DAS v Qpad MK-80

[Merlin]

Good to see the forums back. Liking the cherry MX orange colour scheme, very clicky.

I wish the DAS pro had a backlit version, because to me it's the best looking mechanical keyboard. Nice and shiny.
Doesn't seem like they're ever going to venture into backlit. I'd buy a ducky shine but it's almost impossible to buy in the UK and doesn't do ISO.
So my question is, does the MK-80 sound and feel as good as the DAS?

[hamza_tm]

Short answer: No

As an iOne made board, the MK-80 can be expected to have at least some QC issues, you may have ping, rattling keys etc which will make it sound and feel worse than the Das. Das are very high quality keyboards.

[Merlin]

Short answer: No

As an iOne made board, the MK-80 can be expected to have at least some QC issues, you may have ping, rattling keys etc which will make it sound and feel worse than the Das. Das are very high quality keyboards.

Thanks for the reply. Next question then, is there any backlit cherry blue keyboard at all that is as good as the DAS? Does ducky shine for instance get closer than iOne keyboards?

[theultrazord]

I really feel like they are very different and not too comparable. There are reasons for both.

The Das is known for its quality build however you can not obtain it with a rough finish and it attracts lot of fingerprints. Others can comment more about the Das but its just solid and people use the student discount.

The Qpad is definitely a gaming keyboard with slightly rubberized feeling keys which are backlit. I own a max keyboard nighthawk x9 which is also a ione board I believe and I have to say that it has some weight behind it and is pretty durable. Key caps has a proper fit and backlighting is excellent. The led indicators on the top right are obnoxious looking and the USB pass though included can't supply more than 100mA but the headphone/mic pass through is great (running cables from the sound card to the front panel adds a ton of noise to the line with my headphones).

Ducky shine is awesome but shines are being discontinued for the shine II which is in production. If you want to wait you can get a shine II instead. There is a groupbuy going on soon on reddit.com if you are interested.

Edit: I forgot to add that you might want to check into warranties. If defects are an issue you will probably encounter things such as squeaky stabilized keys and physical defects when you get it rather than after the warranty runs out anyway.