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Cooler Master CK721 65% Gamer Keyboard -- APP DEMO & REVIEW
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Jun 22, 2024
Struggling with an on-screen keyboard or a keyboard membrane as part of your keyboard and cover combo for your tablet? Or maybe you just want to upgrade your Mac or PC keyboard? You're going to absolutely fall in love with the great mechanical keys on the Cooler Master CK721 Gamer Keyboard. With three ways to connect - wired, 2.4Ghz dongle (included), or Bluetooth 5.1 - it's also the one keyboard to use with all your devices too, from Android phones to iPads, and more. Tech expert Dave Taylor offers up a detailed demo and review, finding it a must-have keyboard. Check it out at: https://amzn.to/3MhkyQi Then check out Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ #coolermaster #keyboard #ck721 #wirelesskeyboard #mechanicalkeyboard #askdavetaylor
View Video Transcript
0:00
Up your typing experience with this hybrid wireless keyboard
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Let's check it out. Dave Taylor here and I'm checking out this
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This is the Cooler Master K-721 gaming keyboard. And the first thing you're going to notice is it's small form factor
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It's a 65% keyboard layout. Now, that doesn't mean it's not comfortable to type on
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and the keys have an incredible amount of play. So it is super responsive
0:34
It's a really different typing experience. If you're used to typing on your screen
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and as you can see, I had a Bluetooth set up to my phone, which is why my phone woke up, you know
0:45
if you're used to typing on a screen, if you're used to these like folding keyboards
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or the keyboards that you have with like hybrid tablets or something
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or even modern laptops, just have pretty crummy keyboards. This is a whole new experience. It has significant play. It's super fast, super responsive, comes in three different flavors, which are different kinds of mechanical switches. You can get it in linear, which is what this is, or clicky or tactile, and the difference is your actuation force. And this one is pretty darn responsive, and it's actually, I think, the most responsive of those three. Now, it's hybrid wireless, so you can use it with, you can use it with
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USB wired, or there is tucked neatly into the side here. There's a little tiny door
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and when you open it up, there is a 2.4 gigahertz dongle. So if you have an old PC or something
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you can just put this in, switch this to that mode, and boom, you're connected, you're ready to go
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or, of course, you can use Bluetooth and it's Bluetooth 5.1, so it's the very latest generation
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and it has three you can connect to simultaneously whatever flavor you want
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So I've connected multiple Bluetooth and it just works great. And to switch between them, there's a function key here
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So you just push and hold the function key and then push one of the three side keys
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to choose which output or which device you want to connect to
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And then on the side, there's actually a switch that lets you choose between the 2.4 gigahertz dongle
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or wired mode or Bluetooth. Now, you will need to charge it
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If you're going to use it in wireless mode, you charge it through the wired connections
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So this is a really nice long braided cable. USBC on one end, USBA on the other end
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That means it's going to work great for a lot of PCs. If you're on a really modern computer that only has USBC
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then you're kind of out of luck. And here's what I find a little cryptic
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It's they included an adapter, But it's a strange one that doesn't quite fit the function that's needed because you can plug your USBA into here and then you get a USBC plug
3:04
You want a USB you know sort of out part so you can plug it into your device So I feel like they put the wrong adapter in here I just don understand the use they have but I should say in the box also comes with a key removal device
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You can actually change and customize your keys. And it does come with a nice little foam wrist rest
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which is nice if you're going to be spending a lot of time using the keyboard
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But fundamentally, it's just really easy to work with. Once you connect it, it's super easy to get
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get things going so I'll just show you I will unlock my phone and now as I type you
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can see that it's showing up on my phone easy as can be now if I switch that let
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me open up my PC and this is an old Dell and had to wrestle with it a little
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bit to get things to work but I open this up and let's get this to wake up
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assuming it will never know with these old your computers, there we go
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And once I open it up and wake it up, then I can easily switch input devices by using
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the control and then the second button gets me onto the PC and if I spin this around, you
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can see this is a very low-tech demo, but now you can see and listen, listen to the
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clickety-clack of this keyboard. probably not the keyboard you want to use at four in the morning when you're trying not to wake up anyone else in the room
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but it is a really nice feel it has a really nice experience now from an appearance perspective it is
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plastic on the lower portion the upper part is actually sandblast aluminum and you can remove this
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they actually have separate instructions on how to remove remove what they call the, let me get the piece of paper here, how to remove the aluminum top cover
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And it's a little tricky. You have to go in here. There's a little lever. I found it to be very
5:18
difficult. But I'm not sure in what situation you'd want to remove it anyway, because I think it looks
5:23
terrific. I guess if it gets really dinged up, you can actually go and maybe adjust that
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But speaking of which, let me give you a close-up so you can see all the key layout. Now, notice that on the
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front of the keys, you also are getting a lot of those Mac key assignments and you can switch
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between Mac and PC key usage, which is great because that means it's even that much more
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portable and compatible. And if I push, let me just push the button and let's, oops
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yeah, that should work. So now pushing that dial here actually gets me into lighting mode
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And then I can actually turn it off if I don't want it by pushing on it again
