I was expecting the weight to be like 500 grams but it’s 2 kilos! This has got to be really low quality aluminum as thin as they can make it with a lead weight.
The shipping price of $7 global air has me questioning reality…
Edit: I’m glad you rolled the dice on this because I have so many questions lol
For whatever reason they don’t mention it on that sales page, but it was in the IC and shown in this video:
From the video, it seems like the diffuser is powered by the keyboard through some sort of magnetic connection. Interesting at the very least.
That’s just strange…
Poster-keeb for this thread, really
I’ll take the gift! /s
I might buy one for myself though. Looks pretty awesome considering it comes with gasket mount and knobs for $60.
Jeeze, I can’t get over how ridiculous that is, but at the same time I weirdly like it.
This looks decently well made in the reviews I’ve seen. Have you handled a Womier S-K71, for example? A couple years ago these would have been limited run group buy boards. Now they sell for well under 100 dollars.
I had seen the Womier S-K71 mentioned here a few times, but I finally looked it up after your comment… and I’m kind of blown away by the features you get for the price. Literally the only box it doesn’t tick is that it doesn’t have QMK/VIA.
I really did get into this hobby at the worst possible time (mid-2020, lulz) and while I don’t regret any purchases, I would have probably saved a boatload of money if I discovered our little rabbit hole just a couple years later. Perhaps the fit and finish on my custom GB boards is a bit better, but is it $300-400 better? I’m actually excited for anyone getting into keyboards now… and maybe a teeny bit jealous lol
To be honest, I saw a review on YouTube and I simply could not believe it. I looked it up on AliExpress and saw that I could get one for 79 Euro delivered, so I took a chance. I was pretty blown away. It’s nearly 2kg of CNC Aluminum, gasket mount on PC plate, and included some nice switches (although too soft for my own taste) and some half decent keycaps, with the rest of the set in the box so that you can use them on a different board. Tri mode and has a physical Mac mode switch too.
If it had QMK/VIA as you say, and if the PCB were drilled for screw-in stabs, this would be a world beater. In 2018 you would have had to join a group buy for $500 to get a board this good.
I really do wonder how it’s possible to turn a profit on something like this. Obviously, economy of scale factors in at some point, so maybe it really is that simple once you sell enough of a particular board. I’ll always have a warm spot in my heart for quirky, small run boards, but it’s certainly a bumpy and expensive path, so it’s really nice to see that great features are making their way to much more affordable keyboards.
It’s not just economy of scale in the “make millions of these and pile high, sell cheap” sense, because I don’t think many of these boards are being sold by the boatload. It’s that with the present state of technology, the setup to build a few thousand boards is faster and cheaper. CNC machines are set up remotely and need only the design files, same for the plates and PCBs. Lower cost means, obviously, that margins don’t have to be thinner, but the overall result is downward pressure on prices.
The more interesting part is to speculate when the next manufacturing transition will happen, because ultimately Chinese margins will erode and they will have to outsource to somewhere with lower costs in their turn.