Should I return my ABS M1 and get a Filco Brown?

[Ayrahvon]

I've been reading these forums for some time now and never bothered to register.  However, I've been testing out an ABS M1 and have had some issues with it.

Specifically my spacebar gets iffy in the mornings... yes the mornings.  When I wake up and come downstairs I don't get any response from the spacebar, I have to hit it about 50 times for it to start registering the mechanical press.  Once I get it working it goes fine for the rest of the day... but come the next day it happens again without fail.

In addition to this the key rollover doesn't really meet the advertised specifications of 6 keys.  Sure some 6 keys can be pressed down at the same time, but not important ones like QWAS.

Anyway, my 30 day return is coming up for NEWEGG and I'm debating if I should just get a replacement for the spacebar problem, or shell out the extra cash for a Filco Majestouch Tactile Touch NKRO.

Most of the time I would think this is a no brainer, if you have problems right of the bat with a board it doesn't bode well for a 2nd of the same type.  However, elitekeyboards.com states that they are currently not shipping any boards out until August 7th.  For me that's a long time to wait to get a board shipped out to me when I have nothing to keep me going once I ship the M1 back.

Should I be patient and order the Filco Brown Cherry?  Is there something similar that I could order and get shipped right away?  Or should I just get a 2nd M1 as when the spacebar does work I've been fairly happy with the key response.

Thanks for the help guys.

[timw4mail]

Well, since you seem to be otherwise satisfied with the M1, why don't you just return it, and see what happens, and then make the decision whether to get the Filco, or not.

[GreeN]

As far as I can tell, the form factor of both boards is almost identical! It would definitely be a nice replacement for the M1. I'm typing on the Filco right now so I'll spare the biased opinions, but I can assure you the typing experience is brilliant!

[Ayrahvon]

As far as I can tell, the form factor of both boards is almost identical! It would definitely be a nice replacement for the M1. I'm typing on the Filco right now so I'll spare the biased opinions, but I can assure you the typing experience is brilliant!

Yeah the form factor looked very similar which is why I went with the cheaper board first to test it out.  I mean if it was decent the price difference was significant enough to ignore the inferior key rollover.  I'm not so sure now.

My biggest concern right now is more to do with shipping time than quality unfortunately.  By all accounts it sounds like Cherry Browns are what I would prefer in both feel and how loud they are while typing.

For reference elitekeyboards.com (to my knowledge the only place that sells Filcos in the US without having to special order) currently has this statement up on their webpage.

"EliteKeyboards will not be shipping orders placed on or after Friday July 24th, 12:00pm Pacific Standard Time for 2 weeks time. Beginning August 7th orders placed during our off time will begin shipping in the order received. ALSO, we will be offering a special discount while we're away on select products that will be announced next week.
We'd like to apologize to any customers that have placed an order in recent days; as our service has been subpar on more than one level. We are taking this time off to remedy service and shipping problems and to visit our vendors. We hope to return with service that exceeds your expectations.
Thank you for your patience."

This is the only thing that is disconcerning to me, I could wait for August 7th shipping as I have an awful keyboard as a backup but that'd leave a considerable amount of time between when I return this keyboard and when I receive the Filco.

Does anyone know anything more about why elitekeyboards has this delay at the moment and if their service has gone downhill?

[nanu]

As far as I can tell, the form factor of both boards is almost identical! It would definitely be a nice replacement for the M1. I'm typing on the Filco right now so I'll spare the biased opinions, but I can assure you the typing experience is brilliant!

The OEM for either is Costar, so they do appear practically alike.

No actuation problems on the ABS M1 I briefly evaluated, but I did have a squeaky spacebar (like others); I lubed the support bracket and that fixed it.

I'm happy with a Filco brown I got as a replacement, and due to hesitation, I waited about as long as you might be waiting if you decide on a Filco.

See here regarding the hiatus.

[iMav]

The browns are a great switch.  Personally, I prefer the blues...but would not complain if I had to "suffer" on browns.

[Ayrahvon]

The OEM for either is Costar, so they do appear practically alike.

No actuation problems on the ABS M1 I briefly evaluated, but I did have a squeaky spacebar (like others); I lubed the support bracket and that fixed it.

I'm happy with a Filco brown I got as a replacement, and due to hesitation, I waited about as long as you might be waiting if you decide on a Filco.

See here regarding the hiatus.

My concern with blues is that I hear they are significantly louder than browns?  Maybe I'm wrong with that assessment I haven't had the chance to hear either first hand.  The keys on this M1 go down quite easily so I'm not sure which would be more akin to that but my girlfriend is already complaining about how loud the M1 is so that is another determining factor.

[Ayrahvon]

Lots of sound samples here all recorded at the same level (use the mouse click recording to set the volume).  Have your girlfriend listen and see what she says.  Keep the girlfriend but make sure she understands your sacrifice.  Don't tell her that last part.

Thanks for those ripster!  After listening the blues have a considerably higher pitch and I feel are a bit louder than the browns.  Pretty sure she would kill me if I went with the Blues haha.  

