You know it's an engineering sample when...Every review should have music to listen to when you read right? This is what I’m jamming to lately:
Angel Du$t at Rainfest (Shoutouts to Sunny)
Iron Maiden - Blood BrothersIron Maiden – En Vivo ConcertDe La Soul x Nas – God ItIntroYup, I’m back with a review talking about Alps again
). This time I was fortunate enough to get my hands on an engineering sample courtesy of dante and KBParadise. They have previously released the V60 (60% with MX switches), V60MTS (60% Matias Alps switches), and V80 (TKL with MX switches). Now they’re gauging interest for a modern TKL Alps board. Hopefully everyone is excited about this news because as we may or may not know, there are very few modern Alps options out there right now.
This V80MTS has four types of Alps mount switches in it:
- Matias Quiet in the alphas
- Matias Clicky in the function row
- Matias Linear in the navpad and arrows (pgup/pgdn)
- Fukka or Simplified White Alps (Clicky) on Print Screen/Scroll Lock/Pause
Fortunately for this review, I also have a Filco Zero on hand which will serve as a direct comparison. Unfortunately it has complicated linear Green Alps and Matias Click so I don’t have a good comparison board for the Matias Quiets. I will also say I can’t disassemble the board since I don’t own it.
BackgroundNot sure if I ever mentioned this before but any and all mistakes in me digging up info are mine and mine only. I obviously don’t work for the following companies, I don’t represent them, I’m not getting paid by them to review their stuff, and I wasn’t asked to review the boards by these companies. Just a huge nerd who enjoys writing reviews and keyboards .KBParadise is a Taiwanese keyboard company, based in Taipei. I’ve only done a little digging but it seems that the company is very new and focused on many keyboards and keyboard accessories.
Previously in an interview from Zeal, Daniel from KBParadise had suggested that he and Tex worked at a different company previously; Daniel in an unspecified role and one engineer from Tex being in engineering. This information seems to be removed so I’m speculating at this point. KBParadise was at Computex so it seems they have a decently sized company. And it was one of the companies that made mechanicalkeyboards.com (MK.com) act very excited. I know I was stoked when I heard about a stock 60% alps board (V60MTS). I’ve had the chance to try it at MK.com and was pleased with their product.
They post fairly regularly to Facebook and you can pick up their boards in the USA at mechanicalkeyboards.com.
Matias (say it with me kids, “Muh-tai-us”) is something that’s near and dear to my heart. As one of the few, if not only, current manufacturers of Alps mount switches I’m very into them. I think I might be obligated to as an Alps-head. Plus Matias makes two switches that I’m *extremely* into: Matias Click and Quiet. Matias is based out of Toronto, Canada and headed up by
Edgar Matias. Turns out he’s done a *TON* of research on the topics of keyboards and in particular,
one handed keyboards. He’s also developed a switch in his namesake. It’s based on the Apple AEK II Orange Alps and is now called the Matias Quiet.
A thread on the development of the Quiet switch can be found here. The Matias website can be
found here. And yes, Edgar Matias is on Geekhack and goes by the handle
Matias. And if you’re a lucky Geekhacker, you might even find yourself in Toronto at the right time
to tour Matias’ headquarters.
AestheticsI was packing up for Keycon and going over some pictures of my collection to make sure I had everything. I seriously got confused when I saw pictures of the V80MTS. Thought I had two Filco Zeros! Even the font on the caps is very similar. I think that the Filco font is the same as this font but in italics. I mean look at this shot below.
As I said, the V80 and Zero look a lot alike. That includes the bezel, the sides, the feet, and the bottom. However, the major difference is the USB cable. The Zero has a hardwired cable that comes out the back of the keyboard. The V80 has the cutout on the bottom and it allows for detachable cables. I personally prefer a detachable cable so I definitely like that on the V80 more than the cable on the Zero. But other than that, the bottoms are a lot the same. There are four rubber feet and two fold out feet with rubber tips. Both types of feet hold the keyboards stable and the feet are very solid when they’re folded out.
Overall I really like the simple clean look of the V80. Definitely not a bad look at all. And I think it’s well made. Like I said it’s the doppleganger of the Filco Zero which I think is a very high quality stock board. This is in contrast of the Ducky 1087XM which looks ok, but is extremely cheap and low quality in my opinion. That board doesn’t even have a top half to the case, just a cheap little cover to hide the PCB.
