hi guys,
so there's seems to be quite some confusion on about these boards, let me put in my two cents.
from the first time i saw this board, fell in love with it's case, very low profile, "floating" caps design, without any ugly logos on it (unlike the noppoo "lolita" bull****).
unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion, because apparently these boards come in different varieties and noone seems to be able to identify which is actually which.
so far i have seen
- board without backlighting and costar stabs
- board without backlighting and cherry stabs
- the above with different kinds of leds and either costar or cherry stabs
- and then there are the variants with gateron switches.
at first, i really hunted for a mx clear version, but those are extremely hard to come by and AFAIK were only available during the first massdrop buy. i did not want to buy it then and afterwards i was bummed out to find that they didn't offer mx clears in any of the subsequent drops.
anyway, i made the switch from tactile (topre 45g FC660C) back to linear (mx reds), pulled out my trusty filco and found my old love for the light switch
this time around i have ordered this board from ebay (joliesanz), even though it was significantly more expensive than anything else i saw either on ebay or aliexpress, because according to their pictures this was the board with costar stabs (which i do prefer over cherry stabs) and genuine cherry mx red switches.
it was almost 200$ shipped, but i bit the bullet and now i'm typing this review on it.
i must say i love the board, it is way more silent than the filco or the QFR stealth with mx reds i have. this is because of the extremely low profiel case not echoing the bottoming out sounds (or at least i think so).
the board is built extremely well, i will post pictures later. it came with costar stabs, but they were in the inner positions, so the spacebar inserts were in the non-standard position and the spacebar wire is shorter. i have switched them into the outer positions and changed the wire from a QFR stealth and put on imsto thick pbt caps. (again, pics will follow later) it has a very nice silver coated plate and even though it has some scratches/smudges, they're not visible during normal use, it doesn't bother me.
my only gripe is that it wobbles just a tiny bit. the bottom left corner is a bit in the air and i cannot identify whether the whole case is bent (because it's just a really tiny bit), or the rubber foot in the bottom left corner is a bit shorter. right now as i am typing though (and bagning it hard, bottoming out and all), i cannot feel it wobbling, i have to deliberately push the casing in the bottom left corner to actually feel it wobble, so i guess it's ok
i have some pics and will post them later when i am at home, or tomorrow.
bottomline - my board is the VA87MR, cherry mx red switches, no backlight (except for caps and scroll lock leds), white case. i think the GMK classic beige will look totally sexy on this
exactly this one
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Varmilo-Mechanical-Keyboard-Cherry-MX-Switch-White-Body-Blue-Key-Red-Switches-/331591054821?ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123except if you look at their pictures closely, it shows the costar stabs in the outer positions, which is not true, they were in the inner positions.
edit:
adding pics, as promised
excuse the potato quality, i only have an xperia z2, no proper camera
spacebar comparison - top imsto thick PBT, bottom varmilo PBT stock, as you can see, it has standard stem spacing, but original inserts are in the non standard (leopold, i guess) positions
original PBT caps and what it looked like after replacing the costar stab wire with the one from QFR stealth
full imsto cherry profile thick PBT set on, i think it's SHMEXY
blurry, but you can see on the left how the foot floats about half a milimeter above the table (and no, my table is not bent
)
some barebones photos before the storm
, also you can see that the plate is pretty nice, even though it has some scuffs/scratches...
oh SNAP! looks like a unicorn vomited on my board LOL (lovely matt3o's PBT granite DSA - one of the most beautiful sets i have seen)
also, worth mentioning that it came with some extra stabilizer mounts and inserts, which is always nice
now i just need to order some extra stabilizer wires
