A Closer Look and Performance
The Light Mount is the more affordable of the two models launching today, but do not be fooled, this is by no means a budget model; it’s every bit a premium keyboard and then some. It’s just that the Dark Mount is even more premium, but we’ll get to that shortly. It’s certainly an attractive keyboard, favouring a mature and premium aesthetic, thanks to its black brushed aluminium top plate.
It features PBT double-shot injected keycaps, which are resilient to daily wear and tear, but also provide a more durable and premium feel overall, as you would expect from a keyboard in this price range.
The switches are pre-lubricated, again a hallmark of more premium keyboards, and it makes a world of difference. Librication provides smoother, quieter and just overall nicer feeling switches in general. This includes the space bar, which has a lubricated switch in the middle, but also lubricated stabiliser switches on the left and right sides to ensure the action is smooth regardless of where you press it down.
This is then backed up by three thick layers of sound-absorbing materials inside the keyboard, with a layer of foam between the switches and PCB, another is under the PCB, and then one to fill out the bottom of the housing.
This removes any unwanted echoes and vibrations, making the switches feel more independent and direct. It’s a big change to the sound profile too, making the keyboard much quicker and giving it more of a “thocky” vs a “clacky” sound profile if you strike the keys hard.
There’s a dedicated media controller, with a programmed aluminium 3D media wheel, which is set up to control volume and mute by details, but again, you can change this in the software. It feels durable and responsive to control, if a little weird being on the left for me, as my current keyboard has it on the right, but hey, that’s something I’ll adapt to, I’m sure.
Of course, there’s RGB here too, even though I personally think the keyboard looks great with the RGB off, I appreciate that it’s a welcome feature to many. I tend to leave mine set to a dimmer setting and a flat colour, such as the be quiet! orange, which does look really nice.
However, with full per-key ARGB lighting, all the effects and customisation you’ve come to expect from a high-end keyboard, and the double-shot keycaps allowing light to pass through, you can really make this keyboard sparkle. There’s also an ARGB light strip that provides underglow effects, making it easy to match the aesthetics of your other ARGB components, such as your PC case, fans, etc.
There’s a USB Type-C port for connectivity, and while a cable is provided, you could easily substitute your own aftermarket cable too.
There are adjustable feet, allowing for three angles of adjustment to suit your needs.
Best of all, well, sort of, is the magnetically mounted wrist rest. It’s a soft, padded design, so it is very forgiving to my tired old hands, but nearly four decades of basically typing, gaming and playing guitar, my hands appreciate all the comfort they can get, so a big thumbs up to be quiet! for this very cosy rest.
The Dark Mount is a similar, but also very different beast. It still features a broadly similar core keyboard design, with a brushed aluminium top, and the same choice of switches with ARGB lit double-shot PBT keycaps, and the same three layers of noise dampening in its design.
It also has the same approach to the wrist rest, albeit this one comes in two parts, and the USB cable is the same; that is where the similarities end.
One of the key features here is just how modular it is. The Dark Mount Numpad can be attached to either the left or right side of the keyboard.
This is achieved by a magnetic cover on the left and right sides of the numberpad, which allows you to slide out a locking male USB header on either side.
And there’s the female version of this USB connector hidden under a magnetic cover plate on both sides of the keyboard, too.
You can then simply dock it onto the keyboard, and it automagically works. This can be hot swapped too, doesn’t require the use of any tools, software adjustments, just plug and play. Or, unplug and don’t play, whatever you choose, really.
Then there’s this handy built-in control panel, which features eight small buttons with an LCD display, not unlike the Elgato Streamdeck, really, but built into the keyboard.
These shortcut buttons are fully programmable too, so you can have things like Discord, macros, OBS tools and much more here, as well as custom icons and colours to suit your taste. What I do like is that they’re actually a bit clicky too. I use a Streamdeck in the office, and the keys are kinda smushy, but these ones just feel more premium.
Then you have another display and control surface. This one features a volume wheel, media controls, a left/right control and an OK Button, as well as a display to sort through various settings.
It’s a USB Type-C connector too, so it just plugs into the back of the keyboard.
It can be placed on either the left or right side of the keyboard to suit your taste. It’s plenty secure, but I think maybe an extra clip or magnet in there would be a good upgrade in the future, as it does have a little wiggle to it.
It’s a shame it’s not a touchscreen. I think we’re just programmed to think all little screens can be tapped on at this point. However, there is a left and right navigation buttons and an OK button in the middle that work well enough. You can cycle through RGB modes, profiles, timers and the like easily enough.
The volume wheel is a nice touch, I use these a lot as I always have music, a movie, YouTube or something on the go, and flick back and forth between media types throughout the day, so having dedicated controls is a big win for me.
Overall, I think be quiet! has really put in the effort here. While it’s clear they’ve taken some of their inspiration from those who have gone before them, it’s how well all these features have been implemented that really makes both the Light and Dark Mount stand out from the crowd. With this many features, it’s easy to make a keyboard that looks like a purposeful mixture of garishness and “gamer” aesthetics. However, despite the RGB, LCD, and other bells and whistles, I think the keyboard looks very professional and mature. If you had this out in the office, I doubt you’d get any funny looks so long as you don’t crank up the RGB lighting to disco levels and put an offensive meme soundboard onto the custom buttons… but you wouldn’t do that, would you?
Being fully modular obviously makes the Dark Mount a cut above the Light Mount. It’s great to have a full numberpad for work. However, I can unplug it, move it to the left side, and use this as a massive macro pad for MMO and sim gaming, and those LCD buttons are perfect for OBS, chat reactions, and other controls while streaming.
The real star of the show, however, has to be their switches. be quiet! has created something new, and they feel like a sort of greatest hits of the switch market rolled into one, but still have their own unique qualities too. The actuation is shorter, they’re light to press, they bounce back fast, they do not bottom out hard, they’re pre-lubricated so they’re smooth as silk and perfectly quiet. They remind me of Cherry MX Silvers, but they just feel nicer in every single way.
be quiet! We have also included a tactile clicky switch, which is still just as quiet. They’ve done this by giving them a lighter click and tactile bump, almost like someone tried to put an MX Brown and MX Blue together, then told them to keep the noise down. It’s a very light, fast, and satisfying switch to work and game on. I’m a linear switch user due to noise concerns, so having tactile that’s actually quiet is a bit of a game changer here.
While the Light Mount offers the same premium quality typing experience and gaming performance as the Dark Mount, the main difference is in optional extras. They’re both incredible keyboards, and while I think the Light Mount more than meets my work and gaming requirements, I can certainly see the appeal of the Dark Mount just on cool factor alone, but admittedly, I’d likely use the LCD and custom buttons less than I would like to think.
