Would you recommend the Novatouch TKL?

[spiceBar]

I did not need to wait, because I use AZERTY on the ANSI layout. Yeah, I know, it's a bit weird, but I prefer the ANSI layout with its big Shifts, and with Cherry MX keycaps you can easily set up an ANSI board in AZERTY.

I'm curious about how you deal with the 2 missing keys :
[> <] and [* µ ] ? are you using a remmaping software ?
IS the key above Return bound to something ?

Here is my ANSI Novatouch in AZERTY:



The key set is a heavy Filco ABS doubleshot I have bought here:
  http://www.keyboardco.com/product/double-shot-filco-105-key-french-keyset.asp

These sets also exist for US, German, Swedish/Finnish, UK and Japanese keyboards.

Costar inserts are glued to the stabilized keys, but they are easy to remove using a pair or pliers. The glue is not the kind the melts into the plastic, fortunately.

The keys are tall, so I had to use the set to populate the whole keyboard. Most of the time I just replace the letters, digits and punctuation symbols from the ANSI keyboard, leaving the modifiers in place, but in this case the original modifiers would have been too low.

Here, we have two stabilized keys that simply do not exist in the AZERTY set: the left Shift and the Enter key. As you see, it is possible to use the "+" and Enter keys from the numeric keypad as replacements. They do not fit perfectly: there is 1/8 of the key length missing on the left and on the right, and their legends are not the right ones.

The missing key located at the right of the left Shift is "< >" in AZERTY. I put this key in place of the one located under the Esc key, which is quite useless on AZERTY, as it is a "square of" symbol (upperscript 2). The "< >" key ends up in a row where it does not belong, so its profile is wrong (you can see it on the picture).

I remap this key when necessary, but depending on the OS sometimes it is not even needed. IIRC, on the Mac if you tell the OS that you are using an ANSI keyboard, the key will be automatically mapped to "< >". On Linux you need to create a short .Xmodmap file in your home directory and put one line to remap this key.

The key above Enter is the "* µ". As you can see the key does not have the right size. On a black keyboard, you barely notice it.

There is no need to remap this key, as it already produces the right scancode.

That's what I do to convert an ANSI TKL to AZERTY.

The same tricks work on a 60% board, except for the "< >", because the key located on the upper left of the keyboard in this case is used for Esc. US users have the same problem because Esc takes the place of backquote/tilde.

My solution for 60% keyboards is to remap CapsLock to "< >" (on a US keyboard that would be backquote/tilde), and Ctrl-CapsLock to CapsLock.

[spiceBar]

I just noticed that the NT is available at my local store since Tuesday.
Since I bought my first Cherry MX board I'd love to try a Topre one. But I can't decide which one: the RealForce 88UB 45g or the NT ...
So far Spicebar if you don't mod the NT, do you think the RF is above? As far as I remember you modded your RF so I don't know if you can tell really but I still ask the question.

Yes, the Realforce is clearly better.

The build quality is equivalent, but the unmodded Realforce has a better sound.

The bottoming-out sound on the Realforce sounds less hollow. Both keyboards "thock", but the Novatouch case makes the sound less pleasant.

The upstroke sound is much louder on the Novatouch, and I can't explain why yet.

All the stabilized keys on the Novatouch have stabilizer wires in them, and these wires rattle a lot. The stabilized keys on standard Topre boards also have wire in them, but they don't rattle, or very little.

All these problem can be solved, I believe. Sound dampening material inside the case should take care of the bottoming-out sound. Thick silicon grease on the stabilizer wires will take care of the rattling sound. Slimmed down landing pads inside the Topre switches will take care of the upstroke sound. If you do these mods, the Novatouch will sound better than a stock Realforce.

What I do not know yet is how the silenced Novatouch will sound compared to a silenced Realforce.

[dante]

Wouldn't the best of both worlds be transplanting the Novatouch stems into the Realforce?

What draws me to the Novatouch is being able to have it dental banded AND adding o-rings thus significantly cutting travel distance.

[BlueBär]

Wouldn't the best of both worlds be transplanting the Novatouch stems into the Realforce?

Depends, some people don't like the look of RF cases. Also you'd have to spend a whole lot of money

What draws me to the Novatouch is being able to have it dental banded AND adding o-rings thus significantly cutting travel distance.

