geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: guyga on Sun, 29 August 2021, 15:49:46
-
In early reviews, the Kara was highly praised as being an excellent entry-level board with high quality construction, excellent sound, and great typing feel. I bought 2. Now the board is out and the reviews are trashing it as being overpriced and of not great quality (issues with the plastic, inconsistent sound across rows, etc.)
I didn’t build mine yet so I don’t have an opinion but I’m wondering what happened. Were the early reviews dishonest as some current reviews are claiming? Or did standards increase since the Kara was in GB due to competing boards?
-
Well it's a cheap-looking plasticky thing in such a small form factor they couldn't even fit arrow keys or proper ctrl keys on, yet it costs a whopping $160USD. So yeah, "overpriced" seems an understatement.
-
Some people say the HHKB (also an expensive plastic board) is the best thing ever, some say it's a way overpriced rubberdome.
I suggest you be an adult and inspect the parts to decide on quality (consistent colour throughout, even thickness, mould lines/burrs...) build it, then form your own opinion on flexibility and sound - if you like it you're not wrong, you just have different preferences to those who didn't. Much like you probably wouldn't give the same answer for your favourite flavour of crisps (chips in the US) :)
-
Yes, just trying to calibrate my expectations for future GBs, and understand to what extent reviews can be trusted. The pre-GB reviews were all enthusiastic. The current reviews are calling it a rip-off. These are all from well-known members of the community. I find it weird.
For what it’s worth, the boards I received look good to me. There are slight imperfections on the plastic on one of them, but examining my Atom68 I see now that it has similar imperfections (slightly darker lines along the sides) which I hadn’t noticed before. Not a big deal for me. Is this piece of plastic worth $160? Probably not, but the same can be said about 95% of the boards in this hobby :D
-
Yes, just trying to calibrate my expectations for future GBs, and understand to what extent reviews can be trusted. The pre-GB reviews were all enthusiastic. The current reviews are calling it a rip-off. These are all from well-known members of the community. I find it weird.
What that tells me is that 1) the reviewers tend to hype things up 2) the promised feature set was initially exciting 3) the renders won hearts and minds.
Consumers also tend to get really negative when a product they were exited about misses the mark, so you can expect negative reviews to be very negative. Just standard human behavior.
This might be a vocal minority as well, so you have to consider the folks who _aren't_ getting upset and not saying anything.
I'd recommend being your own "reviewer". Think critically about what features you do and don't want, and base your pre-buy excitement based of that. It's pretty easy to assess quality from protos and renders, so that just leaves cost. What's this worth to you? That super subjective and you probably shouldn't be listening to others in the first place.
-
Some reviewers are affiliated so that they may speak highly of the boards. I don't know if that is the case for kara.
-
Well it's a cheap-looking plasticky thing in such a small form factor they couldn't even fit arrow keys or proper ctrl keys on, yet it costs a whopping $160USD. So yeah, "overpriced" seems an understatement.
Well this doesn't make sense lmao. Its a HHKB lay-out of course it doesn't have arrows and ctrl keys on the bottom. Maybe go read up what the HHKB lay-out is before you trash on a hhkb layout board
Anyways it is overpriced but, why is everyone surprised lmao its RAMA. His brand is overhyped and he sells stuff with a big margin. He is also addicted to injection molding because he found out idiots will pay 42 dollar for a plastic tub that is made for like 50 cents in China.
-
I am pretty happy with mine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-
Well it's a cheap-looking plasticky thing in such a small form factor they couldn't even fit arrow keys or proper ctrl keys on, yet it costs a whopping $160USD. So yeah, "overpriced" seems an understatement.
Well this doesn't make sense lmao. Its a HHKB lay-out of course it doesn't have arrows and ctrl keys on the bottom. Maybe go read up what the HHKB lay-out is before you trash on a hhkb layout board
Anyways it is overpriced but, why is everyone surprised lmao its RAMA. His brand is overhyped and he sells stuff with a big margin. He is also addicted to injection molding because he found out idiots will pay 42 dollar for a plastic tub that is made for like 50 cents in China.
So you rudely criticise my post and then make more or less the same point yourself, only more harshly than I did. Nice.
I didn't "trash" the layout. I merely emphasised how tiny it is. And of course the tinier it is, the fewer materials it consumes, and the cheaper it is to make. Like you, I think the mark up is excessive. Like you, I think the product is trying to get a free ride from the brand's premium reputation. And like you, I think the cheapness of the materials highlights that fact.
To me, this seems like a really odd product to begin with. Rama doing an "entry level" keyboard makes as much sense as Rolls Royce doing an "entry level" car. I mean, Rama sells a simple 9-key macropad for $199 for crying out loud. But insanely priced though it is, at least that thing looks expensive, with clean lines and solid black metal. On the other hand, this keyboard seems to go out of its way to look cheap, even though it's still expensive.
I'm sure the build quality is just fine and that there's nothing wrong with this if it's a form factor you like. But I'm also not surprised that it has drawn mixed reviews. It was bound to, as it's a decidedly awkward marketing prospect.
-
I can only assume they expected better quality, and iirc the KBD67 Lite along with other entry level keyboards came after it and probably gave better value for the money.
Also, isn’t RAMA supposed to be very high quality / high end? The review I’ve seen about it, that also trashed on it btw [though I think it’s a somewhat objective reviewer], also mentioned it’s not the quality and value he expected.