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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: ValerieV on Sat, 26 January 2013, 19:24:38
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I can't believe all of these companies are coming out with newer space saving keyboards and DAS has nothing announced. I asked the president of the company about it a year ago and all he said is we are looking into a few different things. I am not waiting for them any longer. Filco, Leopold, Poker and Matias have all announced or rumored to have newer designs out. I love DAS cherry blue sound more than any other keyboard but i can't work on a keyboard so big and modifying them on another keyboard doesn't seem to have the same sound. Obviously the base of the keyboard plays a role in how the key sounds. Just had to rant a little. I feel better now. ;D
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How could a DAS, costar or cherry made, sound better than other keyboards those companies make?
I'd say just get a TKL Filco or QFR. Or if sound really matters, a KMAC!
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Well Das needs to make a lot of changes to compete: get rid of the shiny case, more switch options, more keycap options and at an equally competitive price. Otherwise they'll continue to fade away like Deck has...
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Well Das needs to make a lot of changes to compete: get rid of the shiny case, more switch options, more keycap options and at an equally competitive price. Otherwise they'll continue to fade away like Deck has...
I dont think deck was ever very big...
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Well Das needs to make a lot of changes to compete: get rid of the shiny case, more switch options, more keycap options and at an equally competitive price. Otherwise they'll continue to fade away like Deck has...
You'd be surprised...Beyond the keyboard enthusiast circles, the Das mechanical keyboard is fairly popular. I think it's because Das is one of the handful of mechanical keyboards available on sites like Newegg, NCIX, etc... It seems to be on of those keyboards newcomers tend to buy and thus Das isn't losing out...yet.
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I had a Filco and i liked the DAS cherry mx blue sound more. It had a sharper sound to it. I am one of the few people here who think Filco isn't that great. Don't get me wrong it is a good keyboard, but it does have that ping sound and it has a reputation for having the boards bend a little.
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Another lazy ass company is Unicomp. I understand the economy got the drop on them but in the time the original NPR interview took place Matias has had not one, but TWO brand new Alps switches released - AND in tenkeyless format. Since time obviously hasn't been spent in tighter QC they really couldn't crank out a space saver .. or at least some friggen keycaps? My guess is someone is milking the current line long enough to make it to retirement.
Unicomp I think is more concerned with industrial markets than the end user. Just look at it, it's not very appealing at all (keyboard or website). I have long held the idea that they only did it to stop people from asking, sort of a "here it is, now stop bugging us" type of thing.
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Personally, I find the case design and shine rather attractive. One of the best looking Full size in my opinion.
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I like the shine of the DAS as well. As for Unicomp, they are lazy and nice mention about their website. It looks like it was designed in the 1990s.
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I'd say just get a TKL Filco or QFR. Or if sound really matters, a KMAC!
"Just get a KMAC" LoL, maybe it's just me not having the proper connections but, so far I haven't find a link [Add to Cart] for KMACs
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As for Unicomp, they are lazy and nice mention about their website. It looks like it was designed in the 1990s.
It's a oldschool look for a oldschool keyboard :-)
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As for Unicomp, they are lazy and nice mention about their website. It looks like it was designed in the 1990s.
It's a oldschool look for a oldschool keyboard :-)
Other than ditching beige, I don't see much improvement. The LED area really could use some sprucing up.
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As for Unicomp, they are lazy and nice mention about their website. It looks like it was designed in the 1990s.
It's a oldschool look for a oldschool keyboard :-)
Other than ditching beige, I don't see much improvement. The LED area really could use some sprucing up.
What's wrong with the LED area?
Also, what's wrong with beige?
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there's nothing wrong with DAS, except that it's no longer made by costar...
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I like the shine of the DAS as well. As for Unicomp, they are lazy and nice mention about their website. It looks like it was designed in the 1990s.
Shine on black plastic eventually get's quite scratched up, and because it's black, the scratches really show...
If they made a "white plastic DAS "shiny" then it'd be much better, because even if there are some minor scratches, it will not show up.
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The entire case looks like someone (new to doing it) made a homemade mold of an IBM and cast their own.
The LED area looks like it was slapped together with little care for style (ever heard of a graphics designer?), the indents for the pointer stick buttons look like no one gave damn to clean the area up, and even the plastic itself looks cheap. I'm not saying it's a bad keyboard, but the case looks very second rate to an IBM. It matches their website well.
I have no problem with beige, but black is obviously more popular.
