Keyboards and mice · Keychron
Owners keep the Keychron M5 for its remappable side buttons and the smooth cursor of a high polling rate, and a few give up a favourite scroll wheel to get it.
The side buttons get remapped and then leaned on daily: one set of bindings for work (window switching, minimise all, a scroll modifier) and another for games (reload, melee, sprint, abilities), so fingers stay on the keyboard.
Owners are divided on the polling rate. Some say the extra smoothness on a high refresh monitor is obvious and hard to give up; others say they cannot tell the difference in ordinary use, or find the rate they get too slow for gaming.
Pick up to three. You get a page with just those, side by side, on the subjects owners raised.
What stays pleasing after the first weeks is the button setup. Owners describe a working layout and a gaming layout on the same mouse, with side buttons doing alt tab and window management at the desk and reload or sprint in a game. Once set, it becomes routine and they stop thinking about it. For those who notice polling rate, the smoothness of the cursor on a high refresh screen is the thing they mention most, and one owner who came from an MX Master 3 says going back to a slower mouse would be hard.
The adjustments are specific. The same owner misses the MX Master scroll wheel and sometimes its weight. The vertical shape is a choice some make deliberately for ergonomics. And on polling rate the accounts split down the middle: those who cannot feel the difference simply turn it down and leave it there.
The main mechanical complaint on record is the side scroll wheel skipping scrolls now and then on the 8K version. The owner who reported it opened the mouse, found nothing visibly wrong, and put it back together; the same owner has several Keychron keyboards with no problems and sums the brand up as good value but not one they fully trust. Another owner lists the M5 among a stack of Keychron gear without reporting a fault. Getting one at all is a separate hurdle: a few people say it is rarely in stock.
Long-term accounts are thin. Only a handful of owners talk about build or durability at all, and most of those comparisons are to other brands' mice rather than to years with this one. We cannot yet say how the buttons, wheel or battery hold up past the first few months.
Nothing with a clear majority yet. Owners who raised these subjects were split, or too few to judge.
Nothing has a clear majority against it yet. Counted from the owners who raised each subject, not from everyone. A subject is judged once at least 4 owners raise it.
The same owner, asked again at each point. Fills in as owners answer.
More in keyboards and mice: Logitech MX Master 3, Logitech MX Master 4, Logitech Options+.
Public discussions we read and summarised in our own words. Nothing here was submitted to Still Kicks.
Counted from public accounts by people who said they own it, and summarised by Still Kicks in its own words. Not a manufacturer claim, a lab test or an estimate.
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