Happy New Year

Art by Freedesignfile.com

I want to wish everyone a happy new year and a great start.  This is a precious time to set up new goals while remembering what great year of blessings we had.  It's been a wonderful ride thus far and I look forward to all the new exciting developments in the mechanical keyboard world.  :)

Merry Christmas

Art by Vectorfresh

Often we lost the reason for Christmas celebration during this busy season.  Indeed, it's all about the birth of a special person who changed the world for the better and brought forth family reconciliation between God and His people.  Let's celebrate this wonderful news.  Merry Christmas, joy and peace to all.

Hands on impression of butterfly switch

Ah…  Black Friday and then Christmas shopping season.  The busiest shopping time around the US it seems.  I had a chance encounter with the Macbook and of course had to try my hands on the new butterfly switch.  Boy.  It was not what I expected and not exactly in a positive way.  Apple’s reputation precedes it.  Therefore, it’s always risky to be critical of Apple products; but if I am honest, then I need to call it for what I see it is.

The extremely short key travel of the butterfly switch exacerbated all that is associated as a negative in a scissor switch in my humble opinion.  I was surprised how stiff the switch was even though it was rated at 55g.  Because all of that compression happens so quickly, it felt like tapping on tablet with almost no feedback.  It felt that the keys just suddenly sink after I push it hard enough.  The experience was so jarring that I had to take a double take to make sure that someone wasn’t pulling a fast one on me.  Now, I must say that I could get used to it if forced.  I am sure some people enjoy using the board, but I must admit that I am not a fan.  At this point, I can see why Apple went back to a more traditional scissor switch rather than the hyped butterfly version because the butterfly switch felt so alien to older hands like me.  People who do buy extra boards are more likely to prefer the older or more classical style, I guess.

People who don’t use more traditional or mechanical keyboards much or are used to the virtual ones on a tablet will probably adapt to the butterfly switch relatively quickly.  I wouldn’t be surprised that they prefer it after some use.  However, I am not exactly a huge fan of virtual keyboard or a real keyboard pretending to be one.  So, this is really not my cup of tea.  This really does drive home a major point for me tho.  If you have chance, try before you buy.  You never know what might change your mind…..  even if it's something with great reputation like Apple products.

Special Topre Realforce keyboards up for pre-order

I kind of stopped posting about sales and specials because there are so many and other folks do much superior jobs than I would.  However, this one is rather unique not to say anything.  Mechanicalkeyboards.com is offering Ducky Channel's 104-UB DK Realforce keyboard for pre-order.  The keyboards probably won't ship until late January of 2016 at the earliest.  So, I think they are trying to gauge the volume.

In any case, their offering is rather unusual.  Ducky Channel also happens to be one of Topre's distributors as I have posted before.  However, Ducky doesn't just sell the board, they seems to like to offer something that's different from the mainstay just to make things interesting.  This is one of the reasons that I really do appreciate Ducky Channel. They are just so eccentric sometimes.  Anyway, the 104UB from Ducky comes with 2 different flavors.  One with uniform 45g weights and another with 30g.  First, there's an ANSI version of a 104 keys Realforce with uniform 30g, but it is extremely difficult to find outside of Japan.  Thus, this is definitely a rare bird, err...  I mean duck.  For 45g version, there are a few more options, but again, they are difficult to source outside of Japan, Korea or Taiwan.  So, if you are itching to get your hands on one of 104 keys Topre keyboards with uniform weights in the West, this is indeed a good opportunity.

1/4/16 Update:  Looks like they are in stock.  So, I was wrong about the late January date.  It showed up in the online-store early.  What a pleasant surprise.  I like being wrong in this instance then.  :)

1/6/16 Update:  How could I miss this...  According to the SKU, these two keyboards are the silenced (purple cap, not black) version.  I think this is the only ANSI 104 version with silenced Topre switches that I am aware of.  So, this wasn't just a rerun of XF11R0 (104UB-DK), but new models with silenced switches, XF31RS and XF01RS (104UB-DK30S and 104UB-DK45S).  This just keep getting better and better....

Yeah, Topre wins this round…. for now....

As much as I hate to admit it, I have come to love Topre switch based keyboard.  That means a lot of money sunk into a keyboard that’s close to a rubber dome, rather than a true mechanical switch keyboard such as the Cherry MX.  I really enjoy using Cherry MX based keyboard as well.  I love both the MX Brown and MX blue.  I most certainly enjoy my time with the buckling spring.  It’s so much fun to drive a few people nuts with that board.  Sometimes….  So, I am not that picky to be honest.  Then again, please no variable force keyboards please.  I simply cannot abide by that.  It was an interesting experiment and somewhat tainted my views of Topre switch for quite some time.

The one thing I truly value in a Topre switch is the smoothness.  It’s something that Topre has perfected and hard to put a finger on it.  Pun intended.  However, I am beginning to hear good things about Gateron.  Yes, Gateron is one of the many Cherry MX cloners, but it seems to begin to claim a certain personality of its own: smoothness.  Perhaps it was choices of plastic and/or slight different position of actuation and hysteresis make it appear to do so.  I don’t know.  However, I am now quite eager to evaluate a Gateron based switch keyboard and see what happens.  If it does have that prized smoothness that I found Topre to be so endearing, then it would be an excellent and economical choice.  Stay tuned.