber tipped foot for the back could have been nice.
 
For portability there's really no fault. It's lightweight with Bluetooth and fairly sturdy but if the loud clicking pisses someone off they could probably snap this in half over their knee.
 
I owned the JD40 with the custom full stainless steel case that's been going around and that was ridiculously heavy (weighing in at well over 1kg). It also didn't support Bluetooth and was not as low profile even with the DSA Granite set. The skeleton case would have been a lot lighter and maybe a touch lower profile but everything is left out in the open for dust and whatnot which can pose an issue while using it as a mobile keyboard. I doubt you can find a mechanical keyboard that's more portable than the MobiK.
 
Portability is a solid 10/10
Aesthetics will be a solid 9.75/10
Honestly with the feet a transparent rubber/plastic the side lighting bleeds through it and make sit glow so it's really not that bad and is just more nitpicking than a flaw.
 
Part 2,
The Build
 
This section will cover the actual construction of the keyboard.


 
The first thing that I'd like to address is the flimsiness of the keyboard. Anybody that read the review I posted on the TKL will probably remember that there was significant bend in the case that people with heavier hands would easily notice the keyboard bending especially in the middle while typing. I have really light hands when I type so I never experienced this issue myself and my light typing is also one of the reasons I bought the Realforce 89s a few years back. GoN mentioned that the bending was intentional because some people apparently want that in their board. Bending isn't for me but it wasn't an issue with how lightly I type.
 
But in regards to the MobiK, there's so little bend when putting pressure on the middle of the keyboard due to it being much smaller. And to be realistic, that's while putting a significant amount of pressure right on the middle of the board. Using a single finger to push down on the board it doesn't bend.
 
The switches feel identical as if they all came out of the same factory. There's absolutely no issue with the switches for me and they feel phenomenal. I'm really sensitive to having switches that are different weights and that includes stabilizers adding resistance so for me it's really important for the modded switches to be realistically identical and they are in this board. The stabilizers don't even feel like they're there for the smaller modifiers though it's noticeable for the spacebar stabilizer that there's more resistance (not an issue since it's a thumb press. It really becomes an issue for me when I have costar stabilizers in my backspace key).
 
I'll be knocking off the points for the feet in this section that I mentioned before. With other Korean customs the feet usually match the board (including the GoN MXMini that's also sitting on my desk as I type out this review).
 
The anodized bolts fall nicely in the casing and don't stick out.
 
Overall built quality is 9.25/10 when accounting for the rubber feet.
 
 
Part 3
 
Usability
 
This section covers usability choices of the MobiK
 
What is usability?
This refers to the actual nuances and whatnot that make up the actual use of the keyboard and not just visual or physical properties. This includes the software changes and whatnot.
 
The Nerdy GUI is really easy and simple to use. Though do remember that even if you set the LEDs to function while connected to Bluetooth and on battery, it won't work. The GUI is really fast to use as well when making adjustments to the keyboard. No need to draw up a layout like for the JD40 then use the teensy tool to flash it on. It's a much more streamlined process on the MobiK using the Nerd GUI.
 
Please note that the GUI is made for Windows use and while there's a tool made for other systems I've never used that tool and I don't think it's as nicely made, though, at least it's there.
 
The documentation for the tools can be a bit lacking for some aspects but GoN does run a help thread in his subforum where you can ask him questions and he generally replies very quickly.
 
The acrylic plate does not have the cutouts for the on plate modding without the need to desolder the switches. Since this only comes as a build it yourself kit at the moment the lack of such a plate might be really annoying for someone looking to mod their keyboard a lot (specifically the switches). The lack of the cutouts however makes the keyboard look cleaner so it's not an issue for me but something that I feel should be mentioned. I don't think any of GoN's boards have the cutouts in them but I'll verify that with him.
 
The last thing to mention is referring to the layout.
 