Might as well get a good scissor switch or other rubberdome board then. I don't see the point of capacitive switches if you want low travel (because you're going to bottom out anyways), and without that Topre is just a nice feeling rubberdome.

[Freebird]

I bought mine the other day, main selling points for me were:

MX keycap compatibility and the fact it was an accessible topre board. I think the fact that I had a play with one at the insomnia summer LAN also helped massively. They keycap compatibility was actually very high on my list because I have a reasonable amount of MX key sets and I didn't want to factor in the cost of a new topre set on top of the board.

With you guys talking about price; I paid £150 for mine from Scan. They seemed to be about the only people other than overclockers selling ISO units in the UK currently. I should say that neither OCUK or Scan actually said they were ISO units, just says English keyboard layout. I wouldn't have been mad if I got an ANSI one, but would have preferred the ISO that I did get.

To me this board feels infinitely better than my Razer BW 2013 with blues and my Poker II on browns. I am really enjoying this and honestly can't believe that a realforce or HHKB feels a great deal different. I know it is the sound difference most have a gripe with, but I wear closed headphones petty much the entire time I am at my PC so don't hear whatever switches I use.

Anyway here is a potato:


Also for anyone wondering about my bro...I may have had to make slight modifications to it so it would fit.

[spiceBar]

Wouldn't the best of both worlds be transplanting the Novatouch stems into the Realforce?

What draws me to the Novatouch is being able to have it dental banded AND adding o-rings thus significantly cutting travel distance.

As far as I can tell, O-rings do absolutely nothing in the Novatouch.

I'm not even sure why they provide a set of O-rings with the keyboard.

They absolutely do not reduce the key travel at all. Why? Because they never make contact with the Topre switch housing. They cannot.

It is possible that their only purpose is to lift the keycap a little bit so it does not touch the top of the Topre housing. This would only apply to some Cherry MX keycaps. But none of the keycaps I have tried touch the housing on the downstroke.

In this case, all the O-rings would do is change the height of the key. They cannot act as shock absorbers and cannot reduce the key travel.

If you read the reviews, you will notice that all the users who have tried O-rings were not finding much difference. It's because it does not make any difference, unless you have strangely designed Cherry MX keycaps.

[_PixelNinja]

They do however make a difference on the space bar by making the landing less rough (this is if you have removed the spring).

[intelli78]

As far as I can tell, O-rings do absolutely nothing in the Novatouch.

I have found the same thing, for the most part. They have done nothing on all the alphas I have tried. On some modifiers, they just dramatically reduce the travel and make the key feel mushy. They certainly don't do anything good. Can't tell why they're included.

It is possible that their only purpose is to lift the keycap a little bit so it does not touch the top of the Topre housing. This would only apply to some Cherry MX keycaps. But none of the keycaps I have tried touch the housing on the downstroke.

Try GMK right shift and enter... super annoying clack. It would be great if you could devise a solution. O rings, at least the included ones, are definitely not the solution. As described above, they make the key feel horrible.

[saturnotaku]

I'm not even sure why they provide a set of O-rings with the keyboard.

Doesn't make much sense, since it doesn't affect key travel or noise, the latter being the main reason why most folks put them on MX boards.

This is a great video illustrating the differences in sound between the Novatouch, including the useless o-rings, and the Leopold FC660C, a keyboard that's very close in sound to the Realforce.

[dante]

What draws me to the Novatouch is being able to have it dental banded AND adding o-rings thus significantly cutting travel distance.

Might as well get a good scissor switch or other rubberdome board then. I don't see the point of capacitive switches if you want low travel (because you're going to bottom out anyways), and without that Topre is just a nice feeling rubberdome.

Capacitive are nice if you like that membrane sheet feel; Also, it is hard to find a compact scissor switch/rubberdome that is above 2kro for gaming.

[BlueBär]

Capacitive are nice if you like that membrane sheet feel; Also, it is hard to find a compact scissor switch/rubberdome that is above 2kro for gaming.

