NEWMEN GM610 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard,60% USB C

As my first experience with a mechanical keyboard, I am glad I went with Newmen GM610, even though some of the features required some time figuring out. It’s pretty small so lets me have more space on my desk, and having extra keycaps and switches together with the keyboard is a pretty good deal.

On the software side it does get confusing, with the information booklet mentioning that it’s possible to swap between arrow key mode pressing fn + Enter which didn’t seem to work at first. fn+arrow key buttons seemed to work but was very uncomfortable for games requiring arrow key movement. I did figure out how to enable that feature. What I actually needed to do was to go to newmen website for their drivers, but other than donwloading the usual software driver I had also needed to update the firmware. After the firmware download all keyboard features worked as described in the manual and keyboard shortcuts leaflet. Reading some other reviews, I’ve realise that this is pretty confusing and some people returned this keyboard without realising that it can be “patched” to the latest version. I suggest for the makers of the keyboard to somehow preinstall the latest firmware themselves before sending out to users, so that there wouldn’t be any inconsistencies between the documentation and actual functions of the keyboard. Not everyone is tech-savvy and even I didn’t fully understand what firmware update does as opposed to drivers.

Overall I’d rate it 4/5, great entry mechanical keyboard at affordable price. You just have to be willing to take some time to set it up and download drivers/patches.

As a total newbie and not knowing my Grand Theft Auto from a Monopoly board it was my increasingly poor typing accuracy rather than a desire to blow up zombies that led me into the world of the mechanical keyboard. I’m just someone who two-finger types a lot for both work and leisure but was getting frustrated with the amount of time spent correcting errors. I started to research ‘how to tipe more accuratley’ and kept coming across this idea that a mechanical keyboard could improve my typing one helluva lot even if I have no intention of pretending to be a Special Forces Operative.

Thanks to some further reading and some unintentionally hilarious but informative YouTube reviews, I settled on this – the Newmen GM610. Seemed like a very decent price for what you get and the weeny size plus wirelessness would fit perfectly with my rather crowded desk.

So the instructions are not exactly crystal clear. But if you check out the Amazon Customer Questions and Answers and do a bit of hunting around online it’s not too difficult to get where you need to be. And it’s even more straightforward if you actually realise there’s an On/Off button on the underside to switch on the Bluetooth. Ahem.

If like me you’re new to the world of mechanical keyboards, it’s a very different experience from a laptop or the slimline Bluetooth I’ve used for several years. And not having a local display stand full of these to try out different machines meant taking a bit of a leap in the online dark. I chose the Brown switch version as this is apparently better for typists. Whatever the colour of the switches (the springy things under the keys where apparently all the magic happens) I’m very happy with the Brown switch version. Would Red or Blue be better for me? Don’t know and don’t care.

First impressions after a week of banging out work emails ten to the dozen? I love it. Yes, it looks clunky compared to my sleek white Jelly Roll membrane and the clicky-clacky noise was a bit of an affront to the ears at first, but the combination of aural and tactile feedback means my typing accuracy has shot up over the course of the week. So much so I’m now determined to learn touch-typing at last. And the noise is (to me at least) actually pleasant once you get used to it. Kind of makes you feel you’re doing some actual work and not just poncing around in front of a screen.

Like nearly all mechanical keyboards this is a US-layout but once I’d set my PC’s region setting to United States the ‘@’ finally appeared in the right place and the other slight oddities of a US-layout sort themselves out with a bit of acclimatisation. And being trimmed down to 60% the size of a standard keyboard means a few more key presses for certain functions. But again, muscle memory is a wonderful thing and adding, for example, the Fn key to Ctrl-Alt-Del isn’t exactly going to lose me any sleep. The big pay-off is having a wireless machine that barely takes up any room on my desk and has improved my typing.

The selling points don’t end there. You can change the colour of the keys! Gamers do seem to have a thing for customising keyboards so that certain frequently used keys stand out in darkened boy-caves while Mum leaves meals outside the door. But for someone like me who can never find the apostrophe key first time and uses the Delete key rather more often than I’d like, this is certainly something I’ll be doing soon with the ‘pull-out tool’ and the full set of alternative keys Newmen provides.

And finally, those lights. I thought my old keyboard was pretty funky with its four colour choice of backlights but RGB customisation? Wow, never even knew this was a thing. Check out YouTube for some of those slightly weird YouTube vids mentioned earlier. The ones where an aspiring (and possibly rather stoned) social media reviewer cycles through the GM610’s many, many colour patterns and says ‘wow’ and ‘awesome’ a lot. Okay. For me personally, the mere thought of a brightly coloured sine wave snaking it’s way across my QWERTY is enough to trigger an epileptic seizure. Even with the ability to speed up or slow down the pattern with a key combination (yes, really) the Pixar-style light shows aren’t going to feature in my typing sessions any time soon. But they do look incredibly pretty in a darkened room alongside the twinkling lights of my music gear. And you can easily set the keyboard with just a plain white backlight or whichever colour you want when it’s time to straighten out and actually do some work.

So all in all, I took a fifty quid punt on something I wasn’t sure I was going to like. But like it I do. Very much. I can imagine other newbies may purchase this or any other mechanical keyboard and think ‘Yuk’ and send it straight back. It’s perhaps a bit of a Marmite thing but I’m converted.

PS I’d like to say that no gamers were offended or stereotyped in this review. But that wouldn’t be true. Sorry.

So, everything in the description holds up. I’m very happy with it, specially at the price. Some caveats though. I can hear a squeaky spring with every key press (i got the brown ones), I believe this is not a thing with this type of keyboards. You get grey and red on modifier and “major” side keys; white and dark blue on the others. The red keys keys bleed the light a bit too much, and on the blue ones, the light is less visible in the dark in comparison with the white keys, but still good. On day light, turn off the led lights of the white keys, so you can actually read them.

Major negative: the software. Don’t bother installing. You need to be wired and with Bluetooth off every time you turn your pc. And the keyboard won’t save settings you change on it. You need to apply them through the software at every windows startup. Having said that you can set every individual key to their own colour (no automatic use on program launch or anything like that though).

Another major one. The amount of silly light modes is absurd. I need to go through them all to cycle just between a solid colour and turn them off. And there’s a few modes that start with lights off

If anyone knows how to delete some light modes or make the keyboard remember custom ones, please comment/review.