Thoughts on the Cherry G86 Series? Also quality non-mechanical K/B discussion

[spolia optima]

I mean I'm a mechanical keyboard guy all the way, but there are a few nonmechanical 'boards out there which meet or exceed mechanical quality.


On the top of the heap is the Cherry G86 series. IMHO it's typing heaven.:cheer2:

pros:

• Individually greased keystems (unique to this series AFAIK) which greatly improve feel. This is what I consider the biggest selling point. The domes themselves are very high quality and they're probably made of silicone; they have a big, gradual tactile curve and remind me of Topre domes. When they added a generous daub or grease on each plunger, the result is a smooth, buttery, totally frictionless keystroke--unmatched by anything I've ever typed on.
  
• Solid industrial construction.
• Flat profile for those accustomed to laptop keyboards.
• Cylindrical PBT (or POM?) keycaps, which are awesome.
  

cons:

• price
• availability
• not NKRO

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Thoughts? And no I don't work for, or even know anyone at Cherry...like they would give a s**t about my opinion anyway.. Cherry only cares about their B2B customers... Jerks. :violin:

Some other great nonmechanicals include:

• Most high-end scissor switches, but only if you like short-throw switches :/
• Key Tronic (just about all of them, but most notably the ergo ones)
• NMB RightTouch
• Fujitsu LiberTouch (where's my US vendor?!?!)
• Others?

[cherrykeyboards]

I'd actually like to take you up on the 'Cherry only cares about B2B customers' comment. I've worked for Cherry for 15 years and certainly from a UK perspective, we do fight the corner on behalf of our customers, trying to get what's wanted in the market. There's a review on the site for our new G80-3800 (a 'sister' product to the G80-3000) and we're in full agreement with its comments - so much so, that we even raised the issues created in the review ourselves before this was even published independently.

Personally, I do care what people think about our products. I wouldn't work here unless I believed in the product line that we sell and to see the opinion that people have of us, is quite upsetting - we do like to believe we are ethical, approachable and will listen to the customer needs where we can.....so we do actually give a s**t about your opinion actually! :smile:  

Glad you like the SPOS/LPOS/MPOS product - not really designed for the end user, but the G86 'feel' is available in our CyMotion Expert series (G86-22000) for a more standard desktop product that has some multimedia capabilities. Plus, it's programmable using KeyM@n.....

BTW - my name is Robin Bithrey, I'm tech-support and marketing for the UK and you can contact me through the Cherry UK website - http://www.cherry.co.uk if you need to.

[Soarer]

Well somehow, as an organisation, Cherry seems to judge things wrongly quite a bit. That's not to say that everyone in Cherry is bereft of good ideas and doesn't care, but if they are not listened to by the bosses it must be very frustrating! Many of the more interesting 'Cherry' boards in recent years have been custom orders or limited edition (Raptor K1 and similar 1800 and 3000 variants). There's no tenkeyless model. Doubleshots are dead (and you know what that's done to secondhand prices!). Of course it's easier to say with hindsight, but Cherry seems to have done all it can to be badly placed to take advantage of the fact that 'consumers' (including for office use) are now paying more for keyboards than they have for a quite a while!

OTOH, the MX switch part of the business must be doing great!

[Soarer]

Welcome aboard, it's about time we had some more Cherry employees around here. Tell them higher ups we said to bring back doubleshots or at the very least dyesubs into regular production again. Even some limited edition boards would be very welcome over the insanity of tracking down certain used / old stock models. Lasered keycaps doesn't cut it. Cherry G80 boards used to be some of the nicest around, now they are just kind of meh.

.

[Matias]

• Individually greased keystems (unique to this series AFAIK) which greatly improve feel. This is what I consider the biggest selling point. The domes themselves are very high quality and they're probably made of silicone; they have a big, gradual tactile curve and remind me of Topre domes. When they added a generous daub or grease on each plunger, the result is a smooth, buttery, totally frictionless keystroke--unmatched by anything I've ever typed on.
  

Unless you are buying some cheap $5 board from China, greased keystems are par for the course on any high quality rubber dome keyboard.  They are not unique to Cherry.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Ugh ...

You guys at Cherry need a better website. I've got a 1600×1200 display, and if I select Business Products and Solutions and then mouse over (say) eHealth on the left, the menu expands down and forces the page footer off the bottom of the window, enables the vertical scrollbar and causes the page to jolt sideways. The top menu bar darkens the page, so as you move the cursor around you experience an assortment of dimming and violent juddering. (I can only figure that the web developers have 30" displays and don't test anything on realistic resolutions.)

Besides, "Unfortunately, the search for "g80-3800" produces no results."

Search function looks to be hosed as well.

Maybe not – Google hasn't heard of that model either. You sure you got the right model number?

[cherrykeyboards]

Well, I'll certainly take any comments on board folks, not an issue. I do have a couple of comments......

