Hi, bear with me since this is the first review I have ever written on anything, so I'll keep it short and sweet.
The ducky shine 5 and the ducky shine year of the goat use the Cherry MX RGB keyswitch, which Corsair had a lock on for a year. Now other companies are designing Cherry MX RGB switches, like Roccat and a few others.
MX blues were discontinued from Corsair's RGB line due to some sort of QA issue. I don't know if it's been resolved but Ducky is making MX blues in one of its shine models, although only the MX Brown has currently been shipped out. The Year of the Goat is only available in MX Brown, Red, and Black.
Aesthetics: 10/10.
This is a BEAUTIFUL keyboard. The most beautiful keyboard I have ever seen or used. And I thought the Shine fire 69 mesmerized me originally, also... It's a full size 104 key, but the white case design and the white switch design cause a VERY LOVELY pastel effect of the RGB lights in a lit room. Oddly enough, it doesn't look as nice in a dark room, even though the lights are brighter and just as pretty, some of the pastel feel is lost somehow. It's still extremely bright, when used in USB 3.0 (default) power mode. If you find the F10 color effect lights (which are all cycle effects and can't be lowered directly) too bright, you can hook up the keyboard in USB 2 power mode for a 25%'ish decrease in brightness.
The pastel light effect is UNIQUE. And VERY....very...special.
Design: 10/10. The keyboard is VERY well designed. And I'm not just talking about the keycaps.
Ducky did away with the media functions and only included the four most common hotkeys used: calculator (EVERYONE likes calculator!), mute, volume up and volume down.
On the ducky shine 4, it was calculator, My computer, Email and browser homepage process. I don't know about you but I don't think the browser and email buttons were anything but annoying, as you could accidentally press it...
Also gone are the disable the windows key dip switches. This might seem like a huge step back, however Ducky included a macro system in the new Shine 5 and year of the goat! Now, all of the old shine 4 functions, as well as extra functions, are stored as preset key combinations, which are unlocked in "Macro" mode! Macro mode is only available in profile 2-6. The keyboard has 6 profile slots, which save your current F9 and F10 lighting settings for each lighting mode. All you can do in profile #1 mode is to remap the function key to one of the bottom mod keys through dip switches, as well as still having all of the light profiles. You just can't use macros here.
The thing about this macro system is just how NICE it is.
Instead of disabling the windows key, you can enter a macro to REMAP the control key to the windows key! While this doesn't exactly disable the key, it ensures that in windows 10, you will NEVER accidentally kick yourself out of a game!
You can also cause a default key to act like another key.
if you want to avoid a default key acting like another key, BUT you still want the OPTION Of having that key act like another key while keeping the original available, you can program the new key to be activated by "FN+key" instead of just "key". And no software is required! I absolutely LOVE this.
Here is an example:
1) Activate profile #2 by pressing FN and 2 (consider "FN+2" to be FN and 2 from now on, not fn then the PLUS key, then 2).
2) Map control key into windows key to overwrite the default winkey function:
a) enter macro mode by holding down FN+right control for 3 seconds.
b) press the key you want to program/overwrite (left win key). It will change color
c) press the key you want the function to be as (Left control key).
d) end macro mode by pressing FN+Control again.
There are certain media key macros that are built in to the shine 5 firmware that have combinations of FN+win+that key. You cant access these directly but you can access them by programming them into a macro! Example: windows internet browser is Fn+winkey+J.
Let's say you want J to open your internet browser without overwriting the default "J" key.
Enter macro mode (FN+CONTROL).
Press FN+J (the key combo you want to program--you want to program the FN+J key combination, not just J)
Then press FN+winkey+J to program "internet browser" into that keystroke.
exit with FN+Ctrl.
Then if you want to open your browser, just press FN+J.
VERY NICE feature!
You can also program and output key combinations (like having the word "KEY" appear). You can also set the speed that the output happens.
I do NOT know if this adds input lag or not to the default key responses, however.
Lighting: 9/10.
It's RGB. Nothing to say here.
However there's something worth noting that is not mentioned in the manual.
The default color cycling for the LED's is FN+F5 through FN+F7 for RGB, and for custom key programming mode (entered by FN+PrtSc and Fn+Pause), it's Caps F5-F7.
Tapping the F5-F7 key cycles through eight brightness levels (USB 2 will have an overall dimmer brightness to everything but still 8 levels). The first level is "off" (black IS a color) and the last level is full.
Doing it this way gives you access to 512 colors (8x8x8).
Undocumented in the manual is being able to access intermediate PWM steps (not sure if Direct current or PWM is used however).
You do this by holding down the Fn and F5-F7 keys instead of tapping. This causes the color brightness to cycle through the full range smoothly then you release the Function key when you get your desired level. This is a bit inaccurate to get exactly the level you want, since you're basically doing this by analog human timing, but it's there.
