This is the hardest part right now… just sitting around waiting for the keyboard to show up from China. Qwertykeys fulfillment page shows a usual fulfillment time of around 3-5 week from your order date until it’s delivered. So I’ve got a while to go, hahaha. Probably around early to mid May is when it should be in.
But I already ordered my keycaps, because I didn’t want to miss out on these specific ones. They were one of only like 1-2 sets that I even liked. I’ve searched for months online at every single retailer and just looking through thousands upon thousands of keycap photos to try and find something that “spoke” to me. I’ve had the hardest time finding good looking, elegant, polished, adult looking keycaps with a unique profile for a silver board with a clean simplified look that goes with my computer room/desk/computer setup. EVERYTHING in my room or setups is either white or light grey or silver. So it was really hard to find anything I loved. My fallback were the Drop DCL Snow caps. But again, I don’t like the DCL profile. And I wanted to do something other than just plain white, even though I love the look of blank tops with side print legends.
I ended up grabbing the Drop+Matt3o Dev/TTY set. The Neo80 I ordered is a silver anodized board and wanted either all white or a set with white alphas and very light modifiers and either no accent colors or just one pop of color. They look really good for the most part online, but worried the “white” alpha keys are going to be too off-white and not clean or bright white. So we’ll see. Might have to return them and start all over.
I did see some really cool darker and or nicely colored keycap sets if I had a totally different computer room setup. If I had a black or dark setup in my room, desk, computer, I’d have more options for sure. The Drop MT3 Dasher’s look incredible and I almost got those! Then the Domikey Atlantis set, the Single Chip set, the Blue wave set and possibly my favorite the Calm Depths all are about the same, just slightly different, but all amazing looking. Then Keychron has a fantastic dark KSA Dark Gray and Grayish Blue set that looks amazing (although I’ve read that some keyboard people think Keychron keycaps are garbage and don’t last long. I have no idea. But they sure look good). We’ll see. Maybe later down the road, when I build another computer, I’ll do a more subdued, simple case in a dark color or that has some wood in it, and then a new darker desk matt and one of those keycap sets. I LOVE them, but they just don’t go well with my overall aesthetic. And I’m a stickler for cohesive, simple, elegant design. So I just couldn’t bring myself to step away from the white, silver, light grey aesthetic I have going on. I’m really going for a very unified look with my setup. It makes the OCD/Perfectionist part of my brain feel sooo good, haha.
I’m not a fan of the Cherry/OEM style at all. They look too sharp and generic. I find the more rounded/sculpted keycap sets to have a more luxurious, mature, classic look that will never go out of style. They look like keycaps adults would use, haha. So that limits what I can get severely, since the large majority of keycaps are either Cherry or OEM style. So then I’ve been searching for only SA, KSA, MT3, XDA, OSA, etc. And there’s nowhere near as many sets in those unique styles. Plus I have very discerning taste, and to me, most keycaps look like they were made by a 15 yr old HS kid who watches Anime and plays video games all day. There is a severe lack of simple, classy, luxury looking keycaps and colorways. I wish I was in a position to be able to make keycaps, I could make so many amazing styles and colors if I had the money to do so.
But… it’s amazing that there are SO many options these days and it’s been so fun thinking about what I would build. Then researching, then finally sorting through all the options I had narrowed it down too and then finally making a decision. It was the same way with my first computer build I did a few years ago. Took 10x as long to decide what I wanted it to look like, then to actually buy it all and put it together, haha. And now that I’ve built this computer, I’m already wishing I had gone another route. A more subdued, classy, simple look. Something like the Fractal Design Mood, North or Terra or something along those lines. No RGB. My setup is super clean and classy, with only clean white RGB that is only at 25% brightness. But after seeing all these other classier cases, I feel like that’s the route I should have gone. But oh well. I’ll need another computer in 5-10 years and I’ll get to do this all over again. Or, I may just gift this computer to one of my Nephews in a few years when they’re old enough to be allowed to have a gaming computer and build a new one for myself at that time. This sure is a fun hobby and I’ve had a great time so far building my computer, finding the perfect desk, lighting, desk matt, mouse and now this keyboard. And even though it’s not “cheap” per say, it’s FAR cheaper to build everything yourself then to buy something prebuilt. Plus custom built looks 100x better and you have the satisfaction of knowing you built it yourself.
Thanks again guys, I’ll be posting photos for sure. And if I need anymore help, I’ll be back here. You guys have helped tremendously.
Best
