Wow this board looks AMAZING!
I actually translated a review posted on the Leopold website ( from a guy who actually tested out the keyboard at the offline Leopold store. ) I speak fluent Korean because I was born there and I thought this review was very informative and interesting.
It says...
"I went to the offline Leopold store in YongSan, South Korea to test out the keyboard.
I'm actually writing a review even before its release lol.
First of all, the sales person at the store was so kind and I really enjoyed the free juice they gave me. ( lol wut ) I actually went there to check out the Realforce Hipro but I fell in love with this keyboard here. Hipro was very interesting but I couldn't find the grey version with ANSI layout because they were all sold out. Hipro also did not have dip switches and it just didn't really have the WOW factor. The keycaps were also interesting but it would take quite a bit of time to get used to them. It was quite awkward to type on the keycaps at first. However, the hipro did seem like a fine keyboard.
The REAL deal was this FC660C! When I first typed on it I let out a gasp and immediately thought that "I need to BUY THIS!". I'm currently using a Happy Hacking Pro 2 on a Mac but HHKB2 will definitely feel threatened by the FC660C in the future. HHKB2 is really geared towards the niche market because of its unique layout, but what I really wanted was a more standard layout with HHKB2 type feel. I immediately felt that FC660C is the perfect keyboard for me. The board feel extremely similar to HHKB2 ( typing on it was almost exactly identical to HHKB2 ) and I could really tell that they tried to really translate over the quality and the overall feel of HHKB2 onto this keyboard. Key pitch, shape, body design, the solid feels were all very similar to those of HHKB2. Topre is the maker for this keyboard and keycaps seem to be interchangeable with HHKB2. I really loved the variety of dip switch settings implemented into this keyboard: you can change between the ctrl and capslock keys and you can also change the alt and windows key to one another. I also liked that there is a separate arrow keys on the board with the standard fn switch functions. Also, the fact that they have the INS and DEL key separate on the board shows that they really care about users who do a lot of typing and editing for their work.
The overall look and the color of the board is well expressed in the photos above but they are really amazing. It definitely looks and feels very high end and sexy. The only downside is that they used laser etched PBT over dye - sub for the keycaps but I believe they chose that to reduce the overall price of the board so I can't complain. Most importantly, the typing on this board feels absolutely amazing. If you love your HHKB2 you will probably be 101% satisfied with this board. the +1% comes from... how do i say it... FC660C feels more solid compared to HHKB2. The salesperson explained to me that it's because FC660C uses steel plate mounting compared to HHKB2's plastic. To describe it, it kinda felt like riding a high end German car, like BMW's suspension... It is soft but also sturdy and it feels very stable. It seemed like the keys were less wobbly compared to the HHKB2. I'm not saying that the keys on HHKB2 were really wobbly but I'm just stating that FC660C was just THAT stable.
I also liked that the board uses same weight for the all the keys. The weight is also quite light so you can light touch type like you did on the HHKB. One thing I was disappointed about was that there were no USB hub on the board. There's only 1 mini usb connector to connect the keyboard to the computer. I plug in my wireless mouse receiver in my keyboard so I was a little disappointed. I couldn't really find any other flaws on this board. Boards like this really raise the bar for other keyboards in the market and I was really really impressed. I was planning on buying a full size board but I'm probably going to purchase this board very soon in the future. One thing I really hope from Leopold is that they should release a variety of different keycaps. I would really like to see non - printed, color windows key, arrow keys, other modifier keys, or even mac modifier keys, or two tone versions... Because the color of the board is very profound, I would like to see keycaps that are of brown or beige color instead of the usual primary colors. I really think that the price is very fair ( Even though I might be a little biased because I fell in love with this board..) and I'm looking forward to its release date. I also would like to see more photos of the showcase girl for the keyboard on the website lol
You don't usually see models like that..."
I roughly but accurately translated his review..
There might be some errors or typos because I translated it in a bit of a hurry
because I have to go to class very soon
hope you guys find it useful!
I think I'm definitely going to pick one up when I go to Korea this summer.