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So that's just a key. But this is actually what's known as, what do they call it
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They call it the rotary encoder dial. And it actually really nice So you can use it to adjust volume and then you can push to adjust and have like mute on mute off But you can also go into their custom app and you can assign it any functions you want
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which is how I changed it from mute to turning on and off the light
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And the reason that it keeps turning off is it's just a power saver. Because obviously having the keyboard light up on battery when I'm not actually using it
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is not best for battery life. Let me switch back to being on my
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phone and let's see so now it's a little bit better because now it has a reason to stay lit up so we
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should see that but let me also tell you that the works with mac and windows and android and
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obviously with ios this is my iOS phone um this wrist rest i already mentioned and rgb per key
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lighting you can change key lights if you want to have one specific key a different color to the others you
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can do that. How do you do that? Well, I'm glad you asked. Turns out the Cooler Master also has an app
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Now, this is a very compatible keyboard with a lot of different systems, but for the app to work
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you're going to need to have a PC and you're going to need to use the wired connection
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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to switch things around so you can see what they call
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their Master Plus software app. And I haven't installed on the PC. I'm going to hook the PC up to the
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keyboard via the wire and then you can see the software functionality and how it affects the keyboard
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Let's do that. I figured this is probably the easiest way to show you the app and how it interacts
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with the keyboard. So let's go to lighting and then I'm going to change it to rainbow wave. You can
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see really fun. We can do stars and color cycle. I really like color cycle. Now, while we're here
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let me also show you key mapping, because that's where you can change, for example
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what happens when I push the otherwise default mute button. As you can see, I've changed
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it to turn LEDs on and off. I can demonstrate that. because if I push on this, then the lights are off, push on it again, and it not only goes
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back on, but it goes into whatever default setting I have. Now you can also adjust macros and you can specify profiles
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So there's a lot you can do here and this is of course something that gives you access to
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the rest of your computer if you have other cooler master devices, so that's a good option too
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All right, let me jump back on camera. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is battery life
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So this has a 2,000 millan amp hour battery, which means if you turn off the LED, as I just did
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it will give you 73 hours of wireless use. Now, if you're letting it sit because you're reading and then you type for a while and
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then you're reading, you're not using a full hour of keyboard energy
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So it going to last a really long time But when you do need to charge it just plug it in with the wire plug the other end into any device including your PC or Mac assuming you have the right connection and it will charge
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It's super easy to work with. Now, dimensions wise, it's 13.1 inches by 4.6 inches, by 1.5 inches, and it's fairly heavy
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This is a mechanical device with mechanical smarts and circuitry in it that's going to last probably through the next apocalypse or something
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But it is 1.7 pounds. You'll be a little surprised how heavy it is
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but honestly, totally worth the weight because it's just a great keyboard with a great experience
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As I said, there's the switch on the right-hand side that lets you switch modes
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On the left-hand side is that little hidden door that lets you access the lever to take off the cover if you want
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but more importantly, gives you access to that 2.4 gigahertz dongle, which makes it super easy to work wirelessly
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And then I should mention it has nice little feed on it because you can actually adjust it to two different heights
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So I really generally tend to do that, and that gives me a slightly better angle
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and that ergonomic is pretty important. So you're going to want to mess around and experiment
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with different settings to get it to be just so. And that's everything you need to know
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Really like this keyboard. I spend a lot of time tapping on keys
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that have like almost no play, which makes them really kind of hard to type on
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So moving to something with a full travel distance and something that has this great
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actuation and everything, it's just a different experience. It's a little clickety clackety, but that's kind of fun too in my book
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Anyway, we need to talk about the price. But before we get to the price, I'm going to ask if you could subscribe to my channel
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Easily done. A click or tap on that subscribe button, and we're connected
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Great. This is the Cooler Master, K-721 gaming keyboard, and you don't have to be a gamer to find this a huge upgrade from your existing keyboard
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And it comes in space gray or silver. And I think that just describes the frame on the front. This is the silver one, obviously
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And it's 11999 at Amazon.com. And if you, like me, spend hours every day typing, there's nothing that's going to be a best
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better upgrade than getting a better keyboard to improve your experience. And needless to say, if you're using something like a tablet with one of those little
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combination covers and keyboards, this is light years of improved. It's just such a better experience and it's just as easy to work with and just as compatible
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So I say check it out, upgrade your key experience, keyboard experience, typing experience
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however you want to phrase it. And I'll catch you in my next video
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