 Welcome to Linus Tech Tips. Make sure you guys subscribe for our, I think awesome, maybe you think it's awesome too, daily tech videos. Today we're going to be checking out the Ducky Shine Mini, a 60% size keyboard with a whole lot more under the hood than initially meets the eye. Cooler Master Neptune series CPU coolers are available in a variety of radiator sizes to perfectly suit your next build. Click now to learn more. Despite the as expected excellent build quality with, you know, it's aluminum housing and stuff, right off the bat there was some stuff I really didn't like about the Shine Mini. Some things are good. You can use the function modifier to access your F keys, volume control, arrow keys, print screen, etc. But it's tiny layout means that it has to make the best possible use of the keys that it has and I really felt like not having a function key on the left-hand side requiring a function modifier to access escape and having tilde as the main layer over there and the placement of the arrow keys in the second layer on the right directly above the lone function key so you can barely get both hands in there were pretty serious sins. Then I put on my actually doing reviews instead of just hating on things based on initial impressions hat and checked out the stuff that came in the box. Turns out you get a plastic dust cover, you get a keycap remover, you get a warranty card, you get some replacement laser edge keycaps, and ah yes the manual. Turns out Ducky thought of everything that I just bitched about. You can use those replacement keycaps and some really neat reconfigurability of the keyboard to change the escape key functionality, add a contextual menu button, swap the priority of delete and backspace, add another function key wherever you want on the bottom row as long as you don't override both of your controls, both of your alts, etc. And change the win at the internet lock key to something a little more useful like function or control. Freaking awesome! We're off to a good start here. Now the setup process for this is not as intuitive as I think Ducky would like to think it is. It definitely will require some trial and error, the manual, or the kind of intimacy with the functionality of your keyboard that only certain people will ever have. But if you've got a reference in front of you, it's pretty quick to set up and even then it's not the kind of thing that you'll need to do often anyway. Just hold function alt H to enter the Ducky advisor setup mode and the appropriate keys will be illuminated. Q quits the mode and if you press anything else it'll guide you through the reconfig process using illuminated numeric keys to change modes. Freaking awesome again! And I haven't even touched on lighting yet. It's a Ducky shine. So of course there are lights and this time it's not just single color lights. We get dual LEDs in each key switch that can operate alone or blended together for a pretty satisfying variety of colors. You can change modes with function alt G from 100% backlit with any blended color you'd like. Just adjust each LED by holding Z or X to reactive typing with the same independent LED brightness controls to reactive mode with randomized colors. I actually really like this one. To tripping balls mode, also known as completely random effects on every key all the time. To wave mode, which is pretty self-explanatory. To color cycling mode, which just cycles through every available color. To finally off mode, which if you're using on a Ducky shine is basically bad and you should feel bad. One last lighting mode is the custom mode, which allows you to use the LED in the caps lock key to determine what color you're setting then assign individual colors per key. You can save two user defined schemes here that you can recall using functional V or B. Which leaves us with the final feature. One that I intentionally glossed over at the beginning of this video and expected to give exactly zero cares about because when Nick told me about it I was like, oh, but actually it ended up being one of my favorite features on this keyboard. The mouse emulation key block. Hold function and use WASD to move the mouse cursor around. You can also with nearby keys press left and right click and you can actually swap those around with Ducky advisor if you prefer. You can even move the scroll wheel up and down. The only unfortunate thing that's missing is that you can't middle clip the scroll wheel, but the acceleration curves are well tuned and overall it works surprisingly well. This whole review was done on my laptop without touching the trackpad or a mouse and without getting frustrated I used my keyboard for all my mouse movement. Now we just need a wireless one for media PC users. So conclusion time then. It's a Ducky. So that means you get all the things that go along with that. There's stellar reputation for build quality, genuine Cherry MX key switches, no software required for configuration of any of its functionality, which means everything it does works on any OS anytime, but that you can't really fine tune things. Like if I wanted trip balls mode to leave off out of the randomized pattern, for example. But all that Ducky goodness comes with one big caveat here. You need to decide if a 60% is right for you. You get the extra desk space, especially on the right side where you move your mouse with the ergonomic benefits that are associated with having your arms closer together, but you lose convenient access to a lot of keys on your keyboard that you might find yourself missing, at least for a while while you're still getting used to it. Speaking of getting used to things, deals aren't hard to get used to and boy howdy have we got one for you today. Today's video is sponsored by Massdrop and they worked with Ducky to bring you guys an awesome deal that is live right now on the Ducky Shine Mini in this video. You can get it with Cherry MX Red or Blue switches or for a limited time with the very unusual Cherry MX Clear switches. Now I'm sure most of you have heard of Massdrop by now, but if you haven't you should definitely check it out. They're a site that facilitates group buys for a wide variety of products, many of which are PC and audio related. They work directly with manufacturers and distributors to guarantee that you get the best price available on brand new stuff and they ship to as many countries as the manufacturer will allow. They have two options to buy, you can buy in at any price or you can commit to buy and only confirm your order if the drop gets enough orders to reach its lowest price. And to top it all off, Massdrop is even giving away a Ducky Shine Mini to one of our lucky viewers. Just sign up using the link in the video description and yeah I'm not going to read that out. And you will be entered to win. If you're already signed up for Massdrop just leave a comment below this video mentioning either a product you would like to see me review next or a product that you'd like to see on Massdrop and you will be entered to win. Winners will be contacted by Massdrop on October 25th so thank you to Massdrop for sponsoring this episode of Linus Tech Tips and be sure to head over there and check out their Ducky Shine Mini Massdrop if, or excuse me, drop if it looks appealing. One last thing though, because this review of a Ducky product features a deal on a aforementioned product and a parent conflict of interest, I feel like I should clarify the arrangement. Massdrop, not Ducky, sponsored this video and they did so at a flat rate rather than on a sales commission basis. Our obligation is simply to explain the benefits of Massdrop in general and we get no extra payout if you guys buy keyboards or don't buy keyboards or whatever else. So I hope that helps. Thanks for watching guys. Like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment letting me know if your feelings are more complicated than this and also to enter that giveaway. Guys also check out the other link in the video description to support us. You can give us a month of contribution, you can buy a sweet t-shirt like this one or that last one. Right, you can change your Amazon bookmarks, one with our affiliate code so we get a small kickback whenever you buy, I don't know, dry erase markers. Thanks again for watching and as always, don't forget to subscribe.