Another device that OnePlus showed off at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the OnePlus Featuring Keyboard 81 Pro, previously announced during the reveal of the OnePlus 11 early this month. It was an interesting device, given that OnePlus currently doesn’t make a PC, but we didn’t pay much attention to it as we didn’t think it would come to Malaysia.
However, a spokesperson has since revealed to us that the mechanical keyboard will indeed be sold in Malaysia, sometime in the second quarter of the year. That would put it not long after global pre-orders start in April.
The Keyboard 81 Pro is the first device to come from the OnePlus Featuring programme, meaning that it’s been co-developed with the company’s community. These include the switches, which are available in either tactile (Winter Bonfire or red) or linear (Summer Breeze or blue) versions, similar to Keychron’s products.
Speaking of which, the Keyboard 81 Pro was designed in collaboration with Keychron and has a very similar layout to the Q1. However, the OnePlus version does have a few flourishes of its own, including a transparent control knob, red Enter and Esc keys (the latter with the company’s logo) and a thin metal stand that can even prop up the entire keyboard vertically to save desk space when not in use.
The slider at the back, which can switch between wired and Bluetooth connection, has even been designed to look like OnePlus’s trademark alert slider. The body is made from CNC machined aluminium. The keycaps are made from either regular PBT on the Winter Bonfire model or a “marble-mallow” material on the Summer Breeze model, the latter claimed to be “bouncy” yet durable.
Otherwise, the Keyboard 81 Pro continues to derive a lot from Keychron’s products, including a double-gasket design to reduce unwanted noise, hot-swappable switches, RGB illumination and a 75% keyboard layout. It features Bluetooth 5.1, has a 4,000mAh battery that provides up to 100 hours of use, and charges in around five hours through a USB-C port.
The OnePlus Featuring Keyboard 81 Pro is already visible on OnePlus’s Malaysian website. It appears that only the Winter Bonfire model with tactile switches and PBT keycaps will be offered for sale here.