I'm assuming most people here who have Filcos either got them before elitekeyboards was created to sell in the US or bought through them... it just seems weird that they are going down for quality control when all I hear is good things about the keyboards themselves.

Yet, I am intrigued by their vague statement of a deal coming within the next week.  What could it possibly be!?

[Viett]

If you can deal with the layout, the i-rocks (also brown cherry, rollover) is probably a decent alternative for you. It'll be a familiar experience since you've already used Newegg before.

Filcos are worth the wait, though. I, like you, got an ABS M1 from Newegg and was dissatisfied with it. At the time, EliteKeyboards was just starting up and the ETA on a blue cherry Filco was a long way away.

[Ayrahvon]

It's good to hear that it's a small place actually, if he's going on vacation that's fine by me.  I'll probably end up sending in my M1 tomorrow and order a Filco sometime soon.  I can blame you guys here at geekhack for getting me interested in better keyboards.

After having to replace so called "gaming keyboards" year because of poor build quality I had to start searching for alternatives.  I frequent the anandtech forums and someone from there  tipped me off about these forums, and I must say you guys know your stuff!

Filco's certainly seem to be a near universal love and have gotten high praise so I look forward to trying one out.

This M1 was my first foray into the mechanical keyboard market.  The price is perfect, unfortunately it has too many quirks to justify keeping.  Seeing as the spacebar seems to be one of the first buttons to go on my previous keyboards it is really disconcerning to have problems with it in the first month.  It's a shame because the sucker is built pretty well, it's got a great heft to it and some large rubber blocks on the bottom that keep it from moving.  I found the key response to really be about what I would want in any keyboard.  Hope that the filco is somewhat similar in that regard.

[GreeN]

Lots of sound samples here all recorded at the same level (use the mouse click recording to set the volume).  Have your girlfriend listen and see what she says.  Keep the girlfriend but make sure she understands your sacrifice.  Don't tell her that last part.

Just listened to those samples for the first time and I feel i need to input my own thoughts on those browns. I've been using this board for a good few weeks now and I have really accustomed to the tactility of the switches. So much that I actually type a lot quieter than I previously did with this board. Keys bottoming out are quite uncommon during a good flow of text and this reduces the noise levels tremendously!

Call me light fingered, but once you recognise and befriend that tactility, your key presses become a lot faster, lighter and notably quieter. I'd even say the keys bouncing back up from a shorter travel distance creates a lesser audible feedback.

I'll upload a sample myself as soon as I get hold of a mic

[takasta]

i'd just go ahead and return it. You dont' have to go for the n-key roll over imo. Its pretty useless and i never find myself the need to press more than 40 keys at a time . If you haven't tried them before, brown key switches are definitely worth trying. The build quality of FILCO is also second to none which is also a bonus.

[Special K]

I've been reading these forums for some time now and never bothered to register.  However, I've been testing out an ABS M1 and have had some issues with it.

Specifically my spacebar gets iffy in the mornings... yes the mornings.  When I wake up and come downstairs I don't get any response from the spacebar, I have to hit it about 50 times for it to start registering the mechanical press.  Once I get it working it goes fine for the rest of the day... but come the next day it happens again without fail.

In addition to this the key rollover doesn't really meet the advertised specifications of 6 keys.  Sure some 6 keys can be pressed down at the same time, but not important ones like QWAS.

Anyway, my 30 day return is coming up for NEWEGG and I'm debating if I should just get a replacement for the spacebar problem, or shell out the extra cash for a Filco Majestouch Tactile Touch NKRO.

Most of the time I would think this is a no brainer, if you have problems right of the bat with a board it doesn't bode well for a 2nd of the same type.  However, elitekeyboards.com states that they are currently not shipping any boards out until August 7th.  For me that's a long time to wait to get a board shipped out to me when I have nothing to keep me going once I ship the M1 back.

Should I be patient and order the Filco Brown Cherry?  Is there something similar that I could order and get shipped right away?  Or should I just get a 2nd M1 as when the spacebar does work I've been fairly happy with the key response.

Thanks for the help guys.

Just out of curiosity, where did you see the ABS M1 advertised as being capable of 6 simultaneous keypresses?  We already had a giant thread on there earlier about the M1's rollover capabilities (or lack thereof) and it ended with ABS removing the "simultaneous 6 key press" from their ad for the M1.

[itlnstln]

The actual ABS site still had that statement (the 6KRO) on the photos of the 'board for quite sometime after they had removed it from their literature.

[Special K]

The actual ABS site still had that statement (the 6KRO) on the photos of the 'board for quite sometime after they had removed it from their literature.

Which literature are you referring to?  As you can see here:

http://www.abs.com/app/Keyboard_M1_details.asp

they no longer have the simultaneous 6-key press bullet point on their ad for the M1.

[itlnstln]

Right.  Your post a few weeks ago was right about the time they took off the 6KRO claim off the photos.  The claim was taken off the product descriptions on both the ABS site and Newegg months ago.