I do not know how many steps you can reach this way. It's at least 64 brightness levels per channel, for sure (I managed to get the absolute lowest level before "off", which is so dim that it can barely be seen except in a pitch black room). So at least 64 levels are there (64x64x64=262,144 colors). 128 might be accessible but someone more patient than me will have to test that. It's feasible that 128 could be there. 256, however...well...that's a long shot. 256x256x256=16.7 million colors, but I have no idea how accurate the ducky power circuit is in allowing PWM "stops" at 256 different levels. There is NO flicker when you are color cycling but...still...
Also the cycling is twice as fast in customization mode (Fn+print screen/Pause) than in independent LED brightness mode (FN+F5-F7), however the accuracy still seems to be the same, as I was still able to get that "first" brightness step in both modes.
Note that the Ducky Shine 4 had the same LED cycling system, but in customization mode, the cycling was much slower, and I wonder how many LED brightness levels were available on the shine 4. I just tested the color cycling on a shine 4 in Fn+F6 mode (Blue LED channel) and I was able to get a super super dim blue, so it's unknown how many steps the circuit can independently cycle though. TBH I prefer the ducky shine 4 slow speed, or having the slow speed for the shine 5 fn+F5/F7 being used also for Caps lock F5+F7 instead of it cycling in turbo...just makes fine tuning the colors harder even if the same # of color steps exist (64, 128 or 256 per channel).
Note: if you program the exact same color "step" into a key that has the same color step already, the key LED turns off. So that way you can test different levels to see if they can be distinguished or if you are inputting the same level on top of itself (in FN+printsc and FN/pause, and using customization mode (FN+f5 through FN+f7).
Because of that turbo speed cycling in customization mode, I'm docking off a point! Shame on you, Ducky !
Anyway, ONE POINT OFF for too fast color cycling!
LED quality: 10/10.
LED brightness was consistent across all LED channels on all keys. I tested this by using the "custom" LED zone programming mentioned above and getting the absolute lowest brightness channel before the LED would be off. tested for red, blue and green. Each was uniform.
Green and blue at minimum level seemed slightly brighter than red. That could be just eyes being less sensitive to red as eyes don't get 'irritated' by red light.
Color effect quality: 9/10.
Limited color cycling and effect options, exact same as the shine 4 except RGB instead of dual LED.
Note that REACTIVE MODE ADVANCED has a bug where a key will stop color cycling and turn black, or will cycle only on one color (and eventually stop that also) after 512-1024 keypresses (not an exact value). This same bug affects Shine 4 and Shine 69 as well. Ducky sent me a firmware to test a fix for both Shine 4 and Year of the Goat, and I can confirm that it has been fixed. The firmware is not up for download yet; maybe ducky will add some other features or fix first. But that is a pretty major fix. Reactive mode advanced wasn't such a critical feature in the Shine 4 but in a RGB keyboard, it's important.
Docking one point for being unable to add your own color patterns. They're the same as Shine 4. Let's hope shine 6 will let you add custom effects, like Sine waves and diagonal waving, without software.
Build quality 9/10. Built very well. I wish I had the shine 3 level of build, though. The shine 3 case was so sturdy and had such a hard plastic shell that it used metal screws to keep it together! You could literally use that keyboard as a weapon to defend yourself. I wouldn't try that with the Shine 4, Year of the Goat, or Shine 5.
Keycap/switch quality 10/10: White. pastel colors. LOVELY doubleshot keys.
Note: something has to be said about the actual keyswitch housing.
I have a Ducky shine 3 with MX Brown without O rings, a Shine 4 MX brown with O rings, and the Year of the Goat.
The shine 3 and shine 4 sound identical if O rings are removed. a Very lond CLACK from bottoming out. The loud clack sound that makes *some* people rush for the O rings faster than they have to go relieve themselves, heh.
However, the Shine YOTG sounds much more like the Shine 4 WITH O rings, when bottoming out, rather than the Shine 3! It literally feels and sounds like there O rings, or at least some sort of dampener on the keycap, but there isn't! I removed a YOTG key and put it on the Shine 3 and sure enough, the loud KLACK was back. The backplate is metal, so it has to be the MX RGB key housing.
This is.....very unexpected and VERY welcomed. it makes you feel like you're typing on a MX brown key with O rings installed, without actually having O rings installed! The sound isn't the EXACT same but it definitely feels dampened out, without the bottoming out "feel" feeling dampened. That clear housing is definitely showing benefit here.
Overall: 9/10.
I LOVE this keyboard.
Even though I'm going to keep using my Shine 69 Fire edition as my main keyboard (for now) since I fell in love with MX Greens on alphas and MX blues on shift and the stiff keys...taking away personal prejudices for loving the Shine 69, definitely BUY this keyboard. If you can stomach RGB lighting, you won't regret this purchase unless you absolutely wanted a MX green or Clear or Grey switch...
If this keyboard were in a ducky shine 3 type "tank bludgeon weapon" housing with slower cycling Caps lock F5-F7 RGB key cycling (even if you can still access all brightness levels), it would get a perfect grade.
