Author Topic: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!  (Read 3606 times)

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Offline geektripp

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$30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« on: Sun, 23 April 2017, 18:24:10 »
What do you think?

Offline klennkellon

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 23 April 2017, 19:43:50 »
I still think it is better to go vintage or to buy a higher end second-hand keyboard such as a Dell AT-101w or a Cooler Master Quickfire Rapid, both of which are really well built, highly moddable, and very common/cheap to buy.

Some people don't like buying second hand keyboards but really as long as you wipe the keyboard down with some disinfectant you really don't have much to worry about.

Offline alienman82

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 23 April 2017, 19:47:55 »
removed.
« Last Edit: Thu, 01 March 2018, 12:58:17 by alienman82 »

Offline invariance

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 23 April 2017, 20:56:54 »
Would be interesting to see what other reviewers say.
Also reviews from 'individually bought' units as opposed to possibly cherry picked oem supplied.
The only BS I
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Offline leech

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 25 April 2017, 15:20:47 »
the keycaps are double/shot keycaps, arent they?

Offline chyros

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 25 April 2017, 16:08:58 »
Would be interesting to see what other reviewers say.
Also reviews from 'individually bought' units as opposed to possibly cherry picked oem supplied.
It's one of those dime-a-dozen Chinese knockoff boards I'm sure. It seems to share a fair few traits with my Lingbao.

the keycaps are double/shot keycaps, arent they?
Yes.

Check my keyboard video reviews:


Offline tp4tissue

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 25 April 2017, 18:14:48 »
is this the place to promote your utube channel ? hahahahaha



Offline leech

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 25 April 2017, 18:21:29 »
the keycaps are double/shot keycaps, arent they?
Yes.

probably ABS ones.

Aukey and Anker are similar big trading companies and have become strong brands on amazon. I would rate Xiaomi much higher though. They all have (mechanical) keyboards in their catalogs, obviously sourced from dime-a-dozen yet quality manufacturing suppliers. Generally, among China warez, i would definitely regard Aukey, Anker, Xiaomi, Remax and even BlitzWolf as brand name warez with premium build quality. Especially Xiaomi is super nice stuff en par with Apple products which are also China-made as we know, and i would prefer a Xiaomi mkb to any other Chinese mkb brand (AULA, Motospeed, Rapoo, Fühlen, Ajazz, Lingbao, Lingyi, etc) simply because of its brand radiance in my room.  :cool:

Oh did i mention that my phone is a Xiaomi 2016 release?  :-*

Offline chyros

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #8 on: Wed, 26 April 2017, 01:25:05 »
is this the place to promote your utube channel ? hahahahaha
The perfect place actually ^^ .
Check my keyboard video reviews:


Offline iLLucionist

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 26 April 2017, 02:42:25 »
How is this even possibru for so little moneys? Are we being cheated by the major brands. I mean sure there is profit margin, but is it SO cheap to produce a mech board?
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Offline tp4tissue

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 26 April 2017, 07:40:03 »
How is this even possibru for so little moneys? Are we being cheated by the major brands. I mean sure there is profit margin, but is it SO cheap to produce a mech board?

general rule .. if it's a non-luxury line, non-premium labeled item..  divide the cost by 3, that is how much the flippers like corsair is paying a china OEM.

the OEM @ that 1/3 price, is still making a profit,  this will be more variable depending on location.





For luxury line,  you can still get a good guess at how much it costs to make , but there's no general price divisor because luxury pricing operates by however much some idiot is willing to pay, or how ever much nagging a kid can  unleash upon their parents.

Offline iLLucionist

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #11 on: Thu, 27 April 2017, 16:01:13 »
How is this even possibru for so little moneys? Are we being cheated by the major brands. I mean sure there is profit margin, but is it SO cheap to produce a mech board?

general rule .. if it's a non-luxury line, non-premium labeled item..  divide the cost by 3, that is how much the flippers like corsair is paying a china OEM.

the OEM @ that 1/3 price, is still making a profit,  this will be more variable depending on location.





