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edit: Oh and please tell me if you like or don't like the reviews. Former will make me happy and latter will make me better. Thanks <3<3
DAS Keyboard Ultimate S - 119€
Features
The DAS Ultimate S comes in a cardboard box, where it is wrapped into a plastic protection hull. It comes with a little "Thank you" note and a cloth that can be used to clean the surface.
It features a comfortably long and thick (probably very sturdy) cable, that ends in two USB outputs. One has a PS/2 connector on it by default, the other one is used to activate the two USB 2.0 inputs that are on the top right of the keyboard, next to the three lights that indicate NumLock, CapsLock and ScrollLock (these lights are integrated into the glossy surface which looks really cool). At the bottom side there are two little feet that allow you to angle up the keyboard a bit. Some people might prefer typing in such a position.
I have the EU layout of the keyboard (which has 105 keys compared to the English 104 afaik) but apart from that it is completely standard. No fancy key repositionings and no extra keys. However, one of the interesting twists is that there are no labels on the keys whatsoever. It looks pretty cool and it's not exactly a downside, because whoever would spend 100$+ on a keyboard can probably type blindly anyways. It can, however, be a bit irritating when the keyboard is used to play games, such as RPGs where you want to hit a certain button, with
your left hand, which you would usually use your right hand for (for example I for inventory).
The DAS Ultimate S features Cherry MX Blue Switches.
(Note that the DAS Model S is available in other versions too. There is an edition called Professional, which is slightly more costly but has its keys labeled. Both the Ultimate and the Professional can be ordered in a Silent version, which has Brown instead of Blue Switches.)
Quality
The DAS Ultimate S appears to be manufactured very well although there are some issues, which I will address later in this section.
When unboxing the product, one immediately notices its very significant weight. This is of course due to the way mechanical keyboards are built, as they don't have a membrane layer which is used to activate every key, but rather unique switches for every single key, which itself are mounted on some kind of plate. All these components together obviously add up to more weight than a regular membrane keyboard would have. (Please excuse my limited knowledge but I thought I would try to present the basic idea :D) The weight leads to the keyboard being fairly hard to push around on the table, which is good if you like having it in a certain position, it can be a bit irritating if you are someone who likes to reposition it fairly often.
Overall "solid", "sturdy" and "heavy" are the attributes that come to my mind first. The frame that the keys are fit in has a very significant border (~1 cm) and the top right area with the lights and the USB hub stands out as well.
The major downside of this product (to me) is the glossy surface of the frame. Not only does it attract fingerprints and sweat stains like a champ, but even the tiniest dust particle or hair will be visible. Since I planned to be very careful with these keyboards, because I knew I would have to send one back eventually, I had to wash my hands incredibly often because they tend to get very sweaty and I have the feeling that if I would use it over a longer period of time, both the matte keycaps and the glossy frame would become very unpleasant to look at (to say the least). Another thing is the USB hub, which is a nice idea in itself but I'm not sure if I would ever want to put anything in there, because I feel like the cable/USB stick/... would always interfere with my mouse movement. If they would have put the inputs to the back instead of the right side of the frame it would be much more convenient to use.
Feeling
I would label the overall feel and sound of the DAS Ultimate S as amazing, without any second thoughts. But of course, some distinctions have to be made, so lets jump right into that.
Cherry MX Blue Switches are commonly characterized as the ones that are clicky, tactile and very good for typing, as they give you a clear feel and response when you activate them. They are usually presented as "not that good for gaming".
Pressing the keys (without associating that with any context) feels really, really good. I thoroughly enjoy the clicky sound. Depending on how hard you type it can be quite loud, so someone in the same room might get irritated by it, but you don't really hear it through walls or anything. (If you want to get a sound impression you should watch Destiny's stream. He uses a DAS and the sound you hear from the keys is pretty accurate.) The travel distance of the keys is very convenient - you don't have to bottom out to get the switch to activate, the
actuation point is located at less than halfway down I think. That also means that you have to almost fully release it to have it deactivate. I employ a relatively swift typing method, where my hands don't rest on the keys but hover a few millimeters above them and this keyboard works extremely well with it. The force required to get beyond the actuation point is enough to let me rest my fingertips on the keys (with my muscles completely loose) without pushing down any keys, which, again, is very convenient. The only initial problem I had with resting my hands is that the edge of the keyboard is rather high (~1.5 cm). It caused a bit of pain in my hands during the first two hours of usage but then they got used to it.
