A few questions about Alps.

[Burz]

Daniel, will you re-evaluate that statement after using the MQP for a week?

What do you mean? The Matias Quiet Pro is not clicky. I will be happy to re-evaluate the situation once the Matias Tactile Pro for PC becomes available.

I misread you. I thought you meant tactile and non-clicky. It would still be interesting to have the MQP and Topre compared.

[tobydeemer]

I love the form factor though, so I wanted to see if there was a way to salvage it. I pondered waiting until the MQP switches are available for sale (which I'm still pondering actually), but in the meantime, I did try lube.

The wider keys on the MiniTouch also tend to bind. Does the lube help any with that?

It actually did, to a certain extent. The shifts and backspace saw the best improvement of course, and the enter still doesn't like being hit too close to the left edge. But overall, I'd say they're much less temperamental about it.

EDIT: sorry, I forgot to mention- on the keys with stabilizers, I also used some of their "electronics lube" that comes in a small precision dropper tube. I put just a dab on the stabilizer hinge points, and that helped as well. I tried to find links on their site to both of the things I used, but neither is listed anywhere. So that's cool. I'll snap some pics when I get home from work if anyone's interested. (Though if you go to one of their locations, it's not hard to figure out. :-P )

[Carnage]

Just wondering this on a side note how do green alps compare to blues? and has anyone had a pleasure of trying these pink or yellow alps these two seem to elude me and i do not know much information about them. I do like blues don't get me wrong but something a little more tactile would be nice especially since from what i know about the pinks is they have a relativity short spring which seems interesting.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Which greens? Green Alps CM (vintage) switches are linear, possibly with a ~5 cN bump. Xiang Min don't seem to pay much attention to colour – the KSB-LE switches in the Tactile Pro 3 are linear, but the green XM switches in Ducky keyboards are customised 55 cN clicky switches.

Not the same as Cherry where greens are just stiffer blues.

If you want something more tactile than blues … wow. Blue Alps is one of the most tactile switches in existence, at least unless you use them for gaming and destroy them You could try clone switches, although they're not so much more tactile as stiffer, although XM white switches are ridiculously tactile. A Filco Zero TKL with XMs for example.

[Carnage]

So ducky greens are just stiffer blues? I did try some clone switches a f21-7d which uses APC BSW 055WH switch ((blue clones)) which i completely wrecked in a period of under 6 months or so id want to say. Complete rubbish especially with the annoying little orange key caps i had to change out. Speaking of which though i was looking for a Filco zero TKL earlier after reading about them on deskthority and i just didn't seem to be able to hunt one down. A TKL sounds nice as it would be easier to carry around.

Im guessing id just destroy a set of ducky greens. Even though the nice fancy LED ducky shine 2's with the custom clear caps would look very nice to me I'm pretty sure it would just be my want to be kmac. Ohh the things id do for my very own custom made kmac.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

So ducky greens are just stiffer blues?

Ducky keyboards use KSB family clone switches from Xiang Min (Taiwan), customised from the default 60±15 cN down to 55±15 cN for reduced force. (I don't have the exact model used – the language barrier is too great for me to be able to communicate effectively with Xiang Min.)

I have personally never tried a Ducky Alps keyboard, so I have no idea how they compare to vintage blue Alps CM (from Alps Electric Co, Japan) switches. I do know that blue Alps switches are very tactile, so if you can't feel that, you really have destroyed them. Blue Alps CM has a sharp tactile point over a relatively light spring (similar spring to brown Cherry); clone switches typically have stronger springs.

I've heard that white Alps CM (the successor to blues – still vintage switches from Alps Electric) are stiffer so you might prefer those. I don't know the date when Alps Electric introduced their own simplified switches, which (for clicky) were also white the same as the previous complicated switches. Clone switches were simplified from the outset – only Alps Electric ever made complicated switches.

[yester64]

I got myself a ducky with black alps and i must say, its meh. Well, they are not that bad really but not great either. But they do remind me about keyboards from the early 90s.
My personal runner is still the red cherry switch. Don't know Alps that much and perhaps others are better.
For the price its ok and even typing is ok on it. But i am not a professional typist and just type something like this here or an email. So for that purpose its ok.
Green would be not my choice either since i despise clicks like in the blue from cherry.