Buy a new keyboard. Take it apart
So ya, I got my laffin paws on a TEX Beetle. I couldn't resist buying one since I am a sucker for brushed aluminum ;o
Before you read on, read
this post by mashby first.
Construction & Feel:
The board is put together in an interesting way. The plate, along with the PCB of course, is screwed into the aluminum case top with 6 screws, then the plastic bottom is attached to the case top (5 screws). What's different about the production board than the one mashby reviewed is that it has an extra screw in the front center to solve the case flexing in the middle seen in the protoype. Overall, the keyboard feels pretty solid. One thing of note is how the PCB is attached to the plate. There are brass standoffs pressed into the plate that keeps the PCB and plate apart, as well as provide something for the PCB to screw into. The design is pretty well thought out and pretty solid.
LEDs are there to indicate which soft switch option you've enabled. Yes they're on the bottom, and you do need to flip the board over to look see what you've enabled.
Quick reference on the soft switch settings. Pretty smart. I hate those "refer to manual" crap.
The keyboard sits very low and has a slope of 3degrees. I like my keyboard low and flat. I would have preferred even shallower angle.
Interior of the bottom shell. Those are plate standoffs, but the bottom shell is only attached to the aluminum top.
Layout:
Not going to say much. You'll know if you like it or not. I am primarily going to use this as my gaming keyboard (ahem MX reds
), so I'd appreciate physical arrow keys. The ZXCV row being shifted .25x is not an issue for me. I missed hitting / key the first 5 minutes. Then no issue after that. I am not a big fan of the function layer, but I actually haven't really used it yet, since I still have my AHK running with my own FN layer.
Internals:
This keyboard is powered by a HT32F1755, ARM Cortex M3. Justin already mentioned that it'll be programmable, so hopefully there will be user customizable firmware for these things (so I can "fix" the FN layer
). It is also a USB2.0 Fullspeed chip, so theoretically, it should be capable of doing NKRO, but I was told they didn't do it for compatibility reasons.
Misc & random thoughts:
I took mine apart and added some damping to the case. All undampened boards sounds loud to me, so it is standard practice for me. The rubber feet on the board is really soft, and it absorb some of the shock of typing so it doesn't transfer it to the desk. It is actually quite quiet out of the box. I just prefer to kill all the resonances in the keyboard. I guess I am anal like that.
One thing I don't really know where to put so I'll stick it here. TEX actually give you 90degree mini-USB cables. MiniUSB is not exactly very robust, and having a straight cable that sticks out is just accident waiting to happen. 90degree cable will put less stress on the connector. I would have preferred having a fixed cable, but whatever
Annoyances:
Not PS2 compatible.
Odd layout that will be hard to find keycaps for (For the record, I personally prefer ABS caps. Embrace the shine.)
Rubber feet are tiny. While it does stay in place due to the weight, it is still pretty easy to move it on my glass desktop.
Probably a little bigger than it has to be.
Wishlist:
61key standard layout.
Software programmable.
Aluminum bottom shell.
I'll update this later. I only had this on the desk for a day, but my initial impression is that I like it ;o
