I feel like it’s certainly worth the price I paid, and I love being able to buy in-stock items.
I have lubed and filmed gateron 8008 inks in this one. Built it with the included plate foam.
Favorites:
- The board angles are amazing. Very interesting design and makes it fun/easy to move around on the desktop.
- Finish is top-notch. Very smooth e-white coating feels and looks perfectly premium.
- The blue color of the plate adds a nice touch of character
- The weight gives a nice heft to the small form factor. Shiny blue sharky is beautiful
(See photo above)
Things that could improve:
- The overall feel is on the firmer side. I think a softer plate or a flex cut PCB would make for a more interesting feel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not harsh, but adding flex could make the kit stand out more.
- I had to cut the included plate foam to accomodate 2u backspace and stepped caps.
- Bottom row of plate is swiss cheese to accomodate split space and isn’t as nice looking without keycaps. I don’t use split space and I prefer a fixed Tsangan layout.
- Key feel is a bit uneven around the board. The top row feels much firmer and sounds different than the rest of the board. Probably could try building with a flex cut PCB to even it out more.
- I had an issue with a screw that got sorted out, but I was afraid I was going to strip it.
- There are no included instructions or build guide, so it takes a while to figure out what to do with the included gaskets. You get 2 full sets. There are recesses for gasket material on both the top and bottom of the board. But I’m fairly certain you are only supposed to use the material on the bottom. The pads are too thick to add to both the top and the bottom. At least that’s what I did and what I saw others do in videos online. It was a confusing step that could be cleared up. This leaves the plate sitting on the gasket material but touching the top of the housing. Seems to work, but I think fully isolating it from the top of the case might have been worth trying.
Overall, I’d give the kit as a whole an 8.5/10. I’m impressed and happy to add it to my collection. I look forward to trying some additonal plates (they have the plate file available on their website) and switch options in this one.
Might need to turn the volume up, the camera was too far away.
