If I must use a song name to summarize past experience with keyboards then it can only be “I Found My Smile Again” by D’Angelo (don’t even think of youtube-ing the song, it sucks big time, really). So everything began in 1995 with an outdated Hewlett-Packard 486DX4- my very first PC - which came with a wonderful keyboard OEMed by Alps, I can’t remember its model number for I was in junior high at time. But goodtimes never last, after that there was a flood of cheap, generic rubber dome/membrane keyboards which came along an equally massive flood into my country - PC clones. Some were a little better, others were downright terrible but as far as I cared, their most important function is price and it’d better be low. My gaming pattern left me with decent mice and crappy keyboards to the point I did most of my writings on laptops, larger part of them was Thinkpads for I'm always picky about things to type on. Only recently when my job (or lack thereof) kept me sitting at home desktop for a larger part of days then my loathsomeness for the Microsoft wireless desktop 4000 scaled to a new height, I bashed the board nearly into pieces (well the mouse was spared :becky: ) . And if an always cool, calm guy like me took it out on such a lifeless thing then the only reason was there’s something seriously wrong with it, certainly not with me or my anger management course, right? :playball:. Anyway I needed a new keyboard and decided it must look as simple as possible, even plain in design, must feel great when type on and lastly I needed it fast. The result came from googling combinations of above keywords was quite amusing, top spots were crammed with dreadful offerings like Apple Wired Aluminum, Microsoft “Comfort” Wireless Desktop :faint: and HP Wireless Elite Keyboard (naturally the biggest sharks in town) along with some new gaming gears (which I steers away instantly) as well as laptops or even musical equipments. The only half interesting url was a “Product Review: Unicomp Customizer keyboard, or, the IBM Model M...” which I looked at and baffled with its mid 2008 timestamp. Two more searchs and I found myself at geekhack, from there to the “I’m sold” moment was just minutes away. The only problem was availability as no Model M or Filco or Das showed up when I exhaustively combed through almost every significant domestic tech-related sites, even used market was same. Another pass with more generic keywords like switches and mechanical keyboard turn out to be a success. Only two sellers got goods in stock, one was SteelSeries 7G and other’s three flavors of Cherry - a description so gay that I thought I must entered a sextoys shop by chance - one more tour in geekhack wiki and I placed order for a Cherry keyboard with MX Blue switches, the price was quite steep - $115 shipped :puke:.
It arrived five days later in a cheap and quite unremarkable cardboard with a bold statement about its nation of origin right on top. No doubt this is a retail product under Cherry brand.
Compare to fabulous boxes which usually come with its game-friendly counterparts the dull look left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand it’s a good sign - more money for inner quality, on the other hand, well, it definitely doesn’t look twice as expensive as a horrid Lycosa. Here come the bottom, detailed texts and graphs explain differences between three kinds of switches.
One point of interest is a sticky on the sidewall of the box
It provided us with quite useful infos:
Date of Production : 3W10 01 (Third week of 2010?)
Serial No : 0000169.
Part No : G80-3000 LSCEU-2 . 7 last letter means this board is equipped with Lasered keycaps, Cherry MX Blue switches and 104-key PCB with USB - PS2 connector, EU layout (in reality it’s a standard US plus a Euro sign on “5” key”), lastly, the color of choice is Black.
Two accessories in the box is a 2-page brief user manual beside an USB-PS/2 adapter.
And here come the G80-3000 LSCEU-2. The moment I touched it, I feel very disappointed. The case is made of thin and cheap looking plastic, certainly worse than or at best - equal with my Dell SK-8135, a generic kb made by Logitech. It also feels hollow, a very horrid impression for a supposed classy product. The cord doesn’t do it any justice either, it’s thin, soft, have dubious printings and frankly, look more at home in an lowlife imitation, $3 per item than a keyboard cost me more than $100 :shocked:. The only consolidation is it will be replaced very easily when needed
Examining the back of this keyboard only confirm first impressions, Cherry is cutting corner everywhere. Front and back parts are kept together by clamps, no trace of screw anywhere, again unlike my Dell rubber dome board. The label on the back also looks quite bad, letters are blur, not evenly printed :brick: As of the content, nothing we didn’t know here.
Things only take off when I plug it into my hackintosh, OS X recognized it as “Unknown external keyboard”, Profiler spills out more details with an interesting number - Current Required as 100mA (whereas Cherry said 16mA only). In comparison with my other devices, a charging iPod Shuffle (required maximum 500mA) and a Logitech MX518( 98mA) - all three plugs into a powered hub - I believe the number which is reported by operating system is relatively correct . So what happened to that advertised super low wattage is anybody guess. N-key rollover test reaffirmed at least half of manufacturer’s statement with 6 keys accepted when using USB, I don’t use PS/2 so I can’t comment about the other half.
But all negative points which was listed above goes out the windows the moment I start typing on my new keyboard. I remember right away what’s I longed for since left my first keyboard. It feels just right, nothing more, nothing less. And I don’t want to bore you to death with how it’s clicking, sounding or responding....I won’t bring anything new to the table. Nah, I’m a happy cat with a new favorite pillow :bathbaby:, all I can say is I’m enjoying it endlessly. I’m a switcher for real and may never ever going back.
This is not my first review of tech-related articles, but this is the first time I write about something so simple in principle yet so important to overall experience. Suddenly, to me writing is not such a dreaded routine activity anymore and that alone made buying this keyboard one of the smartest spending I’ve made (without sounding like a broken record).
But that’s only a desperate me, I paid that much because there’s simply no cheaper way. In my country if domestic sellers don’t stock it then you’d better ready to pay for a special order (to those sellers) with all the taxes and shipping and insurance and god know what fees! The way things stand Cherry G80-3000 is definitely providing a solid frame for OEMing but still certainly a class apart from more polished (and more suitable for retail) counterparts of Filco and Metadot.