As for Das, mine is well over a year old and looks just great. It's a nice keyboard and I personally feel it has an undeserved bad reputation (at least the older ones).
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The entire case looks like someone (new to doing it) made a homemade mold of an IBM and cast their own.
The LED area looks like it was slapped together with little care for style (ever heard of a graphics designer?), the indents for the pointer stick buttons look like no one gave damn to clean the area up, and even the plastic itself looks cheap. I'm not saying it's a bad keyboard, but the case looks very second rate to an IBM. It matches their website well.
There's actually a reason the EnduraPro cutouts are like that. It's not all good though.
The original M13 basically used a Model M case that had a very large cutout on the upper half and additional bracing on the lower half to hold the button assembly. What this did is made the lower edge of the upper half incredibly weak. (Which is why I insist on extreme caution when rebuilding and repairing M13's.) There was never enough reinforcement added because there simply was nowhere to put it. And given it's stiff ABS, yes, it is incredibly fragile and easy to break. And if it does, the buttons are screwed up because they also rest on that weak as hell tiny band of plastic left.
By contrast, the EnduraPro uses the M2-styled chassis where the upper half of the chassis is completely cut away. The end result of this is that the upper half of the chassis only has to carry the hinge action across a better spread and doesn't reproduce that fragile lower strand of leftover plastic. (No surprise, the dies for it are actually from Lexmark and date to around 1994-1995 - I forget which IBM keyboard it was. Damned rare one though.)
Honestly I suspect the fact is that they're still using the original dies and molds for the chassis, and it's not like these parts don't accumulate wear and tear over time. But they're also very costly to replace. TBH, I somewhat prefer the design of the EnduraPro from an engineering standpoint but really do not like it from a look and feel one - even if it was as pristine as a pre-production cleaned up by hand.
As for the LED area.. yeah.. I really hate the way it looks. Especially the graphic indicators. I don't mind the Unicomp logo itself, but the full color version feels garish on beige or black. I'd much rather have a two-color one with worded indicators and a black-and-white render of the Unicomp logo. Or at least worded indicators - gods how I hate the graphics they used. :(
As for Das, mine is well over a year old and looks just great. It's a nice keyboard and I personally feel it has an undeserved bad reputation (at least the older ones).
Typed on Mk1 and Mk2 Das. Every bit of the reputation is deserved. The Mk1 felt absolutely awful (yet somehow ended up with keycaps that weren't total fail.) The Mk2 felt much better but there's zero question it was overpriced at a $130+ MSRP when you could get the exact same keyboard with an Fn layer for less money. And Mk3... $130 for mediocre build quality coupled with the lowest quality keycaps on the market according to more reviews than I care to count AND misleading marketing? (The box photo has the wrong layout and doesn't show the 1x Alt/Win/Menu/Ctrl, it shows the 1.25x!)
Frankly, I'm happy with a marketing company in the vein of Razer not selling more rebadged stuff to an army they've convinced that it's the same as a Model M. (Seriously, read some of the reviews sometime..)
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I'd say just get a TKL Filco or QFR. Or if sound really matters, a KMAC!
"Just get a KMAC" LoL, maybe it's just me not having the proper connections but, so far I haven't find a link [Add to Cart] for KMACs
lol that should be possible really soon actually.
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And Mk3... $130 for mediocre build quality coupled with the lowest quality keycaps on the market according to more reviews than I care to count AND misleading marketing?
Trust me, they are not the worst key caps on the market, not even close.
I didn't think mine was that bad, but yeah, a bit overpriced.
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I just snagged a used one with MX Blues for a reasonable price, I guess I will see how it goes. Though I dont really expect it to compare with my CMQ but its just a stand in till KBtalKing comes out with a backlit 10 keyless with MX Blues.
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After seeing the Costar backlit demo I was hoping that Das would come up with a backlit keyboard. Then I totally would've bought one. But after the whole OEM change I think it's gonna be hard for me to get back into it.
Basically Das Keyboard is following Razer's path. More advertising/branding less quality more quantity. Though it's like the OP said they haven't come up with anything new in a while. I hope they better be cooking something amazing because at the moment it's looking like they're going downhill.
But then again I think only the enthusiasts are disappointed, the mass consumer probably don't even know the difference so they can milk on it a bit longer.
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But then again I think only the enthusiasts are disappointed, the mass consumer probably don't even know the difference so they can milk on it a bit longer.
That is a good way to describe it.
Das and Razer are sort of the HP and Dell of the mechanical keyboard industry, though I would much prefer a Das than Razer, HP or Dell.