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I've had this one for six months and I've never felt so enamored with a PC accessory: https://drop.com/buy/drop-alt-mechanical-keyboard https://drop.com/buy/dro
by brundolf 6y ago
I've had this one for six months and I've never felt so enamored with a PC accessory: https://drop.com/buy/drop-alt-mechanical-keyboard https://drop.com/buy/drop-alt-mechanical-keyboard
I had a Das keyboard before this for ~6 years, and it was great, but I just didn't love it like I love this one.
Things I love:
- The body is weighty aluminum. It feels really solid and looks fantastic.
- The keys are made of very high-quality plastic (Doubleshot PBT) and feel noticeably more premium even than the ones on my Das, almost like they're made of metal.
- Each key has an independent LED, and the border around the outside is made up of 38 more independent LEDs, all of which can be configured
- Key switches (not just caps) can be swapped out without any soldering. This is a very unique feature; I don't really take advantage of it personally, but if it's something you care about it's great to have.
- There is no background software that ever has to be installed on your computer for configuration or otherwise. There are some prebuilt configurations you can toggle with the keys alone, and then for detailed layers/keymapping/LED mapping, you use their web portal to generate and download a whole new ROM and then you flash it directly onto the keyboard. The process is pretty straightforward, and this means it works across OSes and you never have to worry about what else a local daemon might be doing on your computer. You can even program it yourself by hand using QMK, if you're feeling adventurous.
This is a 65% keyboard, so if you need the dedicated function keys and/or Insert/Home/etc, there's an 80% (ten-key-less) version called the CTRL which has everything except the numpad (and all the same wonderful traits above)
- elcano 6y agoI like the CTRL layout. Actually, I like almost everything about it. But I don't want to abuse my luck. There are people still experiencing chattering issues with this keyboard as recently as this year, even when the issue was supposed to be fixed in 2019. I read that the Drop Alt also suffered this issue. People recommend changing switches but come on, you don't need to do this when having a good design. This problem is not that common with other keyboards - you don't have to throw away your switches because your keyboard doesn't like them. There are also different denouncing algorithms in QMK (but you can implement custom, more advanced methods). The thing is that I expect my products to be fully tested working before I buy them.
- brundolf 6y agoFwiw I've never had any problems with mine. I am still using the stock switches though