Capacitive has no feel for itself (because it's a no-contact mechanism)
What I meant was: Topre switches are capacitive so you don't have to bottom out. However, if you're going to have low travel switches, there is no real point to use them because you're going to bottom out anyways. There are ways to achieve a higher KRO with regular rubberdomes too, and using those instead of a capacitive switch would result in a cheaper board, making it even harder to justify the Topre price tag. Sadly I don't think such a board is in production anywhere right now.

[Findecanor]

dunno....the thing is that the rattling is louder also on the normal keys, not just the stabilized ones. i think it's a combination of the different stem and the keycap material...

That's too bad. For me, personally, the smoothness, silence and high tolerances of the Topre Realforce, and the good PBT keys are what sets them apart from other keyboards.
Without those qualities, the Novatouch sounds to me like just a rubber dome with 6-KRO that can take Cherry MX keycaps ...

I have already got a rubber dome that can take Cherry MX keycaps: a BTC board that I got at a flea market for ~2€ ...
And both my BTC and my Topre Realforce have Swedish legends on the keycaps. Not "Nordic"! Proper Swedish legends, which are otherwise hard to find Cherry MX-compatible keycaps with.

There are ways to achieve a higher KRO with regular rubberdomes too, and using those instead of a capacitive switch would result in a cheaper board, making it even harder to justify the Topre price tag.

Oh yeah... My BTC keyboard has domes with conductive rubber on top of a one-sided PCB. It would be possible to make a new PCB with diodes and get NKRO.

[jacobolus]

What I meant was: Topre switches are capacitive so you don't have to bottom out. However, if you're going to have low travel switches, there is no real point to use them because you're going to bottom out anyways. There are ways to achieve a higher KRO with regular rubberdomes too, and using those instead of a capacitive switch would result in a cheaper board, making it even harder to justify the Topre price tag.

The big advantage to the Topre switch compared to the “standard” electrical-contact rubberdome (whether the dome has a little conductive piece that bridges two pads, or whether it pushes contacts on separate membranes together) is that the Topre switch reliably actuates at about halfway through the stroke, whereas many rubber domes fail to make reliable contact unless you really mash them down. It’s really bad when a tactile switch doesn’t reliably actuate after the tactile point, because it encourages the typist to use dramatically more force than necessary, and results in a nasty impact shock at the bottom.

Bottoming out on any switch isn’t bad, per se. What’s bad is bottoming out hard.

Most scissor switches, as well as certain types of buckling rubber dome/sleeve switches, are pretty good about reliably actuating once they get past the tactile point, so they should also be a reasonable option.

[_PixelNinja]

Without those qualities, the Novatouch sounds to me like just a rubber dome with 6-KRO that can take Cherry MX keycaps ...

To nitpick, the Novatouch is NKRO over USB.

[azhdar]

I did not need to wait, because I use AZERTY on the ANSI layout. Yeah, I know, it's a bit weird, but I prefer the ANSI layout with its big Shifts, and with Cherry MX keycaps you can easily set up an ANSI board in AZERTY.

I'm curious about how you deal with the 2 missing keys :
[> <] and [* µ ] ? are you using a remmaping software ?
IS the key above Return bound to something ?

Here is my ANSI Novatouch in AZERTY:

(Attachment Link)

The key set is a heavy Filco ABS doubleshot I have bought here:
  http://www.keyboardco.com/product/double-shot-filco-105-key-french-keyset.asp

These sets also exist for US, German, Swedish/Finnish, UK and Japanese keyboards.

Costar inserts are glued to the stabilized keys, but they are easy to remove using a pair or pliers. The glue is not the kind the melts into the plastic, fortunately.

The keys are tall, so I had to use the set to populate the whole keyboard. Most of the time I just replace the letters, digits and punctuation symbols from the ANSI keyboard, leaving the modifiers in place, but in this case the original modifiers would have been too low.

Here, we have two stabilized keys that simply do not exist in the AZERTY set: the left Shift and the Enter key. As you see, it is possible to use the "+" and Enter keys from the numeric keypad as replacements. They do not fit perfectly: there is 1/8 of the key length missing on the left and on the right, and their legends are not the right ones.

The missing key located at the right of the left Shift is "< >" in AZERTY. I put this key in place of the one located under the Esc key, which is quite useless on AZERTY, as it is a "square of" symbol (upperscript 2). The "< >" key ends up in a row where it does not belong, so its profile is wrong (you can see it on the picture).