All that said, I would absolutely recommend this keyboard for typing. I have used it for two days, coded, posted and browsed with it and naturally I wrote its review with it and I'm having a blast using it. Some people with smaller hands might want to use a handrest though, so they don't get fatigued by the high edge.
Now on to gaming. Playing StarCraft on this keyboard is great as well, if you are on a certain level. If you can't play blindly, it will get rather difficult due to the lack of labels on the keycaps. I personally had no issue at all and hearing your APM click away simply is a joy (Destiny aka Steven Bonnell II can confirm). It's not a surprise either, really, because playing StarCraft is very similar to typing.
I also played some other games with it, namely STALKER, which is an RPGish FPS. And this, I have to say, was rather weird because the clicks of your keyboard can be irritating when you're actively moving around in a first or third person view. It certainly is acceptable but it can be detrimental to the atmosphere of the game you're playing, depending on your personal preference (and the volume of the game sound I guess).
Summary
The DAS Ultimate S is an amazing keyboard, which seems to be manufactured very well. The Blue Switches are a joy to type on and suit playing StarCraft (and other high-APM games) very well. In single player games however, where you need much fewer key presses and where you might want to enjoy a certain atmosphere, the loud clicking can be annoying. The only downsides might be the high weight and size of the keyboard as well as the material of
the keys and the frame surface. Although it looks nice, it's not exactly compatible with a dusty nerd-table and sweaty nerd-hands. The price is average but reasonable for a keyboard with such good features and high quality.
Now let's get it on with the other keyboard I purchased! I'm going to keep this part of the review a bit shorter because a lot of things about mechanical keyboards in general have been said in the first part already. Also I will have no choice but to write the Filco review in a rather comparative way, to see how it fares against its competitor. After that I will tell you which one I decided to keep and why.
Filco Majestouch 2 - 149€
Features
The Filco Majestouch 2 comes in a similarly sized box but instead of it being wrapped in plastic it's just covered by a hard plastic protection hull. + Show Spoiler [can be seen in this picture] +
![[image loading]](http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/img/products/2/7/27cef5e32aec7ca8ff6af886e6dbb7e9-5.jpg?x)
With the keyboard comes a manual which mainly says that you actually need no manual for this product. Makes sense eh.
The Filco does have regularly labelled keys and again, I do own it in the German layout version. The switch type is Cherry MX Brown.
(The Filco Majestouch 2 is also available with Blue or Black switches. They can be recognized by the LED color – Black Switches → red LEDs, Brown Switches → blue LEDs, Blue Switches → green LEDs)
Quality
Since I tried this keyboard second, I had no choice but to immediately compare it to the DAS. It comes across less massive and my first impression was that it seems a bit “cheaper” although the actual weight seems very similar between the two. I didn't let that first glance fool me though and I tested it and played with it to get a good feeling of it.
The reason for this initial view I had on the keyboard is due to the character of the Brown Switches (I'll get to those in the 'Feeling' section) and the much smaller frame size of the Filco. Where the DAS has a noticeable amount of frame space beyond the keys, the Filco keeps it to a minimum and therefore is much more compact.
As I already mentioned, the weight Majestouch is fairly high, which, together with the rubber feet, makes it easy to keep it in a consistent position on your desk. However, if you like repositioning it frequently you're going to have an easy time doing so because of the rather small size and it being quite easy to grab.
Probably the most important difference to the DAS is that the surface of both the key caps and especially the frame is rather rough, which helps keeping fingerprints and dust and all those nuisances away. Which, as I mentioned in the first review, is huge for me because I tend to have sweaty hands and I have a lot of small hairs flying around and stuff.
Feeling
As brought up before, the first typing impression was a bit weird because it didn't feel as defined as the DAS, which was probably due to the very different character of the Cherry MX Brown Switches. They are usually labelled as the middle-ground between typing and gaming switches. They don't feature the light, clicky sound; they rather rattle – which is awesome.
