Full review. I sent the board out today.
Case:
It's OK. I like it when cases have cable routing grooves, but it's not really a big deal that it doesn't. It seems solid and the feet are well designed. I don't use flip feet so I didn't have them flipped out when using it. The plastic doesn't feel Chinesey, but it's significantly lighter than an 87u. It slid on my admittedly terrible desk a few times. It probably wouldn't on a normal desk, but still, I give points when a keyboard can deal with a non-optimal surface. What I'm not sure about is the micro USB. Someone else called it a mini, but it's actually a micro. I don't know how sturdy those are compared to the standard mini that you see on most boards with detachable cables. The cable itself was very short and cheap. I don't know if that's the one that comes with it retail, but if so, make sure you have a USB extender. I have tons so it didn't give me any problems. Reasonable height and slope to the case as well. I type with my wrists floating though, so I'm probably not the best judge of that. My big issue with this case is that it has no dip switches. I guess that's a PCB thing, but I'm not doing a section for that, so I'll do it here. A lot of people like to disable the windows key, to the point where it's a pretty common feature in most keyboards even remotely advertised as "gaming" boards. You also can't swap control and capslock. Every board should have that feature.
Switches:
Yeah, like others have said, basically a 45g Topre. What I liked was how consistent it felt. I'm pretty sure all the domes were within 10g of each other for actuation force. I've never owned a Topre keyboard that I could say that about. And consistency is a big deal with rubber domes. A 10g difference on MX switches might be noticeable, but it doesn't really effect the feel of the switch much. Rubber domes, on the other hand, can feel quite different with even a small change in actuation force. I still prefer typing on my Topre though. It might be a slight difference in the switches or in the case material, and even just the sound probably has something to do with it. The Novatouch is pretty close though.
Sound:
This depends a lot on keycaps. With PBT, it sounds alright. It's got that thock, to a degree. Both my 87u and my (former) FC660C sound better though. The Novatouch just sounds a little higher pitched to me. IMSTOs sounded the best, probably because they were thickest. Also, while the stabilized keys feel pretty much the same as the other keys, the backspace sounds pretty rattley compared to everything else. Overall it's not a particularly loud board, about the same as an RF.
Games:
I can't really comment too much on this, even though I'd like to. I like games, but I don't play RTS or MOBA, which would be the genres that this board is best suited for. For FPS it works, but like any non-linear switch, you can't really float the actuation point easily, so I don't prefer it. Same deal with platformers, although I've moved to arcade stick for those recently. CM says this switch actuates at 1mm, which I think is part good part bad. The good part is obviously you don't have to push the key down as far before actuation. I noticed that I was a little more consistent at pressing 2 keys on the same frame than with my cherries. The bad part is that because this is a tactile switch with a non-linear force curve, I bottomed out pretty much each time I pressed a key, and instead of having to move back only 2mm (or usually less, in the case of linear Cherries) to de-actuate, it had to move 3mm. This is not really that huge of a difference, but it's not unnoticeable. So my overall opinion is that, for gaming, I might prefer it to Topre, but for the kinds of games I play, linear MX is a lot better.
Conclusion:
$200? Man that is steep. Considering the case is pretty bare bones, the stock caps are thin abs, and there are no dip switches, I don't really understand where this cost is coming from. It's a nice board, and at $130, or even $150, it would make a lot of sense for a lot of people, but $200? I got my 87u for only $15 more. I guess maybe it's because they had to buy the molds for the MX/Topre hybrid plungers? The problem is that you can get a Topre board for around the same price that already comes with fantastic keycaps. So if I had $200 to spend right now on my first Topre, I would probably just save a little more and get an RF, especially considering I would need around $50 to get the base set of caps I wanted for the Novatouch.
Also, not Novatouch specific, but DSA keycaps didn't work well with it. I think this is because they are non-sculpted and so as a result every row other than the top feels weird because all the caps are sloping down with the board.
I see on their website that they include a braided cable with the retail unit, so don't worry about the tiny cable I was talking about.