There are two LED indications for the lock switches and again they look very close to the Filco Zero’s. I believe they had blue LEDs.
The bottom of the V80MTS keyboard
As the picture shows, this keyboard has multiple switch types in it. In case you don’t want to scroll up again, here’s the breakdown of what goes where:
- Matias Quiet in the alphas
- Matias Clicky in the function row
- Matias Linear in the navpad and arrows (pgup/pgdn)
- Fukka or Simplified White Alps (Clicky) on Print Screen/Scroll Lock/Pause
Matias Quiet: I’m not sure why I slept on these. I liked them before but they’re amazing and I didn’t acknowledge that before. They’re reminiscent of complicated Orange Alps and even complicated Brown Alps. Quiets are tactile and feel like a wonderful variant of ergo-clears or modified MX Clears. Or maybe like Kailh Browns…but more tactile and a higher actuation point as all Alps and Alps-mount switches have. They are midweight (think 62g or 65g), tactile, extremely quiet, and smooth. I love how they feel. I think if you had to describe a tactile switch to someone, these should be the poster child, not MX Browns. If you can’t get a hold of complicated Brown Alps, I would recommend these. They’re easily found, relatively affordable, and feel good. Plus they look nice with backlighting or LEDs behind them.
Matias Click: I’ve been recommending these for a long time. They don’t feel as smooth as complicated Blue Alps and are a bit stiffer, but I really like them. They are in fact, a clicky switch. If you can’t stomach the current prices of complicated Blue Alps, get these. They’re a touch heavier than MX Blues in my opinion and the Alps-mount wobble means no matter what your typing style is, you get the same wonderful click. It’s a bit tactile but mostly clicky. When you tap these really fast, you can get the click to sort of disappear. Like you’re hovering right at the actuation point and leaf spring press and it won’t click anymore. Which is why I say it sort of leans toward tactility in terms of feeling. It’s not an issue (this was the best way I could figure out how to describe the switch) but I didn’t notice this phenomenon with the simplified White Alps.
Matias Linear: I wasn’t a huge fan of these. For the first week, I could feel the actuation point and click of the leaf. It was a really odd feeling knowing that I was typing on a linear switch but there’d be a slight click at the bottom. The bottom out distance or throw on the switch was also very short; much shorter than I was expecting. It felt shorter than both the Quiet and Click switches. Even after I broke the switches in, the bottom out was jarring. They were also very light; too light for my tastes.
Fukka/Simplified White Alps: They were very similar in feeling to the Matias Click switches but I felt that they didn’t have the same balance of tactility. They always clicked even if you hovered and tapped at the actuation point. Not bad really but I have a slight bias towards Matias if you haven’t noticed by now.
Keyboard itself: I used it with the feet down but was a little taller than the Filco Zero. I never felt like I needed to add any modifications to the board since I enjoyed the stable, solid construction and the typing experience it created.
ConclusionsI wish I had the chance to take the board apart but I will say that I found a review from
Hardcoreware that does a disassembly. The internals of that board remind me a lot of the CM QFR which isn’t ideal. The QFR wasn’t my favorite keyboard to mod and work on. But it’s hard to tell what the PCB situation is like.
Assuming that the internals aren’t garbage, which they don’t look, I would really recommend this board. Actually I recommend this board; period. If I were to get one, I’d pick Matias Quiets and just rock it stock. I think it’s the replacement for the discontinued and hard to find Filco Zero. If you couldn’t tell, I fanboy hard for Matias so the stock switch options from KBParadise are already good. And if you don’t like those options, there are a ton of Alps and Alps mount switches for you to pick from to swap in.
And guess what?
According to KBParadise’s Facebook page, MK.com will be carrying some V80MTS sometime in July. If you want a modern TKL board with good stock switch options and decent caps, get this board. Or tell KBParadise that they should be making more of these.
I’m also curious to know if these V80MTS were made in the same factory as the Filco Zeros. Or if anyone on the team worked on the Zero. Seriously, the two boards are uncannily similar.
* CPTBadAss turns of MatiasFanboy.exe
