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I'm not a keyboard fanatic. I definitely don't consider it a hobby. But I can appreciate why people prefer mechanical keyboards and I do enjoy them myself. That being said, I can't ever see myself spending $365 on a ZSA Moonlander. It took a lot of effort just to convince myself to spend $85 on the K2. There are a few small issues I have with the K2, but overall it was money well spent.
I'm going to review this keyboard by comparing it to the cheapo it is replacing.
This is the keyboard the K2 is replacing. Yes, it literally says "super scholar" in the model name on the sticker under the keyboard. At $35 I believe it was the cheapest RGB option for a mechanical keyboard on Amazon at the time. It's not horrible but there are a few things I have grown to dislike about it.
In the looks department the Keychron K2 is sleek and subtle, yet more visually interesting than the Z-88. It looks like the adult in the room compared to the Z-88. The Z-88 had an edge "futuristic" font on its key caps that I always thought was corny. It was one of the many things I just put up with because I couldn't bring myself to spend more than $30 on a keyboard at the time. The K2 has a simple plain font. Nothing fancy. I like it.
When it comes to feel and form the two are surprisingly similar. They're both 75% keyboards. The K2 is heavier. Double the weight of the Z-88 at 8 pounds. Which makes sense because of the battery in it. The extra weight contributes to a better sound of the keyboard. And makes the keyboard feels better built overall. How much difference can there really be in all these switches? Not much, I thought. And I think I was right. Although I can tease out a slight difference in the feel of the Gateron red switches versus the generic reds, I don't think most people would be able to notice any difference. That being said the Gateron are definitely better since they don't have any scratchiness at all.
The USB connection on the side is a huge plus. The old Z-88's connector was not only center-mounted but it was underneath the keyboard for some insane reason. So it was impossible to use anything other than a USB cable with a very slim-profile micro connector on one end. The cable the came with my Z-88 was too short. I wound up taking a Dremel to the keyboard and a USB connector in order to use a longer cable. The K2 connects on the side, and it's USB-C. Which is better because it's USB-C. I do wish that the K2 had another USB-C pass-through on it. It would be nice to have a spot on the keyboard where I can plug in my mouse, or a hardware key or a memory stick.
The Linux support for Keychron is... Adequate. Keychron doesn't have keyboard-configuring software for Linux yet. But that's not a huge problem. Most of the stuff the software does can be done with the keyboard itself. The only exception is remapping keys. But us Linux folk have been doing that ourselves for ages so it's not really an issue if you ask me.
The function keys didn't work properly at first but I quickly found a fix for that on GitHub. The bluetooth connection was surprisingly easy to set up with blueman-manager on my laptop. Once connected, everything worked as expected. No bugs there.
One thing I do worry about is the battery. I will be using this keyboard mostly on my desktop and connected with USB. My desktop doesn't have bluetooth. It will be rare that I ever use this with my laptop. I wonder if the battery is charging while the switch is on "cable"? And if it is, won't this ruin the battery life?
Overall, the K2 is definitely worth the money. If you're looking to upgrade your keyboard but you're not interested in going to far as to build one from parts, the K2 seems like a great option to me. Probably the best value for money.