The Dark Mount’s aesthetic is what you’d expect from a gaming keyboard: customizable RGB lights, and a sleek black body of metal and plastic. Fully assembled, the keyboard measures 2.1 by 18 by 6.9 inches and weighs just over 3 pounds. This makes the keyboard bigger than what’s currently en vogue among mechanical-keyboard enthusiasts. Many brands are focusing on trim 65% and 75% tenkeyless models, while the Dark Mount is a bit of a bigfoot with all the modules attached.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The keycaps are made from polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) and are slightly textured, like on the Light Mount; each keystroke feels smooth enough, but your fingers won’t slide off the keytops. The keycaps are solid black with shine-through letters, while eight keys on the north part of the modular keypad are thick, smooth, transparent plastic. These transparent caps cover tiny LCD screens that can be customized to show pictures or icons, a design choice vaguely reminiscent of the programmable-top keys on an Elgato Stream Deck. You can program these keys to application launches, shortcuts, or macros.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The number pad snaps seamlessly onto the keyboard’s main body. A nifty, sturdy, and wide USB-C connector pops out from either side via a slider at the bottom of the keyboard, letting you mount the number pad on either side of the layout. This makes for a singular keyboard that’s equally friendly to righties, lefties, and the ambidextrous. That said, if you’ll only ever use the number pad in the usual (right-hand) position, this swappability is a price-boosting albatross. (Leave off the number pad, of course, and you have a pricey tenkeyless keyboard.) You can’t use the number pad on its own, detached; it has no battery or wireless connectivity.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The second modular part, the media dock, clicks down onto one of two USB-C ports on the top right or left side of the keyboard. It gives you a convenient but out-of-the-way control unit for manipulating your music playback and your keyboard’s RGB lights. It’s not especially flexible; you can show a clock here, or a custom background picture and media controls/info. It’s not a screen you can use, say, to show off system stats or CPU speeds. You’re limited by the keyboard software.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The main keyboard and the modular number pad come with separate palm rests, which are lightly padded plastic. As for connecting the whole works to your computer, the keyboard has only a wired connection and comes with a braided USB-A-to-C cable. I don’t mind the lack of 2.4GHz wireless or Bluetooth for a keyboard this size, which is destined to stay put, anyway. It’s the most reliable form of connection, and it’s a relief not to have to remember to charge yet another gadget.
Be Quiet also includes some magnetic, stackable bits that you can attach to the keyboard’s and number pad’s undersides to act as a tilt mechanism. That’s a little more flexible than the typical flip-out feet, which enable only one or two lift angles.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
