So I've been a long time admirer of these boards mostly for the honest and harsh statements about the keyboard world. Formerly I only found myself a user of keytronics keyboards, while spending most of my peripheral addiction money on various mouses of differing types. From my old IBM 6450350 that I still love to higher dpi mouses that i find more desireable (i actually like most of the razer stuff despite being overpriced.)
But, to stay on topic, this is about the das keyboard III. I originally blindly went into buying the das keyboard only because they had a wonderful discount for educational sources such as myself (I work within a university physics department.) For less than $70 I was able to pick up a blank keyboard with cherry blues. Everything seemed great when I quickly received it and plugged it into my work Q45 motherboard, even with the strange extra cord they provided with a small warning about connecting to some motherboards. After bringing the keyboard home I was greeted with an array of problems where it would require constant reconnects and very interesting driver issues. While I did not investigate too far, I did find a quick fix... You hook up the keyboard to a USB 1.1 hub and after that the Das Keyboard III (non-S) worked perfectly on the X45 motherboard I had at home. After some very good customer support from Erin Hussey within metadot, I found out that they had testing problems with some motherboards. About a month after using the keyboard through USB 1.1, I did notice the strange issue that was pointed out within these forums that if I was less lazy I would link within this post. I was informed though that with the release of the new keyboard the "S" series that these issues would be resolved and that she would allow me to send in my old keyboard and replace it with one of the new S versions when they came out. I decided to take metadot up on that offer and I did end up waiting about 2.5 months due to some issues that were also posted on these forums.
Fortunately, it seems they were right... they fixed all of the original issues that the original seemed to have possessed on my home computer and instead seemed to have gone with a totally different 2.0 hub within the keyboard. They also seem to use a different controller for the keyboard itself. I am near certain now that almost all of the problems with the original Das Keyboard III had to do with how they routed through the 2.0 hub. The new version has two cables, one of which powers and sends signals to the hub that is built in, while the other is independantly going to the keyboard itself. Though this setup uses two connections, it seems not to be too much of a problem with current motherboards (the X45 having 10 connections right on the board itself.) But you can run the keyboard on just the keyboard connection and completely leave the hub unused if this is a problem. Overall I am very happy with the new Das Keyboard, as it is definately an improvement over any keytronics keyboard i have owned. Though I still like my AT IBM M more (to some degree.)
I have observed that the keyboard has a 6 key roll over, the hub speeds are desireable when benchmarked with a 2.0 drive, and the mirrored finish is a pain to clean. The keys are standard and blank so no need to worry about label wear and I have not had the keyboard long enough to observe any wear in the key's finish. It seems rather well built and is a joy to type on. I hope this dispells some myths and worries about the new S version, as I am happy that I finally have a keyboard that I enjoy using. I know there are definately a lot sexier looking keyboards out there, I'd like to have a HHKB some day, but none of them offered a decent price. I personally do not see any reason why a manufacturer could ever charge as much money as they do for these keyboards, though maybe we're just in some sort of golden age of secretly good keyboards. I'm pretty sure I couldn't enjoy typing anything longer than a paragraph on a basic dome cell anymore.
-Quel
