Hey all, just decided to do a quick review on the das keyboard 4. Bare with me, as this is my first review. I may use terminology incorrectly in my explanations, so I'd like to apologize for that. Now with that out of the way, lets start.
Here is the box. Pretty simple:
Upon opening the box:
The ruler was of course on the leet text, "the footbar ruler" Ignore the keycaps there. It's from another keyboard.
Here is the keyboard, with some caps changed and compared with the das keyboard mac version:
As you can see, the shape is identical. Not much difference in looks except for the fact that its now a slick anodized aluminium top panel, rather the plastic glossy look. Less fingerprints is always a plus for me. You'd think with the new plate there would be some heft, but compared to the old keyboard, not much of a difference. While the face is the same, it is thinner than it's predecessor.
The new additions, the media keys:
They work pretty well, with a big volume nob on the side. There is a click as you move the knob, which I like. This ensures that you don't accidentally hit the knob and shift it high enough that if you were wearing headphones, pop an ear drum. I find the keys to be useful, as I can quickly pause my music and waltz off. Gives me the option to be even more lazy, instead of moving my mouse to my music app and then click stop. There is a bright blue led that lights up when cap lock, scroll lock, or num luck is activated. Since I'm using this for mac, the only light that pops is if I have caps on.
We can see that the usb ports have been moved. Originally it was on the side where the volume nob was, but due to these additions its been shifted to the top. They are usb 3.0 which is nice. I'm not sure if the move was a good thing or not, as it all depends on how people place their keyboard.
Here is the ruler on the bottom. Rather having the standard feet you can plop, the ruler now replaces that. According to the das keyboard website, the ruler adds an optimal "4 degree angle." It's hard for me to express this, as I've never used the feet before in any of the keyboards I owned. It feels subtle, barely of an angle compared to my old das keyboard that still had the standard feet. I'm not sure how this will effect others, but I seem to be okay.
As you can see it's held by just a magnet that's on the keyboard, rather the ruler itself.
Just the ruler. I'm still unsure of how useful this is. I mean it's kind of a hassle to take the ruler itself to use. I don't know if people will simply lift the keyboard and yank it off. I guess its useful if you really need to measure something and there is no ruler in close proximity.
I tried using some of the old keycaps off my mac version. As you can see, there is a slight height difference between the older caps and the new ones being used here. Not the end of the world, but it's there. As for the switches, they are cherry blues. I don't know if its just me, but it feels a bit different when I push the keys compared to my mac version. It's hard to describe. On my old mac, I could feel a nice clack response. These are good, but it feels a bit mushy. It's hard to explain. I'm sure someone might understand where I'm going with this.
Overall the keyboard isn't bad. I dig the aluminum plating, as I don't have to worry about finger prints. The keyboard also requires only one USB port to plug in, rather than two on the older models. I believe the best feature is NKRO that is easily activated by hitting shift and mute together at the same time. There isn't a function key anymore either. The media keys are a welcome and I find myself using them constantly. I still like the type on the mac keycaps than the ones on the new das keyboard. While I appreciate it to look more standard, I like the font they used on the older mac version. I've been swapping out keycaps and it seems to work fine. I might eventually replace all of them and see how that goes.
I hope this review was informative
