I think the blacks on the M1 are real Cherry switches, but the reds are fakes...the sheer weirdness of which only serves to make it more interesting to me.
There's an even cheaper, related keyboard, the
Newmen GM-10 (
contact info), with house-made (and apparently linear[!]) blue switches. I think there's a ViewSonic-branded version out there, too, but so far, all the ads I've seen for that one have had their text embedded in pictures, making it inaccessible to translation...so I don't really know much about that one. And all of them share some, but not all, design elements with the
Rapoo V7, which uses fake
yellow switches. Kind of makes me wonder how all the manufacturing/design connections work there...