The popularity of mechanical keyboards has been rising sharply during the last few years, leading not only to the release of new keyboards from almost every company that is involved in the production of PC hardware, but to the emergence of many startup companies as well. This however has saturated the market, with very few new products actually bringing new, innovative features into the quickly maturing market. Most of the companies are nowadays trying to compete in terms of physical design and aesthetics.

One of the newest startup companies that entered the world of PC gaming peripherals is Glorious PC Gaming Race LLC. The company was founded in 2014 - their name intentionally paying homage to Reddit's popular PC Master Race gaming community - with the purpose of delivering high quality but competitively priced gaming peripherals for the aforementioned enthusiast PC gaming user base. Glorious PC Gaming Race LLC is based in Utah, USA.

In this review we will be having a look at the GMMK-BRN Modular Mechanical Keyboard, the first and only mechanical keyboard that Glorious is currently producing. While the keyboard looks very simplistic at first sight, it is capable of having its switches removed and replaced by the user. This is only the second keyboard that we have seen making use of this feature after the Epicgear Defiant, and there is a major difference: Glorious PC Gaming Race claims that any Cherry MX switch, original or clone, can be used with the GMMK-BRN, not just their own.

Packaging & Bundle

Glorious PC Gaming Race supplies the GMMK-BRN in a simple cardboard box. The artistic theme is black and white, focused on a schematic of the keyboard and highlighting its most important feature: the modular switches. It is a very sturdy box and polystyrene foam slabs protect the keyboard inside it, ensuring safe shipping

Inside the box we found a basic user’s guide, a guide on how to replace the switches (which, strangely, is also included in the main guide anyway), a round sticker, a metallic switch puller and a standard ESC keycap.

Examining the Keyboard

The GMMK-BRN is a very simple-looking mechanical keyboard, with the keycaps floating above a plain metallic frame. The metallic frame has rounded corners and a chamfered edge that creates a chrome color effect. Nothing of particular interest, not even a company logo can be seen on the chassis of the keyboard. The proportions of the keyboard are kept to a minimum for a full-size ANSI model, with the designer hardly sparing a couple of millimeters from the end of the keycap to the edge of the keyboard.

The Glorious GMMK-BRN is a standard 104 keys ANSI layout keyboard with a 6.25× Spacebar and seven 1.25× bottom row keys. The keycaps are made from double-shot ABS plastic and have medium-sized, rounded characters on them. Both the primary and the secondary characters are printed towards the top of the keycap, so as to be well-lit from the LED underneath the switch. Some of the keycaps look strange though, mainly on the numpad, where the large print of the secondary command completely displaces the main character. The keycaps also have a classic cylindrical matte black top but glossy, highly reflective sides.

As the keyboard has no extra buttons, the few advanced features the keyboard offers can be accessed by keystroke combinations. By holding down the FN key, the F1-F4 keys offer quick application start options, the F5-F8 keys basic media controls, the F9-F11 keys volume controls and the Scroll Lock key accesses the lighting options. By default, the ESC key has a reddish keycap that reads “Ascend” and strongly stands out, an awkward (ed: though amusing) choice on a supposedly minimalistic design. The company does supply a standard keycap for the ESC key alongside with the keyboard.

A keycap puller can be found at the underside of the keyboard. The braided cable can be channeled to exit from the center, the left or the right of the keyboard’s rear, but always from the rear of the keyboard. There are two anti-skid pads and simple height-adjusting feet. There are no USB pass-through ports.

The red backlighting of the GMMK-BRN paired with the glossy keycaps create a strange visual combination, where the illuminated bodies of the switches appear reflected onto the keycaps of the adjacent keys. The characters on the keycaps are very well and evenly lit. With the keyboard fully lit, the characters of the extra functions that are printed mainly on the top row of the keyboard create a slight visual dissonance, as they are printed white and the illuminated characters are red.

Underneath the keycaps we can see the stock switches that the GMMK-BRN comes with, which are Gateron Brown switches with clear bodies. Gateron’s products are a direct copy of Cherry’s, with the only real difference essentially being the market availability and price. These switches can be replaced with any switch from Cherry or their clones. EpicGear EG MMS switches will NOT fit, as their pins are too short. Glorious supplies a full pack of 120 Gateron switches for $35. Note that LED-compatible switches need to be used, or the lighting from the LED beneath the switch may be blocked. The larger keys are supported with Cherry cross-type stabilizers rather than simple wire stabilizers, improving their steadiness and overall feeling.

With the plastic bottom of the keyboard removed, we can see the black PCB attached on the metallic top frame of the keyboard. Plastic supports that hold the pins of key are soldered on the PCB.

The heart of the Glorious GMMK-BRN is a Vision VS11K06A, a microcontroller that we have never seen before and that I can find virtually nothing about online. The same goes for the Vision VS12L02A LED driver found on this keyboard. This however is not a major issue since the GMMK-BRN is a very simple keyboard with virtually no programmability options, so the microcontroller has virtually only one job to do, which is transfer the keystrokes from and to the USB controller.

