I took a few pictures but my camera wasn't playing ball, battery being a bit funky and as a consequence it was having a hard time autofocusing any lens so I just left it. Will report back in a week or so after I have had some decent use out of it, but will highlight a few main points here before a proper review.
Aliwia, when I purchased it there was no warehouse option other than China and looking now, there still is only China. I think this might be one of the issues with BG, and a lot of why people are getting annoying and making accusations about practices - their stock system on the website is terrible! I would guess that most of the time when things read as being in stock, they genuinely believe them to be or just aren't aware the website is wrong. Anyway...
The board. It feels solid, there is minimal twisting and I have big burly bear hands
) The case design is quite nice, it has rounder edges than a Filco but not quite as round as the FC200, as it has a small flat 45 degree section on the edges instead of a smooth curve from side to top. The front edge has an additional slant which is quite nice for your thumbs! I believe the case design is unchanged from the 'original' Keycool 87.
The stock caps are junk, as most backlit specific caps are. They are fingerprint magnets and some of the legends don't look centered, also some of the caps look like they have a different typeface, in reality the height and width are just skewed.
As previously mentioned the space bar uses standard spacing and all larger keys use cherry stabilisers. The included spacebar is similar to SP's universal bar but with only one center stem, so this should work on older Keycools, Leopolds and anything which uses standard spacing.
There are some horrifically tacky novelty super hero replacement caps.
The keycap puller is nice, one end is the small clippy plastic type and the other is wire. The wires are not parallel and as standard bend out away from each other a little, I don't know if this is just bad manufacturing or intentional, either way it actually proved quite helpful getting it over larger keys.
There is a nice little plastic clip which goes over the recess where the cable attaches, this holds the cable in place a little more securely and is a nice, thoughtful inclusion.
The back-lighting is nice and even throughout and has a lot of steps in terms of brightness, the different modes are quite nice;
- 1234qwerasdf
- wasd shift space ctrl esc space
- Alphanumeric/modifer area
- All keys.
You can adjust the brightness and pulse level while selecting any of these modes. I think it also remembers the last mode between unplugs, will have to check this.
All the switches are in nice and snug and the stems all seem to be straight, the LEDs are all consistent in both placement and lighting. None of the switches stick or have any other issues, the logos are all nice and clean and the stabilisers all move freely, or as freely as cherry stabs do.
Anyway as I said I will do a proper indepth review with pictures next week but overall it is a decent board for the price. It certainly isn't half the board a Filco is, but it is half the price.