I find the layout of the MobiK more comfortable than the JD40. It's a bit longer than the JD40 to accommodate more normal modifiers. The spacebar and the caps lock is off centered so depending on the keyset it won't fit (the Christmas keyset I received couldn't fit on the keyboard). Also since I wanted to copy the HHKB layout more or less it would have been nice to put a regular sized cap in that place instead of the stepped caps lock key but honestly it hasn't been an issue for me while using it as the ctrl key.
 


Usability is a solid 10/10 but really keep in mind that I believe it's easiest to mod the layout using the tool on Windows. The off centered caps and spacebar have no impact on me and most modern sets have spacebars that fit both and come with stepped caps lock.

These are my current layers with the FN2 layer including the bluetooth options and the F stripe





Part 4
 
The Finale.
 
This places the overall score at 39/40 which averages out to...
 
9.75/10
 
Amazing keyboard. Unique due to the size, layout and functionality as a mobile keyboard.
Besides the feet there's nothing that I would change about this keyboard.

This keyboard retails at $285 USD + shipping for the kit which does not include assembly or modded switches.
GoN had no influence on the review besides fact checking. He asked me to clarify that the LEDs are only disabled when the board is running on battery.
« Last Edit: Sun, 28 December 2014, 12:56:29 by GL1TCH3D »

Offline Puddsy

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 28 December 2014, 12:31:48 »
Hey man, no matter how crappy the rubber feet are, they're still important. I like when my keyboards don't slide.
QFR | MJ2 TKL | "Bulgogiboard" (Keycon 104) | ctrl.alt x GON 60% | TGR Alice | Mira SE #29 | Mira SE #34 | Revo One | z | Keycult No. 1 | AIS65 | First CW87 prototype | Mech27v1 | Camp C225 | Duck Orion V1 | LZ CLS sxh | Geon Frog TKL | Hiney TKL One | Geon Glare TKL



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Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 28 December 2014, 12:48:10 »
Hey man, no matter how crappy the rubber feet are, they're still important. I like when my keyboards don't slide.

I thought it'd be more like the feet on the other custom boards though where you have something solid with the tip being rubber so it doesn't slide.
The feet on this are rubber through and through

Offline sethk_

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 28 December 2014, 13:06:17 »
Your keyboard is beautiful especially w/ Granite.

Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 28 December 2014, 13:15:04 »
Your keyboard is beautiful especially w/ Granite.

Granite is easily my favorite set =]

The Gray of the granite works really well with the gray of the acrylic. I have the infinity set on order so I'll put that on and see how it does with the blue modifiers and blue LEDs when it comes in

Offline sethk_

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 28 December 2014, 13:40:34 »

Your keyboard is beautiful especially w/ Granite.

Granite is easily my favorite set =]

The Gray of the granite works really well with the gray of the acrylic. I have the infinity set on order so I'll put that on and see how it does with the blue modifiers and blue LEDs when it comes in
Yeah, those both are nice colors of gray

Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 27 October 2015, 16:49:36 »
Going to make a video of the blueotooth function since some people were asking about the bluetooth on the TKL review.

I really like the bluetooth function

Offline mobbo

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #7 on: Thu, 29 October 2015, 08:42:28 »
Wow great review. I love reading quality content like this :3 it feels like I'm actually learning something as opposed to finding snippets of information here and there.

Your reviews are helping me immensely in weighing the pros and cons of getting a GoN (so far it looks like little to no cons :P).
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Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #8 on: Mon, 02 November 2015, 08:32:03 »
For anybody interested, here's my experience with 40% boards including the mobik. This is copy pasted from reddit so bare with me.

A lot of people have asked about 40% boards.

They're something kind of new starting mainly with the JD40 from less than 2 years ago.

They took off especially with the Planck (however I started with the JD40 and moved to the GoN MobiK).

I'll be writing about my experiences using 40% boards (mainly the MobiK in this case because I haven't owned the Planck and sold the JD40 fairly early on).

What are the main thoughts that people have in respect to 40% boards? (I'll be mostly referring to the standard staggared layout and not the ortho layout of the Planck or custom layouts that people have designed for their personal use).

