Giving My Vortex POK3R Some Love: Japanese Keycaps on Cherry MX Reds
·~3 min·Keyboards · Gear · Tech
Today I'm showing my Vortex POK3R some much-needed love. This little 60% has been my daily driver for gaming for about five years now. I used to program on it too, but since picking up my Anne Pro 2, I've leaned on that for typing and kept the POK3R with its Cherry MX Reds for gaming.
THE NEW KEYCAPS
I always thought I'd grab a keycap set for this thing right away, but it's just one of those things I never got around to. Then I spotted a set on KPRepublic that I really liked: a cyan and pink colorway, with some of the keys carrying Japanese characters. I have no idea what they mean, but I thought they looked cool.
I'll be honest, these feel pretty cheap, and they were cheap. The whole set ran about $30 USD. So down the road I plan to upgrade to something like an ePBT or GMK set. But for now, they look a whole lot better than the stock POK3R caps, and the cyan-and-pink theme gives the board real personality.
WHY THE POK3R STILL EARNS ITS SPOT
Five years is a long time for any peripheral, and the POK3R has earned its keep. It's a compact 60% that's perfect for gaming, the Cherry MX Reds are light and fast, and the build has held up. Even as I move toward more custom boards, this one isn't going anywhere. A fresh set of keycaps was all it needed to feel new again.
WHAT'S COMING
This little swap is actually the start of something bigger. I'm about to make a pretty large order on KBDfans, because I'm going to be building a number of keyboards with different switches and PCBs, and finally learning to use a soldering iron. I want to focus a lot more on keyboards going forward, alongside the usual tech reviews and some programming content, because the keeb hobby really does go hand-in-hand with all my other interests.
TYPING SOUNDS
Of course, no keycap swap is complete without a typing test, so there's a sound test of the Cherry MX Reds with the new Japanese caps at the end of the video. For a cheap set, they sound pleasant, and the swap was a nice reminder of why I liked this board in the first place.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A $30 keycap set isn't endgame, but it breathed new life into a five-year-old board, and that's the beauty of mechanical keyboards: a small, cheap change can make a faithful daily driver feel brand new. If you've got an older board gathering dust, a fresh set of caps might be all it takes.
Got a board you've been meaning to refresh? Let me know in the comments, and stick around, because a lot more keyboard content is on the way.