Does anyone have any info about these boards?

[Habel]

Hey all, I'm new here and am obviously looking for a mechanical keyboard. I've run into some troubles in deciding which one I want to buy. I'm looking right now at the tesorotec durandal keyboard. I haven't seen any information about it on geekhack or other forums, so I'm wondering if someone knows something and just hasn't talked yet.

My main question about this keyboard is a discrepancy between what is displayed on tesoro's website (the 105 key iso layout) and on ergogeek, the site where I originally found the keyboard (which has it showing as a 104 key standard u.s. layout). Here is the link to the ergogeek sale.

Another board I'm looking at is the new board from maxkeyboard. There are, what seems to me, two versions of the same board, but with different led colors. However, the x9 is 5$ more than the x8. Is there a reason for this that I don't see? I've also been put off by some of the hate I've seen towards xarmor/qtronix clones, such as the nighthawk. For one, I don't really understand that situation, could someone explain it to me? And secondly, is this just the ravings of a few people who didn't like an older board, or is there a legitimate reason why I should stay away from them.

Other than that, I've been looking at the ducky shine. It seems to be a solid board, however I prefer the aesthetics of the other two boards mentioned, and would get one of those if I'm not put off by a problem someone can point out with them. Does anyone have another suggestion that is similar to these 3 boards? I don't really want a blackwidow as I don't enjoy the macro keys.

[Av180]

These ones you are looking at are backlit boards, are you wanting a backlit board in your criteria? If you don't mind getting a non backlit one. Look at some different boards like Filco, Leopold, WASD, Das etc.

[Quarzac]

I'm not sure on the Durandal. There's a picture there with an ISO layout, and one with an ANSI. I couldn't find anything in the specs to clue me in. You may benefit from shooting them an email. The X8 uses brown switches, and the X9 uses reds, so that's probably why they saw fit to price the X8 slightly lower.

[Habel]

@Av180: I've never had a backlit board before, so I don't really know if I would like it or not. I can't find a full 104-key filco on amazon that has either blues or browns. I don't like the glossyness of the das keyboards. I may go with the leopolds, but because I have the choice I would wait for the blue's to become available again on elitekeyboards, and that's about a month and a half away. WASD is out of both browns and blues right now and it won't be until late april that they come back.

@Quarzac: I'll do that, howver I'm not sure if I should contact customer support or sales support. Thanks for the blue/red switch difference on the max keyboards, I didn't notice that before. Do you think that it would be a solid board?

EDIT: If anyone was wondering about the key layout on the durandal, I just received an email from tesoro about it. It depends on the region that you are in, the U.S. will receive a standard 104 key layout.

[Habel]

Ripster, can you explain why you don't like the xarmor-like brands so much?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Oh, there I thought Durandal as in Marathon ;-)

[Habel]

Another question: Is the durandal also an xarmor clone?

[Habel]

I thought you were referring to the max armor keyboard. My bad. You never explained why you dislike them so much though.

[Autolyze]

@Av180: I've never had a backlit board before, so I don't really know if I would like it or not. I can't find a full 104-key filco on amazon that has either blues or browns. I don't like the glossyness of the das keyboards. I may go with the leopolds, but because I have the choice I would wait for the blue's to become available again on elitekeyboards, and that's about a month and a half away. WASD is out of both browns and blues right now and it won't be until late april that they come back.

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-alias=computers&field-manufacturer=Filco

I count six different Filcos on Amazon that are 104-key with blue (click action) or brown (tactile action) switches.

These Tesoro and Max Keyboard keyboards you mention are a bit expensive for slightly sketchy, no-name boards. If you don't want to go with Filco for some reason, you could still get a full size Leopold with blues (blank "otaku" version is currently in stock at EK) and separate keycaps from WASD for the price of one of those things.

[Habel]

Hmm. I was looking in the wrong place then. I did a search for filco, and I didn't see anything like that. I know that leopold's are not too different from filco's except for some build differences. Is there anything that qualifies the 40$ price difference?

How do duckys compare to leopolds/filcos?

Sorry if I'm being a bit pushy or defensive, I don't mean it.

[Autolyze]

It really comes down to personal preference, but in many cases a Filco isn't completely worth the premium price compared to some of the cheaper competitors. Filco is widely considered to be the "best" out of the Cherry MX boards, so some of the additional price is just due to it being a Filco.

There are a number of small differences between Filcos and Leopolds, but the most noteworthy one is probably that Filcos use Costar stabilizers and Leopolds use Cherry stabilizers. There should be more details on stabilizers in the GH wiki pages, but basically the Costar stabilizers make the large keys (backspace, shifts, enter, space, etc) feel like the small keys at the expense of making the large keycaps more difficult to remove, while the Cherry stabilizers make the large keycaps easy to remove at the expense of making the large keys feel a little mushy to press. People tend to prefer the feel of Costar stabilizers over Cherry stabilizers, but I think most people are fine with either one. It's also worth noting that the full size Leopold uses non-standard spacing for its spacebar mounts, so the stock spacebar is currently the only one that will fit on a full size Leopold.

Ducky is generally considered to be a tier or so under Filco, but are still supposed to be very good boards assuming you're looking at the 90xx Duckys and not the budget 10xx ones. Duckys use Cherry stabilizers like the Leopolds.

[Habel]

Is it considered a tier below because of general build quality or because of problems they had with the 10xx boards?

[Autolyze]

It's ultimately subjective, but I would say that Ducky is a tier below Filco primarily due to a couple items:
- The build quality of the 10xx boards gave Ducky a bad reputation around here initially.
- Duckys use Cherry stabilizers, which some people dislike.
- Filco was established as *the* high-end for Cherry MX boards for years before Leopold and Ducky came onto the scene.

I'm not a fan of backlit boards, but I would say that a Ducky Shine is the way to go if you want a full size backlit board. If you can drop the backlighting requirement, then I would suggest Filco, Rosewill, WASD, or Das. They all have Costar as the OEM and should be very similar in terms of build quality. I love my tenkeyless Leopolds, but I think they make the most sense if you're swapping keys and keyboards around semi-regularly, and the fact that there are no replacement spacebars for the full size Leopold is pretty lame.

[AKIMbO]

WTH...when did they start remaking XArmor keyboards?

My first mech was an gen.1 U9BL.  I never had a problem with mine but others did.  Either way, there are much better options now for backlit mechs than XArmor/XArmor clones.

[Habel]

Thanks for all your help guys.

I ended up going for the leopold with a set of keycaps from wasd. I'll post some pictures when I get it.