The first is that it's tiny.

On one hand that's good for people who want a smaller board especially for portable use.

On the other hand you might not need the extra space compared to a 60%.

My experience with it is that 40% does offer a significant improvement for portable use over a 60% board.

When you consider the limited bag space that most are left with and the case you're going to want (and trust me, you will want one), the 40% gives a significant break in bag space.

Consider that the board is smaller on the length and width of the board because of the missing keys (no number stripe or punctuation section). You're saving about 1cm on the width and 2-3 on the length depending on the model.

I know I bring a lot of stuff to school with me.

Books, notepads, pens (fountain pens of course), calculators and other tools, food, coffee, coffee, etc.

So I've been trying to bring different boards with me to school over the past year and the 40% boards were a lot easier to bring.

I've tried TKL, 60% and 40%.

TKL is just a pain and extremely unnecessary.

60% is fair and depending on your situation is very usable.

40% gave me the most space (logically, it shouldn't be any different).

Remember, I'm just writing about my experiences with 40% boards so this is just how they fared with my uses.

But I found the extra space very handy.

Obviously this has to be weighed against the loss of key real estate.

So the main part of this is how much that real estate matters.

What is the 40% layout? Well, different crafters have made slight variations for the trade offs, but in general the entire numpad is removed, all the nav cluster removed (no page up, down, arrows, etc.), the F stripe AND number stripe removed with the punctuation stripe removed.

What does that leave you with?

You have your alphas, modifiers and a few keys here and there that you can remap.

Now this means that in general you're remapping almost all the non-character (alphabet) keys to an Fn layer.

This is the part that most people will have a problem with.

What are the initial thoughts?

-I can't live without the numper stripe.

-I can't live with the punctuation being on an Fn layer.

-Switching between this layout and my X sized board will be confusing

And all of those points are quite important.

My first point is that most of my typing is done in regular english language where I'll mostly be just using the alphas, basic punctuation (which I've mapped to various keys on the bottom row) and modifiers. Using a 40% i this case hasn't been a bother. If anything it's actually been more comfortable because the modifiers on the right side are closer and I have to move my hands less.

When do those lack of keys come into play?

Well, I'm in finance and when I'm taking notes with the Mobik about equations and numbers, it definitely plays a role. I designed my Fn1 layer to be all the punctuation and numbers (basically everything removed from 60 to 40%) and placed them relating to where they would be on a TKL. Numbers are layered under the Qwerty row (similar to how the F stripe is layered under the number stripe on 60%). I layered the punctuation in order of where the punctuation would be on a full sized. So for example, - is to the left of = and both of those are layered on the right side of the keyboard (under K and L).

I layered the arrow keys under DXCV for the purpose of having the tilda key on the left and having [ and ] on the S and F keys.

This means that all the main punctuation is accessible by a one handed short cut while the lesser used punctuation is to the left of the keyboard. I did map an Fn key on the left of the board so I canone hand arrows and other things if necessary but I rarely use this. (Describing by text is confusing, see the album at the end for the visual representation of the layers).

So has this made a significant impact in my typing when I have to use non-basic punctuation and typing numbers more often?

YES

The need for a shortcut has slightly slowed down my typing speed when typing with these numbers and characters mapped to Fn layers.

It's an extra stroke. So consider that with a normal keyboard you'd be saving 3 key strokes per sentence, you'd be better off.

I'm not going to lie and say that typing on a 40% hasn't slowed down my typing, even after a few months  I still feel slower on a 40% because of the need for extra srokes. Has it had a significan impact? Not particularly. If I were using certain punctuation more regularly (say, for coding) I'd probably just map things differently to make it more effective for that. However, you'll probably end up with a similar situation that when moving to another use you either have to remap or suffer slight decreases in speed relating to the need for extra strokes.

But, BUT!

There's a silver lining.

What has that silver lining been? Stay tuned.

For now I'll just quickly talk about the switching between layouts.

