Hi, this meet-up has been amazing. First, I want to thank Swill for hosting this. Second, I want to thank Dorkvader for coming and bringing his 25+ keyboards. And to all who attented, you were all amazing people.
One of the great things of this meetup, other than just be able to talk to everyone about keyboards and stuff, was to be able to try all these different keyboards. Before this meeting, I only had tried mx brown (filco) and model F. Here's my impression on the different boards I tried:
Hall effect: These just feel so damn nice and their sound (bottom out) is just amazing. I don't think I would like them for typing since they are linear, but for gaming these would be awesome.
Beamsping: I had great expectations for this keyboard. It ends up it's just not for me. The sound is truly amazing, but the switches are too soft and too wobbly for my personnal taste.
Topre: I am glad I have tried them. They feel high quality, but they are WAY too soft and too smooth and cushioned for my taste. I can see how someone would like them, but they are almost the opposite of what I like in a switch. One positive thing is that they don't wobble.
Alps: There were not many alps, mainly the japanese ibm one that Dorkvader likes a lot. To me, it's a nice keyboard that just feels inferior to my model F (I am biased towards the model F). But for the cost of the keyboard, I admit it's a very nice option.
Model M: I was glad to try a few model M. I wanted to verify if the model F is that better than the M as is often said. While the M feels good, it confimed to me that the model F just feels much better.
Cherry: I liked my cherry brown filco. I still like it but I am now in love with the F and can't go back to cherry. But if I had to, well stock clears would be my choice. I prefered the stock clears over the 62g clears. But I admit that I got used to heavier switches because of the F so it might be the main reason for this. I also like the black switch a lot and have been impressed by the feeling of a wyse keyboard with blacks. Also, the trampoline mod from Swill was nice, but it had such a sh6rot travel and I like having quite a lot of travel so it was just not for me.
Model F: I have been in love with the F for about a year. I didn't have much to compare it to but it felt just awesome. After trying all these different keyboards with different switches, I am happy to now know that the model F is definitely my favorite keyboard/switch. It's a very very good thing for my budget. Well, until I can transform my Xt's to reverse TKL layout with wcass project!
Ergonomics: I was happy to try different ergo keyboards and non-staggered keyboards. I think that I would still prefer a non split keyboard if I need to use the mouse, but for pure typing they would be very nice. I also think that I could get used pretty fast to non-staggered keyboards. I would have a hard time with a few keys for a time, but the fact that the keys are one above the other just feels more normal for my brain. I just don't know if I would want to make the jump or not. I also tried the hand-rest that has a mouse on a bar buit in and if it was not for the price I would probably get one. But I think that I would still prefer to invest on making a reverse TKL layout to simply have the mouse more aligned with my arm.
As for the eyes, well there was some keyboard porn:
First, the F with the metal case (the one super super wide similar to the kishsaver) had such an awesome case and paint job. That's a real beauty.
Second, Swill had a brass case that was just epic. It's time to forget aluminium and titanium and get real with brass on GH.
Also, the Miami set just looks very nice and super shiny like if it was summer all the time.
I also want to mention that my brain was just complety exhausted for having to focus on speaking and listening to English all day long. I am quite bilingual, but I NEVER speak it and almost never listen to conversations in English for a long time (longer is a movie or tv show usually). But it was also a nice experience in itself!
So I want to conclude by saying that this meeting was a LOT of fun and that I will be happy to attend another one if I can!
