this is my first review of something, I'm no pro, but I feel that other reviews have missed out on some of what I wanted to see in their reviews so.. here I go....
This is the Filco Minila
As you probably know, it's a small form factor keyboard, with cherry MX switches. As a result, these WILL fit cherry mx keycaps without any uneven heights, but I will come back to this part later.
as you can see above, Filco have removed a lot of the TKL functionality and put them in function keys, which is nice if you don't find yourself using too much, but personally I find myself using home / end / page up / down a lot so the extra keypress does bother you at first, but you can grow into it. Sadly, this is ONE of the reasons you won't want to customise your board unless you are using custom keys from WASD. Again, I will come back to customisation later.
In the past, I have bought from KBT, KBC and finally Filco, I found the KBT/C exposed the underlay between the keycaps too much, something I would prefer hidden and out of sight, thankfully the filco does this really well, much like the other variations
if you are looking directly at it, with light, you'll see the black plastic, which I find aesthetically pleasing, I purchased a white Race before and put black keys on it, but I could always see underneath which made it look bad. You don't have to worry about that here.
The addition of a USB socket at the back is nice, it's not particularly useful as you will still have wires on your table, in fact the loose could be more of an annoyance but if you are short on sockets, this will help you (you can always raise the keyboard legs and tuck them under)
If like me you done some research about this keyboard, you've probably heard a lot of talk about the different sized keys. I thought it wouldn't bother me at first, but if you are working on keyboards at home and at work, you'll notice you have to switch patterns and have to adjust briefly. I thought the small right shift key wouldn't bother me, and then I tried making a smiley face, using question mark / double quotes etc and it does slow you down due to the unfamiliarity, Someone should really step up to these companies and ask them to create a standard practice for difference sizes because changing keysizes IS (IMHO) changing the layout, which stops it from being the keyboard language it says it is. I believe supporting a regions keyboard preference is more than just having the available keys to hand, and this keyboard does hit that argument home.
While talking about keyboard layout, that spacebar. Now for typing it's fine, you won't have any problems because it will center your hand position so your left hands pinky is on a, OR you will use your right hand for space and rest your left hand pinky on caps lock / shift (my preference).
I have this preference because I am comfortable with it after all the years of gaming. But gaming with this keyboard it's not nice. Unless you want to reassign space bars primary function to the function key every time, you aren't going to enjoy gaming on this. I have to stretch my thumb out to hit space, which is both annoying and unintuitive for gaming, I do wonder if they ever thought of the consequences of this (they must have as they have arrows on sdfe, which puts it closer to space, but further away from crouch/run (ctrl / shift)
as we are coming to the end of these awkward layout keys, we now go onto the sizing. The backspace, space and right shift are too small, the rest are generally fine, but shift and backspace for normal typing is a learning curve and if you are using this for a one off, switching between keyboard layouts (tkl/full size), you'll probably want to think if it's worth it. Personally, I find the size difference unjustifiable for the lack of customisation, extra key strokes to achieve a menial task, and pattern switching from tkl/full size to 60%. A review on this site has shown 1 row to the right would have solved so many problems with this keyboard and they are completely right. It makes a massive difference to your experience, and when you are paying £100 for that experience, you want the best experience.
On the aesthetic front, if you don't want to customise, it looks fine, and although these are cherry mx switches so take 90% of the board is standard, the remaining 10% is not and it does stick out. the prettiest (imho) I could get was keeping the bottom row and 2nd row wings black, and the rest custom:
personally it irks me that I can't customise my board, the TKL version, which is only a lill larger has all the customisation I need, with all the functionality, so personally I will be sticking with that
if you have no intention to customise the board, are fine with function keys to perform like tkl, then the board is very solid, with a good feeling, the keys smudge easily and I can imagine them rubbing after a while, so eventually you may want to replace the caps, sadly you won't be able to do that for all unless wasd bring in a set.
My final conclusion is to be weary about this keyboard, if you want any sort of customisation, you'll probably want to keep that bottom row black.
