Honestly Drop’s keycaps are slowly getting better, but they’re over all tactics are still a far cry from where they started at. If you weren’t around when Drop first started I don’t expect to you to look at them like us old heads do. They used to be a site that whole point was to band a bunch of people’s money together to make a bulk order of whatever product. Allowing the end customer to quite frequently pay a good bit below retail. They took a percentage for themselves from the GBs, but I suspect it wasn’t profitable enough to keep that model which I do get.
However they did a total 180° on how they operated almost overnight once they decided they needed to be getting higher profits to survive. Then after that they had a lot of issues shipping the right stuff to the right people & some pretty bad QC issues on a few GBs. So while they are slowly getting better, they’re also a far cry from where they started. Kono on the other hand has always had crazy high prices on the enthusiast stuff they sell. So while I won’t really buy from them much at all, at least they started that way & stayed that way!
work-is-slow extended ramble; mixed feelings about Drop and Kono
I’ve had some sus, frustrating experiences with Kono - though it always turned out alright in the end - after reaching out to them directly a few different ways including public-facing social media accounts. I think it’s quite fair to lose one’s taste for shopping there after experiencing or hearing about something like that. Those Midnight switches really aren’t bad tho…
As for Drop I’ve seen them do that price shenanigannery a bunch of times - there’s a neat plastic artisan that looks like a Game Boy - they used to sell it for $35, now it’s $45 “on sale” for $40 or something like that.
On the other hand, a patient customer can make out pretty good - most of the caps I’ve bought from them (and that’s a lot) have been through BOGO sales and other similar promotions. While the DCX announcement was… a mess… I have to say I think DCX itself is fantastic. I struggle to imagine how I could be happier with it as a set of key tooling.
I also have to second what @Rob27shred said - the company has gone through a few distinct changes over time. Massdrop was essentially a group-buy facilitation entity that effectively lowered prices for customers, as well as bringing some products to fruition that may not have happened otherwise.
Compared to that, they’re full-on fat-cats these days - though I do also want to give them credit for improving customer service and policy over the past four-ish years, and significantly improving transparency over the past six months or so. They’re still a corporate outfit that’s going to do all they can to be as profitable as possible - but they have at least course-corrected from the totally out-of-touch state I’d say they were in a few years back, and have legitimately at least tried to genuinely improve their relationship with customers.
If I could get DCX (and MT3) somewhere else I probably would - but hey - at least they aren’t HK Gaming. Looks like the documentation has been flushed from imgur, but they approached Oblotzky to see if he wanted to partner on some keycap sets… and sent him images of Oblivion clones among others to show what they could do. He politely pointed out that it felt weird to him given he designed the set - and here’s where they really messed up - the HK rep took it as something of a threat, and let’s just say he responded in a remarkably unprofessional way. Haven’t fooled with them at all since reading that correspondence. I hold my nose at Drop 'cause I love my Tera Plastics caps - but they were never that bad.
At the same time they made a conscious decision to make products essentially unavailable to the European market. We can still buy from them but with no warranty or return, and with added shipping costs that make all their offerings largely pointless over here.
The Full Set keycap sets (Dark Gray and Grayish Blue, Gray and Silver, Light Gray and White) are pre-order products, we plan to start shipping at the end of March 2023.
Specs
Material: Double-shot PBT
Thickness: 1.6 mm
Stem: MX style
Legend: Backlight does not shine through
Profile: KSA profile (Keychron redesigned SA profile)
pretty clear from this disclaimer that KBD isn’t expecting to bowl anyone over with the quality but I think these are pretty fun. Would have been interesting to see them take a stab at this with a PBTFans set similar to Klein, Pyga, or Neon but I’m sure they don’t want to make one-off molds for the 2048 fonts, icons, etc.
I can see it being very useful for multi-language users and generally with software
Personally using several languges is very annoying, especially since my native language decided to change the positions of the punctuation marks compared to English, so I’m often getting confused.
Assuming it can work automatically with Windows and apps it can be very convenient, setting shortcuts and generally having some keys being more visible than others.
I do think they need to add photos from standing position to see how the visible is the screen from those angles, that is a thick frame.
I’m also waiting for a review on that key frame, it has the potential being amazing, or being a nightmare with off-center binding and scratchyness.
I could see this being a fun thing to own, with some interesting aesthetic possibilities like a “transparent keyboard” deskpad background that updates the old “transparent screen” fad from 15-20 years ago.
I hope this product succeeds. But I have so many doubts that the actual product can live up to the hype and I worry that the daily use of this board will be far less enjoyable than a well-tuned budget mech. Additionally, the half dozen or so keys that seem like they’re not even with their adjacent keys is particularly concerning regarding typing feel:
I think it’s quite fair to lose one’s taste for shopping there after experiencing or hearing about something like that. Those Midnight switches really aren’t bad tho…
