The Brutal65 V2 was my first “good” keyboard. It was by far the most I bought on a singular keyboard in hopes of getting a taste of the “end game.” What I got ended up hitting some key points well, but missed on the one I think matters most, and even still falls behind at its price point.

Design/Aesthetics

The Brutal V2 series is a continuation of CannonKey’s Brutalist collection, inspired by Brutalist architecture which emphasizes plain and honest but effective structure, which was almost like Keychron before Keychron, being that they had a lot of full-aluminum boards with the same design language and single mount option (burger mount if you followed their directions). With the V2 series, they unfortunately cut a lot of the available form factors (only offering 65 and 1800, a 60 was IC’d but cut with no word), but together with ai03 heavily recreated the design in something a little more sleek and pleasing for modern day standards.

The V2 series leans mostly into a standard box-on-wedge design, albeit with the center of the back being more bottom case than top case to make a nicer highlight around the USB port, and a chamfer from the bottom of the top case that meets to the bottom case, a la the original Brutal design. This design is always one color for the top case, and only silver for the bottom. I personally think this decision to stick with silver has its pros and cons, namely that silver is a very neutral finish, but some different or matching colors to offer further customizability would have probably added more wide-spread appeal to the board. I personally like the silver with their color choices of black, gray, navy (which basically ended up a perfect match for GMK Dots), purple, and white, but I am also understanding of people who think it’s too dull or boring. The Brutal is also given a very comfortable 17mm front height with an average 6.5° degree angle; I personally think this is one of the most comfortable typing experiences offered out of my collection.

The bottom of the case also plainly features an embossing of the CannonKeys logo, as well as a small well that acts as a faux seam of where the bottom case creeps up to the top case. I do personally like this design choice as it gives off the idea of depth despite it literally just being a line; it’s a simple yet effective design. No external weights are used, which are instead on the inside, being made in zinc to maintain the Brutalist aesthetic. At first I didn’t like this choice as I found something nice and flashy on the outside to be important, but knowing what I know now about building acoustics in a keyboard, I can appreciate nowadays.

Assembly

The Brutal uses a hidden screw design making it so that no screws are visible from the exterior when fully built. I personally do not like hidden screw designs for the simple fact that it makes it easier to scratch the case with your screwdriver, but I also recognize that it does help contribute to the aesthetic of the board.

Brutal V2 boards rather than doing top and burger mount instead use a one-sided gasket mount, meaning gasket strips are only placed on the bottom side of the gasket tab, rather than being added on both sides, assumedly to get a feel closer to gasket mount while maintaining a sound closer to top mount? I’m not entirely sure on the intention, but I’ll get into why I didn’t end up being a fan of this.

The build guide also recommends putting gaskets on the plate (shouldn’t have to tell you this is silly if you plan to try multiple plates) and using stand-offs to avoid having the PCB “slide off after very extended use,” which over the last 4 years of keyboarding has not been an issue I’ve experienced or even heard of people experiencing, even with looser switches like HMX or TTC or even 3-pin switches. The downsides of these two things are very detrimental and I simply recommend only adding gaskets to a case (especially if it’s a gasket-only board) and not adding plate standoffs. I would similarly also recommend not putting a gasket in the spot closest to the spacebar as it will stiffen and dull out the sound of the spacebar. Force break can also help with a tiny bit of resonance, but I can see it being more preferencial.

PCB and Firmware

CannonKeys PCBs are notoriously very lacking, especially in their Hotswap PCBs, and the Brutal65 V2’s PCB is no different. Both Brutal V2 hotswap PCBs are completely fixed layout other than split backspace. This is personally how I learned to use and even prefer split backspace, however no option for 7u or stepped caps lock or even an ISO option is a very limiting choice when it come to the out-of-box experience for people not handy or comfortable with soldering. They are otherwise servicable as they are preflashed for Via-ready QMK and are 1.6mm non-flex cut PCBs.

Typing Experience

As mentioned earlier, between the low front height and moderate angle, plus a very cushioned and fairly bouncy gasket implementation, it does end up being a very comfortable board to use as a daily. However, the sound was always such a major problem for me as no matter what, likely because of the weird one-sided gasket implementation, it was always fairly deep and muted. The best I got for a while was with Nixies and some long poles as they matched the deeper sound profile from the board while having a higher volume, but they still lacked for me. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I won a giveaway and got some ZenClack Turbulence switches from alexotos and tried putting them in the Brutal since the color scheme kind of matched. And it was finally a match made in heaven.

Overview

For a while, I had a lot of buyer’s remorse for the Brutal. I still kind of do, but finally finding a configuration that sounds good after almost 2 years was so relieving as I really had struggled to find a reason to use the keyboard in my daily rotation other than the fact it’s a near-match to GMK Dots. I still don’t think the $350 price tag for the Brutal 65, let alone the $400 price tag on the 1800, is a very good deal. Fortunately, they do sometimes go on sale, usually towards the $225 and $300 price tags respectively, but I still don’t think they are worth those prices. I personally don’t see any reason to get these boards when other designers like KBDfans, QwertyKeys, or even Geon make boards that offer so much more at similar if not better price tags, oftentimes with brass or stainless steel weights or even copper rather than zinc. If we could see the 65 go permanently down to $175-225 and the 1800 to $225-$275, then I think these could be really good choices to recommend, but their current price tags are an absolute disappointment.