Just got my 980M with silents today. Overall probably the most solid stock board I've tried so far.
Took it apart and about to desolder it, here's some crappy pics of the breakdown.
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Edit: hotswap modded and ergo-clear'd. Going to be a nice replacement for my cp-sq!
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Thank you sir
I came to see some photos, and you over delivered
I wonder what kind of innovation lays behind those gray cherry stabilisers, from my point of view, stabilisers are the bottlenecks of keyboards, and seeing gray ones on a Leopold really makes me wonder
Not being clipped is also pretty interesting
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I wished to buy one FC980M for the sake of science, but decided to be more conservative with money recently, maybe if they roll out one with greys or clears, I would let go off my newly found enlightenment
You're welcome :)
I have to say, the 980M is 100% worth the price even with the standard switches. Hopefully they'll break their tradition and add MX clears since AFAIK they've never had it on any of their previous boards.
(Also, since my previous post, I've actually swapped the stock MX silents back into the board. I had a bad experience with 55g MX Silents in my VE.A so opted rushed to swap in ergoclears, but after swapping some stock MX silents back in, I fell in love).
I really want to buy/try out the 980C as well (after the great experience with the 980M), but after spending $300 on the Taobao XDA GB, I don't think it's within my budget anymore.
And just for fun, here's some weight comparisons of the 980M with other boards I've used.
Acrylic CP-SQ w/ GMK Hyperfuse: 2.41 lb | 1.09 kg
Leopold FC980M w/ stock keycaps: 2.48 lb | 1.12 kg
VE.A w/ Gateron PBT: 2.68 lb | 1.22 kg
Das Keyboard 3 w/ stock keycaps: 2.70 lb | 1.22 kg
LZ-GH w/ no keycaps: 5.89 lb | 2.67 kg