For luxury line,  you can still get a good guess at how much it costs to make , but there's no general price divisor because luxury pricing operates by however much some idiot is willing to pay, or how ever much nagging a kid can  unleash upon their parents.

DAMM those lies all those years. The illusion! I thought it was better than this. I feel wallet-raped...
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Offline Moistgun

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #12 on: Thu, 27 April 2017, 16:23:55 »
is this the place to promote your utube channel ? hahahahaha

where else is a man to go???
« Last Edit: Thu, 27 April 2017, 16:25:34 by Moistgun »

Offline Leslieann

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #13 on: Thu, 27 April 2017, 17:12:21 »
How is this even possibru for so little moneys? Are we being cheated by the major brands. I mean sure there is profit margin, but is it SO cheap to produce a mech board?
Robots (Automation) and no royalties for patents.
Once you have an assembly line setup, you can literally bang out MX style switches for around a penny. Cases are a couple cents, mostly because of the amount of plastic involved.


general rule .. if it's a non-luxury line, non-premium labeled item..  divide the cost by 3, that is how much the flippers like corsair is paying a china OEM.

the OEM @ that 1/3 price, is still making a profit,  this will be more variable depending on location.
Actually...
It's about 10% of the MSRP, so a $150 board, was only about $15, boxed and ready to go.
Of that $15, probably 1/3rd of that or more was shipping and storage fees before leaving the factory.

And for clothing, if you go over to Vietnam or Malaysia the numbers get even more obscene, at about 5%. Which is why Nike has shoes made there.
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Offline Ninjerk

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #14 on: Fri, 26 May 2017, 01:06:06 »
I just bought one of these on Amazon for $36....very impressed so far.

For the price, this thing is better than the $99 Blackwidow that I bought and broke on its own years ago. The lighting is very customizable, and this thing is just big enough, pretty enough, and all the keys feel like legit Blue switches.

I'm very impressed at the quality of this board for the price that it's come as. Very hard to beat.

Offline SBJ

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #15 on: Fri, 26 May 2017, 02:10:23 »
How is this even possibru for so little moneys? Are we being cheated by the major brands. I mean sure there is profit margin, but is it SO cheap to produce a mech board?
Robots (Automation) and no royalties for patents.
Once you have an assembly line setup, you can literally bang out MX style switches for around a penny. Cases are a couple cents, mostly because of the amount of plastic involved.
That's crazy to think about really.
Makes me question almost every purchase I've ever made. :))

A $30 keyboard is pretty insane compared to what a lot of other brands are taking for their boards.

Offline Targa-TV

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #16 on: Fri, 26 May 2017, 02:42:40 »
Once I started to look into the DIY mkb community I started to understand how much I paid for marketing, etc, like I did for the Filco. And speaking of the Filco, I still can't believe I coughed up a three digit figure for those stock caps and your average plastic case.

So by what I read here, for any 150$ keyboard, we pay 40 for the switches, 30 for PCB and plate, 10 for caps and case? And the rest branding, storage fees, marketing, etc? Holy hell, this is robbery.

I'm starting to appreciate my ancient G80 even more.

To be honest though, I still don't like all these dime a dozen 30-50$ boards that look more like xmas trees than keyboards and have caps sporting that hideous font, but now I understand why people don't want to cough up 150$ for their first mech.
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Offline chyros

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Re: $30 Mechanical Keyboard?!
« Reply #17 on: Fri, 26 May 2017, 03:10:15 »
I just bought one of these on Amazon for $36....very impressed so far.

For the price, this thing is better than the $99 Blackwidow that I bought and broke on its own years ago. The lighting is very customizable, and this thing is just big enough, pretty enough, and all the keys feel like legit Blue switches.

I'm very impressed at the quality of this board for the price that it's come as. Very hard to beat.
That's more or less what I concluded as well. Though I don't regularly find myself recommending modern boards, it's pretty hard to beat these for how cheap they are, especially since the vintage alternatives keep getting more and more expensive.
Check my keyboard video reviews: