My review
The orderI ordered the keyboard January the 12th and it just arrived February the 26th (Belgium), so anyone ordering from Massdrop can expect to wait a fair bit.
That said, I had no problem waiting because I was using my Ducky Shine Mini (Cherry MX Blue) at that time.
The boxOpening the packaging was very satisfying, it came in a fitting cardboard box with the keyboard and USB cable inside.
NOTE: the keycap puller was outside of the box and in the bubblewrap surrounding the box.
I had to look quite a bit for it.
The keyboardspecs:Cherry MX Clear switches
Blue case
Gray PBT dyesub keycaps
Custom Pexon USB cable
A first look at the keyboard makes you believe the casing is actually brushed aluminium instead of a hard plastic.
It certainly doesn't feel cheap and is very sturdy. The weight helps give it a premium feeling.
When you touch the keys you can feel the rough PBT texture right away - a very big difference with ABS keycaps (reference: my Ducky Shine Mini).
The keycaps are also very thick. On first sight there seem to be no alignment issues on the keys, everything functions well, all keys working.
Right now I don't feel the need to replace the keycaps - or any of the keycaps.
The experienceIt honors it's size category - being a 65
?% - and still gives me super easy access to some very needed keys (arrow, del).
A handy dandy guide (written in Chinese I figure), but still easy enough iconography for other people to understand,
gives some neat options for the FN key. Which I happen to just LOVE.
E.g.:
- FN + right arrow = end
- FN + left arrow = home
- FN + up arrow = page up
- FN + down arrow = page down
This is not shown on the keyboard layout, there are other FN-key combinations visible, side-printed on the keyboard.
About the ping; a lot of people on the
Massdrop discussion have commented
that the MX Clears have a
horrible ringing sound to the keypress (because of the metal backplate and firm spring resonating on a press).
I'll try to make a recording of this later and post it here. I have to admit, it doesn't seem that bad in my case.
I barely hear it when pressing the keys while either hard or soft pressing them. I guess other people have it worse, but in my case it's definitely not a dealbreaker.
The manualThere is simple and extended information readily available scattered over the internet, but I neatly packaged it in a simple document.
I plan on adding pictures to it later to clarify a bunch, so expect some updates here later.
THE MANUALPicturesBecause, what is a review without pictures?
!Full album!