1) Website - It is STILL shocking compared to competitor sites, regardless of a recent re-vamp. Certainly it's a damned sight better than it was previously, but it is by no means a polished site and needs work done to it. We do have a company based in the UK who are working on the microswitch version of the site, so I can only hope that they get their hands on the keyboard part of it as well. Keep an eye out...

2) Yes, the model number (G80-3800) is correct - Link to the information is here: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:29961 - Certainly on Google it does appear - check the images part of the site too...

3) Doubleshot mould caps are dead - the reason for this is simply due to cost. As I'm sure you can imagine, building a keyboard to make some money in a highly competitive world is not an easy business and any advantage you can have in cost is one to be taken. Laser etched caps are far, far less costly to produce - keyboards are made blank, then put through the laser printer (fascinating process by the way) and come out the other end complete. We can change layout in the push of a button and we don't have to carry keycap sets in stock - with so many layouts available from our range, this is a distinct advantage. The keyboards produced in Czech Republic (Klasterec) and Auerbach are mainly for business and this is a global requirement. Keeping 30+ keycap sets in stock of different languages or increasing the lead-time to wait for double shot moulding caps to arrive, especially when there's an urgent requirement is simply unacceptable - customers currently baulk at a 3-4week lead-time when we have to wait for parts, so laser printing does two things. Firstly, it allows us to create language variants quickly, secondly it gives a robust print that doesn't wear (same as two shot). The trade-off is that the definition of the printing isn't quite as good, unfortunately, but it still works for 90% of customers.  Dye Sublimation went out with the ark (!) and definitely won't be reproduced in any way - Tampo Print kind of took over from that and although processes have improved over the years, it's still rubbish and wears off. Only products manufactured in China currently Tampo Print keys. So, we're left with laser or nothing. Whilst I agree with you that double shot should be brought back, commercially, it's not a good decision for what is essentially quite a niche market.....

4) Alternative products: A TenkeyLess product would be fab, but in all honesty, can't see it happening. The new G80-3800 is the closest so far, but it still has 105 keys (US = 104 obviously!). The closest we really do wouldn't be from the MX series, but from the ML range - G84-4100 (83 or 86 key versions) or the newer G84-5200. However, they're simply not MX's....

I will be passing on the comments though. I have already asked the Germans about the Double-Shot keys and also asked if there's any 'aged stock' left in the German warehouse with Double-Shot keys - I'll (of course) keep you all posted...

[mkawa]

we will happily buy you guys out of any DS keys you guys have sitting around NOS.

i think the most pressing issue for us enthusiasts right now is the lack of new switches and the long lead times on MX switches. we can design keyboards ourselves based around your switches, but we need a ready supply of switch parts, and we like variety -- the new whites are cool, but what else can you guys cook up?

[cherrykeyboards]

To my knowledge, the long lead-times on MX's will continue for the rest of the year unfortunately. We buy MX's for other customers here in the UK in all varieties and we're being quoted lead-times as long as January 2013, so it's an issue in Germany. Quite what's causing it, I'm not sure, it may simply be a capacity issue due to a large order (we have just won a project in France, apparently and if this uses MX's, it's likely to take up a hell of a lot of the capacity), but we've had nothing confirmed at the minute....

New switches? As in new models? Can't see it happening in the near future in all honesty. The current product line is huge with so many variants, us employees can't keep up half the time! Basically, if the order's big enough, we'll build it, but for switches, this is likely to be in the millions rather than the thousands as they're (by comparison to finished products) very low cost items.

Double-shots - hmm....I'll see what's available, but not sure in all honesty. Due to the clear out in our own stores, there may be a few, but not many......most is laser that I can see on the surface, but it all needs a bit more digging through as yet - bearing in mind I must have 1-200 keyboards lurking in an 'under stairs' stores location that I need to go through!!

[mkawa]

awesome, keep us updated.

ps, welcome to geekhack! glad to have you guys on board

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Still doesn't come up on the search on the site itself, but yes Google finds it now. Weird.

The keyboard looks gimmicky to me – the angular design with smooth plastic and shallow recesses looks cheap and lightweight, like it's a made from vacuum moulded plastic. You've got a recess for the lock lights when they're not there, like someone just had to fill that gap with something, anything. (And I actually expect a heavy keyboard personally ;-)

On the other hand, I'm really glad to see proof that Cherry switches do support low-profile caps, as full size caps look a bit passé in a world increasingly dominated by scissor switches. Ever since I saw the Dell KB1421 with low profile, (near?) full travel keys I wanted to know if the same could be done with Cherry MX, but no-one has done until now.

As for Cherry ML, the problem with the ML keyboards at least for the EU is that not one of them has the correct layout. Laptops have managed to replicate the Model M layout sensibly now, but the G84-* boards are slightly too narrow, so the shift \ Z arrangement isn't possible.