I remap this key when necessary, but depending on the OS sometimes it is not even needed. IIRC, on the Mac if you tell the OS that you are using an ANSI keyboard, the key will be automatically mapped to "< >". On Linux you need to create a short .Xmodmap file in your home directory and put one line to remap this key.

The key above Enter is the "* µ". As you can see the key does not have the right size. On a black keyboard, you barely notice it.

There is no need to remap this key, as it already produces the right scancode.

That's what I do to convert an ANSI TKL to AZERTY.

The same tricks work on a 60% board, except for the "< >", because the key located on the upper left of the keyboard in this case is used for Esc. US users have the same problem because Esc takes the place of backquote/tilde.

My solution for 60% keyboards is to remap CapsLock to "< >" (on a US keyboard that would be backquote/tilde), and Ctrl-CapsLock to CapsLock.

Thanks for complete answer , that's an interesting way to do it but it re-enforce my choice to remain ISO Azerty , even if I miss a lot of opportunities .

yeah their website is showing avaibility for 17/11 .

I hope they'll have a demo board in store , I'll contact them .

Would you mind telling me what they answer? I am a member over on HFR and if they do have a demo keyboard I could inform people about it for those living close by and who would want to try it out.

I've had my Novatouch since august and although it has it's imperfections it has really grown on me to the point that it has replaced my FILCO as my daily driver for typing and gaming. I'd really like this little keyboard to do well so future iterations could see the improvements it needs to be even better.

yeah their website is showing avaibility for 17/11 .

I hope they'll have a demo board in store , I'll contact them .

Would you mind telling me what they answer? I am a member over on HFR and if they do have a demo keyboard I could inform people about it for those living close by and who would want to try it out.

I've had my Novatouch since august and although it has it's imperfections it has really grown on me to the point that it has replaced my FILCO as my daily driver for typing and gaming. I'd really like this little keyboard to do well so future iterations could see the improvements it needs to be even better.

Just called the lyon store , demo board will not happen .   

[_PixelNinja]

Just called the lyon store , demo board will not happen .   

That sucks. I'm guessing they are not going to do demo units because of the limited stock.

[azhdar]

Just called the lyon store , demo board will not happen .   

That sucks. I'm guessing they are not going to do demo units because of the limited stock.

What the guy told me is they don't have a lot of space , and even if they rarely do demo boards .

[snipars]

if you like nice keycaps and topre switches then it's the ideal keyboard, if you don't want to put different keycaps on it you could get a Realforce or one of the other Topre keyboards

[Ngt]

yeah their website is showing avaibility for 17/11 .

I hope they'll have a demo board in store , I'll contact them .

Would you mind telling me what they answer? I am a member over on HFR and if they do have a demo keyboard I could inform people about it for those living close by and who would want to try it out.

I've had my Novatouch since august and although it has it's imperfections it has really grown on me to the point that it has replaced my FILCO as my daily driver for typing and gaming. I'd really like this little keyboard to do well so future iterations could see the improvements it needs to be even better.

Just called the lyon store , demo board will not happen .   

That's a pity. I wish I could test it. I guess the price of the board and the stock amount are the reasons they don't want to put one in the shop. I'll have to get a Topre board blindly then.

[spiceBar]

if you like nice keycaps and topre switches then it's the ideal keyboard, if you don't want to put different keycaps on it you could get a Realforce or one of the other Topre keyboards

Captain Obvious, is it you?

[dante]

Capacitive are nice if you like that membrane sheet feel; Also, it is hard to find a compact scissor switch/rubberdome that is above 2kro for gaming.

Capacitive has no feel for itself (because it's a no-contact mechanism)
What I meant was: Topre switches are capacitive so you don't have to bottom out. However, if you're going to have low travel switches, there is no real point to use them because you're going to bottom out anyways. There are ways to achieve a higher KRO with regular rubberdomes too, and using those instead of a capacitive switch would result in a cheaper board, making it even harder to justify the Topre price tag. Sadly I don't think such a board is in production anywhere right now.

I-Rocks just came out with the K20; have no idea if it's any good - but it can handle key roll over: