I am very grateful to be included in the GH novatouch tour and as promised I will share my thoughts on the Novatouch.
I cant find the card reader for my camera so all photos will be taken from google to show you what im talking about. This will also be a short review since I know that there are tons of other reviews up here that will say the same things.
I met up with Abjr to get the board, so thanks to him for getting it to me and buying me some pizza
The Novatouch has quite a few issues that are immediately apparent. For example, using a micro USB port instead of a mini port, essentially forcing you to steel a phone charging cable to string around your desk. It makes no sense that they would implement this here since their other boards (at least from my limited experience) all had mini USB ports. Moreover, this is targeted at a very enthusiast market that is willing to buy custom keycaps so it seems like a major oversight for them to ignore such a simple standard. Another major issue is the coating on the board. While it isn't as bad as their soft touch coating, it still shows wear very prominently and gathers fingerprints rather easily. I wish that they had gone with a texture closer to that of a realforce board.
Other issues are more subtle. For instance, I wish that they hadn't put the CM Storm logo on this board. It doesn't differentiate it from the rest of the line like that. I wish it said Novatouch or had a more interesting graphic that somehow indicated what was so special about it. Furthermore, I wish they hadn't added the design features on the back. Not only are they invisible when the board is on your desk but they seem cheesy and again don't fit the enthusiast model.
Another issues I had with the board was being unable to use bro caps on the F row. I understand that it isn't a standard thing, but it was certainly annoying.
Now for the good stuff:
The feel of the switches seemed very true to the Topre experience from my point of view.With the DSA caps on it felt and sounded more like an HKKB than a Realforce for sure which isnt preferable for me, but was still acceptable. I also think that they did a good job making the board sturdy. It has very little flex and had enough weight to satisfy me. Overall the board performs as you would expect. Im not going to linger on this cause there are many other reviews telling you the same thing.
In conclusion the Novatouch seems like a first generation product, which it is. That said, they could have put way more effort into matching the enthusiast communities standards and providing a solid product at a reasonable price. I would not recommend buying a Novatouch right now, just because it is a hassle with its cable needs, something I cant overlook.
