Summary: Overall, I really like this keyboard, but they missed the mark on the Numpad and position of the keys.
Some new keyboard buyers may not realize this, but this keyboard has 2 aspects to the backlighting: the fonts themselves and the backsplash plate underneath them. Let me tell you, the backsplash lighting kicks butt! The advantage is, it frames the entire key. So easy to see exactly where the perimeter of the key is. Very easy to hit the center of the key if you are looking down. The font kicks butt too. They are bolder than average which allows you to see the letters better without increasing brightness. Nice style to them too. I feel like the brightness would be better if it went another notch lower. I run it on the lowest setting. Unfortunately, the Fn lock and F12 lock ignore the brightness setting and remain on max brightness. I also would have liked to seen the LED's positioned under the default character. For example, the \ lighting is almost non existent, but above it, the shifted | is bright as if it's the primary character. With backlighting on, at a glance, your eye goes to the wrong character on the key.
I chose white back lighting and brown switches. The feel is solid. Absolutely love it. No pinging. Quality feels great. Braided detachable USB cable is a nice looking addition. Pressing the insides of the SHIFT key seem to work smoother with less resistance than my Ducky Shine 3 TKL, but I'm not sure why. The Ducky SHIFT keys are stickier unless you press in the middle of the key. Could just be luck of the draw, because I don't think there's any difference, so I'm not sure why the Ducky is stickier.
The whole point of this CM Quick Fire TK was that you don't really need a dedicated separate Numpad as this has it all built in. The small keyboard lets you bring your mouse closer. So you can imagine my surprise to find out you can't hold SHIFT to momentarily toggle between numbers and functionality (arrow keys, DEL, PgUp, PgDn, Home, etc). Every day, there are times where we want to quickly change back and forth between the two. Numlock isn't the answer, it's too slow, and not to mention the left hand can't help out. I had to research an
AutoHotKey solution to let me use CAPSLOCK to momentarily switch between the 2 Numpad functions.
The other thing that is a bad design decision was moving the INS, HOME, PgUp, DEL, END, etc keys down 1 row. They are not in the standard location. They wasted the top right area of the keyboard. If they had fixed the Numlock issue, moved the INS, HOME, PgUp, DEL, END, etc keys back up to where they are supposed to be and used the space at the top of the keyboard, and fixed the LED positioning, I would have given it a perfect 10/10. But I give this keyboard an 8/10. I eventually plan to build my own keyboard with these issues fixed.
