Hi everyone,
There was a delivery waiting for me on my doorstep this morning, a Chicony Kb-5161 that I had ordered a week ago from Ebay. It has complicated white Alps, my first Alps keyboard. For reference the switches I have tried are Cherry MX Red and Blue - which pale in comparison to the Alps.
The first thing I noticed (and loved) was the sound. Wow!! The sound is so full and deep, much better than the high pitched blues. As for the reds, they sound higher pitched and clacky compared to the awesome alps. My favorite part of this keyboard is the spacebar. It makes a wonderful THUNK on each press!
The second thing I love about this keyboard is how tactile it is. There is absolutely no reason to use any kind of MX switch anymore, except maybe Box Navy or Box Royal. I thought I liked linears before this, but the SOUND!!!!!!!
The layout is an Asian layout, with a Big A** Enter key and a 1 unit Backspace. I got used to the backspace after a few minutes of typing. There are no Windows keys, but I don't mind, since I don't really see what I need them for.
The keycaps are made of ABS, although they are rather thin I don't mind. On my cherry red keyboard it made a large difference replacing the standard keycaps with thicker ones, resulting in a bassier sound. They are doubleshot, so the legends are very nice looking. Compared to my pristine white dyesub PBT on my cherry red keyboard I can definitely see a difference - even though the keycaps are yellowed on this keyboard, the legends are still better looking than the other keyboard I own.
Anyways, I really enjoyed typing this review! A few days ago, I started a Youtube channel about keyboards (currently I only have 2 videos), and I plan to make a video about it soon. Stay tuned!
