Introduction

Lofree is a recently established keyboard brand with a portmanteau of "love" and "free" for the brand name. It seeks to offer high-quality products, emphasizing style and substance. We first encountered the brand with the very interestingly named Lofree 1%, a 65% form factor keyboard with a transparent chassis, transparent keycaps, as well as a clear set of switches to be quite the statement in person. In the time since, Lofree has put out multiple other peripherals, all with a unique twist, including the Flow84 that uses Kailh's new POM ultra-low profile (ULP) switches to make for a small form factor keyboard in all three dimensions. But clearly that was not enough, and today we are taking a look at the world's thinnest pre-built mechanical keyboard—the Lofree Edge.


The Lofree Edge is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter and the discounted prices are available until May 25. This will be quite important given Lofree keyboards tend to be more expensive than average on the retail front. The Lofree Edge is unlike any other on the market owing to its extreme thinness—it is just 5.4 mm at the front end—and it weighs under 500 g thanks to its use of a custom carbon fiber and magnesium alloy chassis. It also features wireless connectivity to where I actually see people purchasing this with the optional carry sleeve and using it on the go since it is basically no bigger than the likes of the Macbook Air while offering a much better typing experience. The Lofree Edge features newer versions of the Kailh ULP switches and even has backlighting in addition to supporting various keycap sets and software customization too. Despite the tiny footprint it occupies, there's clearly a lot of see here so let's thank Lofree for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp and begin with the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

The product box for the Lofree Edge is easily the thinnest of any mechanical keyboard I have reviewed to date, so this already tells you a lot about the product inside. The box uses a two-piece packaging design with thick black cardboard and a shiny silver cover piece that has the brand logo and product name on the front with product specs on the back. Opening the box, we see the keyboard placed in a wax paper wrap and in its own foam compartment, with a separately marked accessory box to the right.


Lofree also includes paperwork in the form of a multi-language manual which goes over the setup and use of the keyboard, including all the pre-programmed functions available. There's also a QC card to help assure you that the keyboard has been verified to be working fine—hopefully, anyway. We also get some spare keycaps and the expected USB Type-C to Type-A cable, although the cable itself looks and feels fancier than usual courtesy the right-angled Type-C housing and the patterned fabric sleeve over the cable itself. I was expecting to see a keycap puller to use with the spare keycaps, but Lofree decided people who are in the market for one of these keyboards probably already have one. Instead, and this is one of the coolest uses of spare parts ever, the leftover carbon fiber pieces have been machined into making a four-piece stand that you assemble like a simple puzzle to display the keyboard on. It's not practical at all but I still love it.