So I traded my review sample of the XArmor U9BL for Ricercar's last NIB Cherry SPOS MX keyboard which I've been wanting for a while.
Oh crap, did Ace Ventura deliver my package?
Seems ok...
It is!
It seems to me that one either loves or hates the layout of the SPOS. Personally I love it, it's compact and the only things in weird places are the things I never use. The only thing that took getting used to was the small enter and backspace keys and small right shift. It definitely eats up less desk space than my G80-8200, though I did have to push my monitor back a couple inches due to its height.
But I'm not done yet...
Oh yes. Yes yes yes.
I found a place for all my extraneous escape keys, and it solved the odd location of the arrow keys for me.
I think it even looks better this way. Certainly there's more visual interest than there was before.
Mine is serial #000038. Wooo!
Feel? It feels like brown cherries, duh. Ok ok. I will say it certainly feels different. My MX11800 had very worn browns, which were essentially linear, and they were just alright. My G80-8200 has a very "soft" feel; call it typing on clouds. Very pleasant and soft feeling. The SPOS on the other hand has a more "precise" feel, and they feel like they take maybe a smidgen more force. It's what I originally thought brown cherries would feel like. They're quite good, I like them, but maybe not quite as much as the G80-8200. But the 8200 took almost a month of use for the switches to break in and achieve that great feeling, so maybe these will end up feeling similar, or at least better than they do now. They're not bad by any means though; just not as delightfully soft as the G80-8200.
The programming was a bit of a let down, I thought this board was hardware reprogrammable like the 8200. My fault for not doing research. Still it's useful. I've programmed the entire top row of keys to report scancodes e0x00 through e0x10 (top far left being Esc, key labeled Esc being alt+F4). I'll program Autohotkey to do stuff with them later.
It doesn't have NKRO, but it does have a variation on the IBM matrix which is adequate for gaming. The function keys being right above the number keys and with no gaps is a plus, since I can hit quicksave (F5 most games) very easily. I rarely use macros in games, but I may start since I have so much macro power.
It had a few defects. The F4 switch is mounted crooked and I'm going to have to touch that up with a soldering iron. Also one of the relegendable keycaps was defective, the cap wouldn't stay on. No biggy, I displaced it with a beige key. I sent an email to Signature Plastics asking what the price of 30 black Cherry MX-compatible relegendable keycaps and two double-length ones would be; waiting for a response. I've also got those doubleshot G81-7000s on the way.
Overall it's a good board and I like it. Main benefit is finally having PCB-mounted MX browns in a truly compact layout with lots of reprogramming capability. These are good boards and it's a shame they're so rare.
