Chicony 5181 with SMK “monterey” blue switches, $55 shipped BIN

[jacobolus]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281365813829

[digi]

That's pretty tempting just to try the Monterey Blues, although I've heard from a few people on here that the board itself is pretty flimsy and feels cheap.

[nubbinator]

That's pretty tempting just to try the Monterey Blues, although I've heard from a few people on here that the board itself is pretty flimsy and feels cheap.

It does.  The switches are great, but the case makes them feel like crap.

[ComradeSniper]

The MTek K104 is a much better choice if you want a quality Monterey Blue board. Still not a bad price on this one though.

[jacobolus]

If you have any plate-mounted Cherry MX keyboard, you could put SMK switches into it and hand wire them. Only problem is most Alps keycaps have Alps-style rather than MX-style stabilizer insert mounts, so you might be stuck with the Chicony’s ****ty keycaps, at least for the larger keys.

It’s true though, both the case and keycaps on the KB-5181 are awful: very flimsy and cheap feeling. Pull the plate/pcb out of the case and swap the keycaps out and you instantly have something that feels dramatically better.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Weird, that's what mine is, but I haven't particularly noticed that. At least not while typing, I have noticed that I can kinda squeeze the case together in places.