New Addition: Filco Majestouch FKBN104M/EB

[BigWopHH]

Hey All,

Just added a Filco Majestouch FKBN104M/EB to the keyboard collection.

I hadn't experienced Cherry Brown switches before, so I really wanted to give them a shot before "settling" on a favorite switch.  I'm liking it so far.  The bump hits nice and early, keys require very little pressure, every key combination I've tried in the n-key rollover test works, and 6 keys are recognized every time (using USB obviously).  The texture of the keys is also nice, but I suspect it's going to rub off and get shiny fairly quickly, like the ABS M1 did.

I'm going to work with the board for a few weeks to see how it fares, but I have a feeling I'm going to miss the audible feedback of the Cherry blues.  We'll see.  A few of you use the tenkeyless version of this board, right?  Opinions?

I'm definitely going to need a bigger wrist rest to use with it.  I got so used to the Cherry G80 and its large case, that the minimal edge on the FKBN104M/EB makes the keyboard feel like it's in an awkward position.

Expensive as all hell, but I found a really good Japanese buying service that only charges $5 plus, 10% of the item's price, so it wasn't horrible as far as importing goes.

[Ulysses31]

And the name of this buying service is...?

[outofideas]

I ordered a FKBN104M/EB Wednesday from http://www.GeekStuff4U.com.  It was about $188 shipped, ~$40 of the price was the shipping.  Their price in USD fluctuates daily depending on the exchange rate.  It hasn't shipped yet, still says "processing", maybe they had to order it themselves.

Diatec quoted me ~$175 on Monday, it would've been a $10 fee at my credit union, unfortunately they don't offer transfers to foreign banks.

The buying services I looked at were all over $200 for the FKBN104M/EB.

I also ordered a FKBN87M/EB, off ebay last night from obazavil.  Microsoft had their ebay, buy it now, cashback at 25% for a few hours, so my total shipped will end up at $131.25.  Unfortunately the cashback has dropped to 8% now, though that's better than the 0% it has been at for the last 2 months.  If I hadn't of run out of my 12 cashback uses, I'd probably have picked up a FKBN87Z/EB from obazavil as well.

GeekStuff4u has also, since monday, started carrying the FKBN87M/EB(tenkeyless, brown cherry, n-key rollover), it's around $133, with about $33 shipping.

So at least one of Filco boards should arrive next week, and I'll finally get to try out brown cherry switches, and have n-key rollover on my older PS/2 KVM setup.  Yay.

The final straw that pushed me to finally go buy some Filcos, after over a year of putting it off, was the dismal performance of the ABS M1.  Of course now that I finally have pulled the trigger, someone will start importing a proper Filco Equivalent for half the price.  Such is my luck

[BigWopHH]

The buying service was: http://tokyobuyers.blogspot.com/

I had originally written geekstuff4u with a request, but didn't hear back until TokyoBuyers had already gotten me a price, which was semi-reasonable ($190 shippped).  It's still a lot for a keyboard, but it's a business expense, so I went for it.

Geekstuff4u added the Filco boards after my original inquiry.  Got this in my in-box right after placing the order with the buying serivce: "We have added this keyboard on our catalogue, you can find it here:

http://www.geekstuff4u.com/majestouch-n-key-rollover-keyboard.html

Best Regards"

Hopefully this makes it easier for some other folks to get their hands on one.

I had also broken obazvil's stones to see if he could find a FKBN104M/EB, but went with the lowest price I could find becuase the board was so expensive.  Would have much rather given my money to another member here though.

[lowpoly]

There are more buying agents in the wiki (keyboard links).