Of all the group buys I joined last year that will be shipping this year, I’m easily most hyped for the 650.
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Well, you and your friend have great taste! 
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This makes me wish I were more into 65% boards. I like the Discipline because it is fun to build, but that is the only 65% in my stable.
Looks killer!
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Beautiful board. Great job with the photo and the build?
What switches are you using?
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Enjoying some natural light this afternoon.
A few more images of this resin case build; a humble GK61x PCB with an aftermarket plate intended to facilitate installation into standard GH60-style tray mounts, Art Box Browns, and GMK Red Samurai R1.
The Sun is my favorite light source.
Lovely keycap grain, with a garnish of apartment dust.
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I do think it is one of the more ambitious keyboard projects to have launched last year, taking into consideration the additional machining required for the visual design, the Bluetooth capabilities, and the complexity introduced by the modular top piece.
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Thanks! Hopefully, they will take their design and expand it to other form factors as well haha
I see you have a good amount of sub-60% boards as well - is there a particular entry point you would recommend to get into that world?
Much appreciated!
My current go-to’s when reviewing a hotswap board are Gateron Ink Black v2s (lubed with Tribosys 3204 and filmed with Deskeys) and Gateron Yellows (lubed with Krytox 205g0). I feel that these give a pretty good indication of the sound and feel overall.
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Rama Kara, I’m sure the first of many in this thread 
“soya” color pinoko switches and pbt notion. I already have some thoughts but I haven’t typed on it yet so I’ll wait to tomorrow
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Hard to believe those are relatively budget caps on a relatively budget board. Looks fantastic.
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You would never know from typing on it either. This thing punches way above its weight class
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This relatively accelerated trend reminds me of a not too dissimilar one in the world of cycling.
From the beginning up through the late 70’s, the vast majority of even road-oriented bikes were heavy as hell and “ergonomics” might as well have been a word from Mars.
In the 80’s, though - bikes started getting lighter and more accessible. Mid-tier bikes started being more approachable for new or casual riders.
In the 90’s, this really picked up. Bikes got really light, and reliable, easy to use drive-trains became a lot more accessible. This is also when ergonomics really started to enter the mass-market, further opening-up approach-ability and increasing the quality of life for riders.
For me, comparing something like a Schwinn World Sport from the 70’s vs one from the 80’s is a bit like comparing a Durgod Hades to a KBD67L. An old “gas-pipe” low-end Pugeot compared with their current entry-level roadie is kind of like a early Razer Black Widow vs their new Huntsman v2 - or maybe an NK65EE.
In this short amount of time, the quality of what you can get for a modest sum has really jumped-up - especially compared to how long bikes (and keebs) have been around.
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Officially sick of swapping keycaps. Trying to see if something would look better on my 280 than the standard muted and 9009.
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sandstorm and red riot both look great imo. I think sandstorm is a super underrated set that will look good on almost anything
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The PCB for the board is red and shows through the PC plate. Otherwise, I would have never thought to put red with this blue-gray board. But it actually works really well. I’m using the blank beige caps for the moment b/c I took the photo last and my fingers hurt from swapping keycaps! Also, I don’t think I’ve ever had a blank PBT set on a TKL, so it’s something fun to use for a while.
I have a feeling ePBT 6085 will earn a permanent spot on these board when it gets here.
WoB is just so classy !
I didn’t know where this was going at first. After the first sentence I imagined something like the old “Perfection” board game, except it would pop all of the caps off of your board:
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WARNING: wall of text
I’ve been clacking away all day so I guess I have some first thoughts (in no particular order):
On the keyboard
- maybe it’s been covered before/same as M60 but I didn’t get one of those and kind of ignored it, but needing to take the board all the way apart to change the switches or even keycaps seems to partially defeat the purpose of hot swap to me. There is no support whatsoever under the pcb, so I would not put switches in without taking it out to support the how swap sockets, and it flexes almost more than I am comfortable with the press the caps on
- I get that it’s supposed to be a “budget” board, but did they really need to be stingy and give an exact number of screws, especially the little ones? I dropped one of the little ones that holds the plate and a screw that small dropped into the carpet is as good as gone forever… I skipped out on the screw for the plate near the middle of the spacebar since I dropped one and it doesn’t seem like it really mattered that much though.
- The big screws on the bottom plate seemed much harder to screw in than they ought to have been, but I couldn’t really see why and put them in and took them out a few times and it didn’t really change and they seem fine so idk I think it’s fine, just seemed strange
- The sound is very nice (I used pinoko switches and PBT notion keycaps, more on those below), I think the “mute” rubber thing definitely helps with how hollow the case is, but I will still probably put something inside there to dampen it a bit more because there is still sometime a bit of a rattly hollow sound, but it’s still not nearly as much as I would have expected. it’s probably worth just getting the dampener.
- It is very flexy, like a lot. It seems a bit more flexy toward the edges. In the manual they tell you to put the keycaps on before you assemble it, and I waited for a few of them and now I see why, the force needed to put the keycaps on made it flex a lot. The typying feel is overall very nice
- This thing is light. Would definitely make a nice travel board. despite being so light it still feels very sturdy
- I wish it had full size right shift, but that’s just a me thing. I don’t remember if there was an option for solder PCB with options but if there was I should have got it
- Quality seems very good, I didn’t notice any marks or issues, sprue marks, etc, color is consistent, pieces fit together well, very solid feeling in hand
- I appreciate the long rubber strips for feet instead of the bump ons you see all too often, bump ons come off way to easy for my liking
On the pinoko swiches:
- These are the first JWK switches I have really used much, they are very nice, I find them plenty smooth stock idk that they even really need to be lubed
- some do have some spring ping it seems, and it seems like the sound is like amplified or echoes in the case
- the spring weight is a little bit heavy for me I think, idk, maybe will lube even though I just said they don’t seem like they need it and put a lighter spring
On the keycaps:
- these keycaps are a slam dunk. seriously. I don’t see anything wrong with them, they look awesome, feel great and sound great
- the coverage is great, covers anything I could ever want it to
- I love the font. Especially the Q. So good
- If I’m being really nitpicky a colored escape key and having the colored control key that goes where caps lock is be a different color than enter would have been nice, but again these are small nitpicks this set is awesome
With the orange USB cable and keycaps accents on the beige this is like the only keyboard I’ve ever had that matches my ugly-ass beige and orange home mouse (it’s the best mouse ever to use though) I was thinking this would be a nice new forever work board (somewhat inconspicuous, not super valuable if something were to happen to it, etc) but it just matches so well 
As far as competition/similar boards I would say I like the plastics in hand feel/build quality and flexy typing feel a lot more than the NK65, although I think I like the overall aesthetic of the NK65 maybe a bit more. I built my NK65 with clicky switches so I don’t think I can make a fair sound comparison between the two. I don’t have a kbd67 lite or bauer lite or any of the other ones this gets lumped around with to compare to. Another interesting comparison would be the hhkb, since by the time this is fully kitted out the cost is probably similar, and dare I say it, I think I like this better, although it comes with the caveat that my hhkb has bke redux heavy domes that I don’t really like in it and it has been a long time since I used the stock domes.
Overall I would rate this board very highly and absolutely recommend it, my biggest complaint is the hollow sound (which some foam will probably easily take care of) and that is absolutely offset by the great price and build quality.
Thanks for reading my random thoughts/mini-review.
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