As my flair would suggest, I have a TKL in Japanese layout at home that I switch out with a HHKB which is a different 60% layout and for portable use I have the GoN mobik 40%.

I use 3 very different layouts on a regular basis and that's not including the one I was using for work at the post office where I had a decent amount of data entry.

Just for my general use, I have not had a problem switching between the layouts.

All the keyboards are still in a qwerty fashion in the way that the modifiers, alphas and such are placed / layered.

So no I haven't had any problems swithcing between them.

The only time I kind of had a problem is coming back after the summer break. As I mentioned, the MobiK is my main portable board and during the summer I don't have class so I don't use it nearly as often. The key mappings escaped me for the first day coming back to it but since I mapped it in a way that was logical to me it wasn't too much of a problem.

So no, I don't feel that having keyboards with different but similar layouts and switching between them regularly has impacted my effectiveness on any particular board.

Now, to the silver lining and one consideration that I've seen some people have and others dismiss or ignore, the need for  hand movement.

Typing on my 40% has improved my touch typing ability because there's nothing else to do. you have to touch type to use a 40%. There's no hand movement to do, it's all in the fingers and I've found that when moving to my bigger keyboards the same touch typing abilities tended to transfer over. You can reach all the keys when positioned on the home row on a 40% but I can't say the same thing for TKL or even the HHKB.

Along with that, since real estate is quite valuable on a 40%, a lot of the layouts tend ot shrink the size of modifiers and this is very problematic with using standard keysets. When I ordered the Infinity PBT DSA set on massdrop I had to order all the bottom row kits to have enough keys of the right sizes to fit my MobiK.

The JD40 was even worse for that respect.

**In conclusion I do not regret the MobiK purchase (or other 40%). I find it has no purpose being a daily driver for a desk. The room saved on a desk over a 60% is negligible IMO but the room saved in a bag is not, so for a portable board I highly recommend it. A 60% is more versatile and if you need the arrow keys, there's the FC660C/M.**

**The moving of essential keys to an Fn layer has added keystrokes to my typing and that means slower typing speeds.**

**The need for touch typing on a 40% has improved my touch typng sills overall across all my keyboards and the switching between a 40% and other staggared qwerty layouts has not affected me negatively.**

Thanks for reading and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments for me to read.

Edit:
Here are the albums I promised


[Layout](http://imgur.com/a/C9fQ3)

[Mobik album 1](http://imgur.com/a/zJ9R0)

[Mobik album 2](http://imgur.com/a/ZrGT9)

That last album has a lot of duplicates because I was plying with the white balance with the camera to try and get the right colors for the adler set.

Offline keshley

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 04 November 2015, 07:10:59 »
Sigh...  you make me want to spend money GL1TCH3D.

 :blank:
  
HHKB Pro 2       Pok3r

Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 04 November 2015, 09:00:18 »
Sigh...  you make me want to spend money GL1TCH3D.

 :blank:

Have you seen the Bluetooth function yet? XD

The Mobik is my favorite board.

Offline keshley

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #11 on: Wed, 04 November 2015, 10:23:57 »
Pretty sure I'm going to end up buying the kit. Although I'll likely put my Zealios on it, rather than the Cherry MX switches it comes with.
  
HHKB Pro 2       Pok3r

Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #12 on: Wed, 04 November 2015, 10:26:20 »
Pretty sure I'm going to end up buying the kit. Although I'll likely put my Zealios on it, rather than the Cherry MX switches it comes with.

If you're buying the kit I'd do zealios too. I got my Mobik with 55g  springs in clears which is not something you normally see because that weighting normally hangs without proper lubing so I wanted to leave that to GoN (and I don't regret it one bit)

Offline Vox_PT

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #13 on: Mon, 16 November 2015, 17:28:13 »
This GoN model is such a beauty...
Nice review.

Offline GL1TCH3D

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Re: GoN MobiK Review by GL1TCH3D
« Reply #14 on: Thu, 26 November 2015, 22:29:34 »
BOOM