Quality Testing

In order to test the quality and consistency of a keyboard, we are using a texture analyser that is programmed to measure and display the actuation force of the standard keyboard keys. By measuring the actuation force of every key, the quality and consistency of the keyboard can be quantified. It can also reveal design issues, such as the larger keys being far softer to press than the main keys of the keyboard. The actuation force is measured in Centinewton (cN). Some companies use another figure, gram-force (gf). The conversion formula is 1 cN = 1.02 gf (i.e. they are about the same). A high quality keyboard should be as consistent as possible, with an average actuation force as near to the manufacturer's specs as possible and a disparity of less than ±10%. Greater differences are likely to be perceptible by users. It is worth noting that there is typically variance among keyboards, although most keyboard companies will try and maintain consistency - as with other reviews, we're testing our sample only.

The machine we use for our testing is accurate enough to provide readings with a resolution of 0.1 cN. For wider keys (e.g. Enter, Space Bar, etc.), the measurement is taking place at the center of the key, right above the switch. Note that large keys generally have a lower actuation force even if the actuation point is at the dead center of the key. This is natural, as the size and weight of the keycap reduces the required actuation force. For this reason, we do display the force required to actuate every key but we only use the results of the typical sized keys for our consistency calculations. Still, very low figures on medium sized keys, such as the Shift and Enter keys reveal design issues and can easily be perceptible by the user.

This is the first time we've come across Gateron’s products, and a keyboard full of their Brown switches is an excellent specimen for determining and establishing a baseline of their quality. Overall, the quality of the Gateron switches is not bad at all. They are definitely less consistent than Cherry’s switches, with an actuation force disparity of ±6.24%, whereas Cherry-based keyboards tend to display a disparity under 4%. The average actuation force across the main keys is 43.3 cN, lower than the specified 45 cN, hinting that most of the keys actuate slightly before the 2 mm travel point, where the spring’s force is lower. These differences however are virtually imperceptible by touch. In summary, the Gateron Brown switches appear to be good quality products, with performance figures slightly better or comparable to their Kailh counterparts, yet undeniably worse than the original Cherry MX switches.

Final Words

I always try to use every keyboard that we review as my personal keyboard for at least a week. My typical weekly usage includes a lot of typing (about 100-150 pages), a few hours of gaming and some casual usage, such as internet browsing and messaging. The Glorious PC Gaming Race GMMK-BRN with the Gateron Brown switches was an excellent keyboard for my professional needs. The tactile switches are great for typing and their low noise output helps with the long term comfort of the user. A wrist rest is a necessity for long term typing though, as the height of the keyboard is unforgiving to the wrists. Note that all mechanical switches, including these, are audible when the key bottoms down and when it resets, so they can easily become annoying while working late at night or near others. Audible tactile switches such as the Cherry MX Blue variants just magnify this issue.

The primary focus of this keyboard is gaming and while it works as a basic keyboard, gamers accustomed to advanced features commonly found on today's high-end keyboards will find it inadequate for the task. It is of high quality and responsive, but lacks virtually any features that would assist gamers. There are no extra macro buttons or dedicated media controls and no programmability capabilities at all. For all practical purposes, the Glorious GMMK-BRN is just a typical mechanical keyboard, without any advanced functions at all. This may be suitable for certain types of games, such as most FPS/Action games, but it's more likely to be an issue for advanced MOBA/MMO/RPG gamers, where macro use is more common.

Glorious PC Gaming Race markets the GMMK-BRN as a minimalistic design, with even the LED indicators being discreet. The aluminum top cover with the chamfered edges and the floating design do enthuse elegance, but we feel that the reddish ESC keycap intrudes into the overall design theme. We also feel unsure about the glossy sides of the keycaps, especially when the LEDs are turned on. Some people do like glossy surfaces but they can be a pain to keep clean. They are also easily scratched, requiring great attention when using a keycap puller.

The ability to remove and replace the switches is the primary selling feature of this keyboard, allowing the users to easily mix and match several switch types. This is interesting as a concept, but we feel that few users will find it actually practical, especially considering that the keyboard is lacking any advanced features whatsoever. There are very few users that actually want to mix different switches onto a single keyboard, and we struggle to come up with scenarios where it makes sense to do so. It could be a useful feature for separating different groups of keys to generate a layout purely designed for gaming, but the mixing of different switch types on a keyboard that cannot be reprogrammed in any way simply does not make much sense.

The true advantage of having modular switches on such a keyboard is the ability to change to a different type of switch without having to buy a whole keyboard. The disadvantage is that the ability to remove the switches raises reliability concerns. The board is designed so as to have gold-plated contacts on the PCB pressing against the contact pins of the switches. These contacts can need adjustment after several switch changes, especially if switches from different manufacturers are being used. Glorious recommends that the contacts should be adjusted using tweezers. With the plating on the contacts being just a few μm thick, they can be damaged in the long term, eventually forcing the user to either replace the contacts or buy another board.

Overall, the Glorious PC Gaming Race GMMK-BRN Modular Mechanical Keyboard is a fine quality product, with an attractive, minimalist aesthetic design. The board lacks any significant advanced functionality though, and the ability to replace the switches without the keyboard being capable of any advanced programmability functions means there aren't very many useful applications for that ability. Ultimately we believe that though solid, the keyboard is too simplistic to be priced against advanced gaming keyboards; that buyers are unlikely to benefit from the $99 keyboard's minimalism. With competitors offering fully programmable keyboards using original Cherry MX switches attached for less than what the GMMK-BRN currently retails for, the keyboard occupies an odd niche as a minimalist keyboard for gamers willing to pay premium prices, and a niche that we feel will cause it to struggle to compete in today’s cutthroat market.