WOBKEY Crush80 Review: A Game-Changer in Mechanical Keyboards

Overview

The WOBKEY Crush80 is a TKL/80% custom mechanical keyboard by WOBKEY following their popular Rainy75. The Crush80 builds upon the design elements of the Rainy75 by improving the sound, feel, and build quality with the latest technologies. The WOBKEY Crush80 is packed with tons of features! Let's take a look at its features and how it feels and sounds!

Product Details

Key Design Features

Like the Rainy75, the Crush80 has a box on wedge design with a slight incline midway up the side of the case which helps to add a slight design element. The Crush80 has a two-tone case design with a separate case body color and a separate bottom color that houses the weight and batteries.

On the top case, the WOBKEY Crush80 displays a heartbeat light above the arrow keys adding a petite design element to break up the standard TKL aesthetic. It has thicker bezels on the front and back of the top case and thinner bezels on the sides of the top case.

On the bottom case, the Crush80 features options for the backplate as well as the battery compartment. For the backplate there are options for an ice pattern stainless steel backplate or a PVD Stonewash backplate. For the battery compartment there are color options with either an electrophoresis coat or an anodized coat. The Crush80 keeps the bottom weight simple and practical by incorporating a battery compartment within a portion of the bottom weight in the aluminum body.

Internally, the Crush80 features a quick assembly ball-catch mechanism that feels secure and also allows for easy disassembly to try out different configurations. It is mounted with gaskets mounts and feels soft and comfortable to type on with a responsive and bouncy typing experience. The Crush80 also comes with foams pre-installed but thanks to the ball catch mechanism it will be easy to add and remove the foams you prefer to use for your personal configuration.

The Crush80 also has built in padding on the bottom near the ball-catch mechanisms and on the corners of the keyboard. These paddings help to align the keyboard when assembling as well as providing a built-in force break to prevent any metal-on-metal contact.

The Crush80 Lite comes with a PP plate and a 3750mAh battery while the Crush80 Pro comes with a FR4 plate and a 7500mAh battery.

Keyboard Sound

The Crush80 stock sounds deep and creamy straight out of the box. It embodies the classic foamy sound signature with no hollowness or case ping.

With all of the foams removed, the Crush80 produces a brighter sound signature and has the potential to be built as a high pitched and clacky sounding mechanical keyboard. Even with the foams removed, the Crush80 has no hollowness or case ping.

The Crush80 comes with factory lubed switches and good quality doubleshot and dye sub PBT keycaps that sound great straight out of the box. The Crush80 has two options for switches: the HMX Frost and the Kailh Cocoa. The HMX Frost leans towards a high pitched and clacky sound profile while the Kailh Cocoa leans towards a mid pitched creamy sound profile. The Crush80 has a versatile sound that can be clacky, creamy, or thocky depending on how the keyboard is configured with different plates, switches, and foams.

Crush80 Unboxing and Sound Test Video:

Keyboard Feel

The Crush80 feels comfortable to type on straight out of the box with its PCB gasket mount structure. The Crush80 is PCB gasket mounted using dumbbell shaped silicon gaskets similar to some QK keyboards. The Crush80 with the PCB gasket mounting system provides a comfortable typing experience. I would describe the Crush80 to feel bouncy in its stock form. With the foams removed, the Crush80 feels extremely soft and flexible, especially with the PP plate. When pushing with excessive force the PCB can bottom out on the bottom case so it would be recommended to keep at least one layer of case foam to prevent damaging the PCB.

The stock switches and keycaps the Crush80 is built with feel premium to touch and to type on. The switches are factory lubed and feel smooth and consistent with minimal stem wobble. The doubleshot/dyesub PBT keycaps feel comparable to more expensive sets and provides a matching aesthetic to the case color you choose.

Build Experience

Since the Crush80 comes prebuilt, the initial build experience is mostly comprised of the unboxing and setup experience. The Crush80 is amazing to use straight out of the box, but for those who are interested in tinkering with different configs (keycaps, switches, mounting, etc), below are our thoughts on the build experience.

The Crush80 has a screwless quick assembly system using a ball-catch mechanism. This makes the Evo80 incredibly easy to open to try out different configs since the ball-catch mechanism allows the top case to be unlatched from the bottom case without any unscrewing necessary.
The Crush80 uses a magnetic pogo connection to create an even easier assembly/disassembly without the need to deal with JST cables or ribbon cables.
The Crush80 has flex cuts on its plates which could require slightly more attentiveness when inserting switches.
When trying to insert or remove switches from flex cuts plate/PCB, it is recommended to fully open the case and remove the plate/PCB assembly when swapping out switches to prevent any damage to PCB or keyboard components. We would also recommend to use a plate fork (or tweezers if no plate fork) to help support the flex cut plate when inserting switches.

Things to Note

The On/Off switch for the Crush80 is underneath the caps lock key so you would need to remove the keycap to access it.

Conclusion

The WOBKEY Crush80 is a high quality prebuilt custom mechanical keyboard. It is the next addition to the WOBKEY lineup following the successful Rainy75. The Crush80 has modern design features like the ball-catch mechanism, tri-mode connectivity, magnetic connectors, built in force break, and it even sounds great without any foams as well. I would recommend the Crush80 to anyone looking for a custom mechanical TKL keyboard that is in-stock, pre-built, and is affordable. Starting at $159, the WOBKEY Crush80 sets another standard for achieving premium feel, sound, and aesthetics at a more affordable price.

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