Great review, even though it was disappointing verdict! I’ve been keeping an eye on these new hall effect boards ever since XMIT got on board. I have a bamboo 60% from the 1st rd. of XMIT branded boards & pretty much came to the same conclusion on it as you did here. Overpriced & underwhelming to say the least. Although at this point it is a damn shame as APT has plenty of time & feedback to improve these.
From the looks of your review unit they put all their efforts into improving the cases, PCBs, & RGB lighting. All which did have room to improve, but were secondary problems to the switches themselves IMO. In their current form I can only see them being accepted by consumers in a bargain bin sub $50 board. At $200 they are really pushing towards the death of this revival. Personally I think they need to take the switches themselves back to the drawing board. If they’d come up with a self contained unit along the lines of the original Honeywell HE switches I think they could be improved to the point that even us enthusiasts will accept them. In their current form they dead in the water.
I did everything I could think of to make the switches on my rd.1 XMIT board feel even just decent, but no luck. They are just too cheaply made for lube or any mods to have a great effect on them. I mean it is almost insulting they have them in a board that cost $200 & it’s gonna put a huge dent in their reputation (or outright kill the product line completely) if they keep plodding along with the switches in their current form. They got a good ideal but need to execute it much better. That said now I’m wondering why XMIT is no longer involved with them?