Messing around with the keys out of any context feels much different to the Blues. They don't feel as defined and more squishy since the actuation point of the keys lies very high (I would say you hit it after the first quarter of the total key travel distance). You also need less force (compared to the Blues) to get past it. Never the less, they are tactile so you will always feel when you activate them.
All this gives the Browns a lighter feel to them, whereas I would characterize the Blues as rather heavy, which is why I had that initial impression of them feeling “cheap”. But don't get me wrong, they are actually awesome. I really like the rattle-ish sound they produce when typing or playing on them (check Liquid`Tyler's stream for a good sound sample) and since they don't require much force to press it's easy to type on them even if you are lazy and you don't feel like smashing around on your keyboard.
Typing in general feels good on the Filco. Looking at it in a direct comparison with the DAS: Key-wise it can't quite beat the Blues. Seriously, these things are just made for letting your fingers fly all over the keyboard and clicking the hell out of it. Also, the sound of the space bar is a bit distracting because it's much louder and deeper than the other keys. That might also just be a problem with my specific copy of the product but I thought it was worth mentioning it.
Overall though, I find the Filco slightly more comfortable, because I don't have to shove my hands past a huge edge (it's a bit lower on the Filco) AND good chunk of frame-area - I can access the keys more easily. It also leaves you with more freedom regarding how you type, as mentioned above. And – again – it's a huge plus if you don't feel like you're making the whole thing dirty and nasty when you put your hands on it.
I love playing StarCraft II on the Majestouch. It just has the right feel. I think it doesn't matter if you have a rather low APM style where you hit select buttons precisely or if you just hack and spam away – the keyboard feels great for both and so much better and precise than my old, crappy, cheap Logitech. You won't become a pro over night just by using this keyboard but you certainly get one step closer
I also messed around in STALKER with this one and it suits WASD games much better than the DAS to be honest. Only the loud space bar can be distracting, but other than that it won't be a detriment to your game experience at all.
Summary
The Filco Majestouch 2 is great keyboard that finds great usage in both continuous typing and long gaming sessions. It features a minimalistic and conservative style, with a 100% standard key layout and a very small frame without any gimmicks, which is great for everyone who just wants a durable high quality piece of computer periphery/gaming gear. There are no major flaws on this model. The price is pretty hefty, but not as high as you can get in regular mechanical keyboards, although I personally would steer away from spending more on a keyboard. Never the less I think it's worth it for the Filco Majestouch because it seems that it can last very long and the quality is extraordinary.
Here is which one of the two I decided to keep. I'm not sure if it was obvious from the reviews but you might want to have a guess before you open the spoiler or something like that.
+ Show Spoiler [Decision] +
I decided to keep the Filco. The decision would have been much harder/closer if it weren't for the glossy surface of the DAS. It would've been too much of a pain to clean it every time I use it – plus all the bad feelings for making it dirty in the first place. Also I think I like the Browns a bit more, although the Blues won't ever be beaten when it comes to typing.
Thank you for reading these reviews, I hope they helped some of you or were an interesting read at least! I was very uncertain about how much I should spend on a mechanical keyboard and what switches I should get. Purchasing two and just returning one turned out to be a great decision.
If you have any questions, please ask away, I will answer everything I can!
drooL
edit:
On July 12 2011 23:35 T0fuuu wrote:
Im hesitant to reccommend filcos and most supposed high end keyboards. In my opinion the keycaps they use are pretty cheap compared to the doubleshots and plastics old mechanical keyboards have. The keycaps on my filco got shiny in a few weeks and the print is coming off some of the keys.
Im hesitant to reccommend filcos and most supposed high end keyboards. In my opinion the keycaps they use are pretty cheap compared to the doubleshots and plastics old mechanical keyboards have. The keycaps on my filco got shiny in a few weeks and the print is coming off some of the keys.
This is good information. Of course I can't talk about these keyboards in a long-term way so I appreciate this remark. I'm interested to see if this will happen to my Filco as well.
![[image loading]](http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b135/Firkraag8/b960d8bd.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b135/Firkraag8/cfd4e563.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/134sl.jpg/)
