Rain 75 It is a common sight for R/MechanicalKeyboards subreddit, the community thock Keyboard, naturally, is an interesting keyboard. It seems like every week or so, someone has posted information about their new purchases from Wobkey, and each time the consensus revolves around the benefits of budget choices. That’s because, for under $150, the Rainy 75 has all the features you want on a mechanical keyboard today. There were some weird design choices, but I finally got a keyboard that left a deep impression on me.
Rain 75 comes in three flavors: Lite, Standard and Pro. The Lite retails for $129 and includes an HMX violet linear switch, polypropylene plate and a 3500-MAH battery. The Pro (the model I’ve tested) includes a Kailh Cocoa linear switch, an FR4 board, RGB lighting and two batteries, totaling 7,000 mAh for a price of $159. The standard is somewhere in between and it costs $139.
Poppy, crisp and smooth
Photo: Henri Robbins
Typing on Rainy 75 sounds great. It has poppy you see in online videos, a clear typing sound, and typing feels energetic and enjoyable. I think the name of “Rain 75” comes from the typing sound because its soft and rounded sound outline sounds like rain falls.
The linear “cocoa” switch is made by Kailh and is used for rainy days 75. With a relatively light working force of 45 grams, these switches are comparable to the Cherry MX red and use polyoxygen methyl (POM) and nylon housing, helping to create soft and smooth models. The switch responds quickly and pops up quickly after being pressed. Even if it is slowly pressed, there is almost no scratch. The stems of these switches have little swaying from side to side or front and back, making the keyboard feel solid.
The stabilizers on this keyboard are prelubricated and they are great despite the plate mounting instead of the printed circuit board. While I can talk about their smoothness and silence, it’s easier to say that I didn’t even notice that they were there when typing. These stabilizers are tweaked perfectly and don’t need to be used out of the box. That said, I think, like most plate-mounted stabilizers, they will reapply lubricant after a while.
Photo: Henri Robbins
The gasket mounting system that holds the keyboard together is really impressive. It feels elastic and soft without looking too soft or mushy. In all keys, the damping of the washer is consistent, just getting stiffer around the edges.
A picky feature
There are some quirks on this keyboard, which aren’t big, but can be annoying. Sometimes when I press Alt+Tab or any other key combination involving the TAB key on this keyboard, I have to press the combination twice to work. I solved these weird things by turning off the keyboard and turning it on.
Generally, one of my favorite features on mechanical keyboards is support for QMK and VIA. QMK, the abbreviation of Quantum Mechanical keyboard, is an open source firmware that allows for almost unlimited customization of keyboard layouts. VIA is a system that uses the browser interface to customize a specific QMK-compatible keyboard. These allow for simple and efficient customization of mechanical keyboards, meaning that QMK-enabled keyboards will have long-term support without relying on proprietary software, which may stop being updated in a few years.
