Hey folks,
Well, to reward myself for good behavior, I purchased a Ducky Shine II from mechanicalkeyboards. This keyboard was originally listed as having MX White switches, but that was a mislabeling due to the fact that the Chinese call "clear" switches "white," and "white" switches "milk," according to the Deskthority wiki.
First, as I'm sure most are aware, the Ducky build quality is excellent. The backplate is solid, the keys don't wobble, the surface of the keys is smooth and nicely finished, everything is great. The feel of bottoming out is on par with my main comparison, the Apple Extended II. I especially love the DIP switches, which not only enable switching between n- and 6-key rollover, but also allow switching the Windows and Alt keys, which is hugely useful for a Mac user like myself. Moreover, it came with Ducky keys instead of Windows keys!
The only cons for this keyboard are the Cherry stabilizers on the space bar and large keys, which cause them to not bottom out fully, the fact that the LED actually appears to be flashing at something like 30Hz, so it leaves multiple images or "tracers" when my eyes glance over the keyboard, and the Num, Scroll and Capslock keys are only lit when active, instead of having separate activation LEDs. While I've never had a problem with rubbing the legend off a key, someone who has might want to look at the Deck.
Clear switches are excellent. They're what I'd hoped. Good tactility, good weight. I'd call them a cross between a blue and the dampened Alps in my AEKII. They have the weight and quietness of the AEKII, and a similar friction, but are much more tactile, and have the actuation point after the force bump, like a blue. The Alps activate very near the top of the stroke, which was subtly distracting and prone to causing double-strikes, so this actuation profile is very welcome. And unlike the browns, they don't feel gritty. They feel... good. Clean and logical.
The weight is great, and combined with the tactility makes it very easy to not bottom out, or bottom out very lightly, unlike the lighter Cherry switches which were just impossible for me to not push all the way through. I'm sure the Topre switches offer a somewhat more refined feel, but clears are definitely better than any of the lighter tactile cherry switches. I though this might be the case, since they're Deck's choice. I haven't opened this keyboard to check the soldering, but assuming the internals are good, this keyboard is a Deck-killer for anyone who doesn't need dye-sublimation keycaps.
