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If Apple’s Magic Keyboard isn’t quite hitting the spot for you, branching out into the world of mechanical keyboards is often a good bet. The Lemokey L1 HE is a premium option with a price tag to match, but it’s overflowing with high-end features that promise to elevate your typing experience.

Let’s start with the aspect that’s most apparent when you first unbox this keyboard: its phenomenal weight. It’s built like a tank, with an all-aluminum chassis and barely a strip of plastic in sight. It tipped the scales at a smidge over 2 kg (just under 4.5 lbs), and chances are it’s the heaviest keyboard you’ll ever use. There’s no need to worry about it shifting around your desk in day-to-day usage–this thing is staying put, no matter what.

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The Lemokey L1 HE is a heavyweight in more ways than one.

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Alex Blake/Foundry

Not only that, but the added heft brings a real sense of class to the L1 HE. There’s absolutely no bend or flex in the body anywhere you look. It’s so strong, in fact, that it could probably survive a nuclear blast and still come up smiling.

Battery life is decent. When tested in Bluetooth 5.2 mode and with backlighting on full brightness, the full battery was at 60 percent after 20 hours of usage. Lemokey says you should get up to 100 hours of juice from its 4,000mAh battery when the backlighting is at its lowest setting, or 18 to 20 hours when backlighting is full. Given our drop of 40 percent after 20 hours with lighting turned all the way up, you might be able to exceed Lemokey’s numbers. While RGB lighting isn’t for everyone, the default wave pattern is tasteful. With 22 presets to choose from, you’re sure to find something you like.

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Turning off the backlight will help preserve the L1 HE’s battery life.

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Alex Blake/Lemokey

The L1 HE comes in a 75 percent layout, which essentially chops off the numpad and loses a fistful of bonus keys for good measure. It offers the standard QWERTY keys and a function row, alongside a few extras (Delete, Insert, Page Up, Page Down, Home, but no End). This does make the keyboard more compact and travel-friendly, although that’s offset somewhat by the addition of four large macro keys and, most obviously, the incredible weight.

Lemokey is the gamer-focused sub-brand of keyboard maker Keychron, and one thing this firm has always been good at is ensuring its keyboards work with both macOS and Windows layouts. In the Lemokey L1 HE, you get swappable macOS and Windows keycaps in the box (as well as many extras, including a keycap puller, screws and a screwdriver, a USB-C to USB-A adapter, and more), plus the ability to change layouts on the fly, so the macOS Command function is mapped to the correct key automatically, for example. Many Keychron boards have a physical switch for this, but unfortunately the L1 HE forces you to do this with the Lemokey Launcher app. That slows things down, and a physical switch would be preferable if you’re often flipping between macOS and Windows.

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Swappable keycaps and a removal tool as included with the L1 HE.

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Alex Blake/Foundry

On the left-hand side of the keyboard are four programmable macro keys, which can be set usin