deskthority

Sponsored by:

Vote in the final round of this category to win a MasterKeys S, a Knop Mini, and a MasterMouse from Cooler Master!

Nomination rules:
Please suggest nominees for the best modern keyboard or company active in 2017. You have to give a short motivation for each suggestion. A keyboard must be newer than November 26, 2016 to qualify for this year's DTAs. You cannot nominate a company you are associated with or a keyboard you created.

Current suggestions:

• kailh, for genuinely trying to innovate and improve upon the legendary cherry design with the click bar and box switch
• TX Keyboards, everything Kin produced in the last year (TX-CP, TX-1800 v2, Upcoming TX60 und TX65) is just plain awesome
• Leopold, doubleshot PBT keycaps finally, cherry profile too for the extra awesomeness on top
• GMK for steadily branching out towards the keyboard community and improving on their offering of keyboards and keyboard related products in a high quality market segment
• Novelkeys - with their heavies and their Big switches, they're reminding keyboard enthusiasts that this hobby can be fun
• Cooler Master for really acknowledging the community, the fact that they changed the bottom row for us is great, and all the keyboards I had from them were great
• The Key.Company for successful and incredibly smooth group-buys (most notable being GMK Terminal_). They continue to lead in the MK community with newer projects, such as GMK LedZep and TKC1800.
• Tai hao for making cheap popular Doubleshot sets that get people into the hobby
• Plum keyboards, because they are making affordable Electrastatic Capacitive switches (like those in topre) that are MX compatible and because mech greenhand is getting input from the community and answering questions in a public space. I think other manufactures can learn from that
• Keyboard.io for running a very transparent crowdfunding campaign and shipping their beautiful and innovative ergonomic keyboard (Model 01)
• GMK/Uniqey for their dedication to high quality cases and caps in a ready package
• MaxKey, giving option for SA other than SP
• I'd like to nominate shapeways for their ingenuous approach to artisan keycaps
• Cherry: for innovating with the Cherry MX silent range of switches, engaging with the community with their "developer" kits and attending Mechanicon, and their work re-tooling their switches.
• Talking about Vortex, they did very good things this year, they made new liked layouts (e.g. VIBE, RAC3) with some nice new Keycaps (DSA, SA) so they look at our communities! I just think they should also try to interact more with the communities, for example the 1.5 esc key on the Rac3 wasn't a good idea. Afterall i'm happy with what they did this year.
• KBD75. There are many good and super expensive keyboards with a dope design (e.g. The Time TKL), but i want to give my vote to the KBD75, that in the last year went super-popular making KBDFans popular as well. I'm voting this because it was one of the first keyboard that was good and at the same time affordable! It went popular for this.
• KBDFans. This was surely the year of KBDFans in our community, he went popular becuase he provided good things for a cheap price. They fucked up something like everyone, but they were nice enough to fix what they fucked up. Clear example might be the KBD75 that might have sold 700-1000 units at this point (probably even more) or the simple KBDFans 60% alu case that sold 500+ units (wtf)

The first round ends on Sunday 26 November, 19:00 UTC.

kailh , for genuinely trying to innovate and improve upon the legendary cherry deign with the click bar and box switch.

TX Keyboards. http://txkeyboards.com/en/

Everything Kin produced in the last year (TX-CP, TX-1800 v2, Upcoming TX60 und TX65) is just plain awesome.
Best possible anodisation, top mounted plates available in steel, brass and alu, brass weight (the boards are so heavy ).

Leopold

akawillis wrote: ↑Leopold

Motivation?

I'd like to nominate GMK for steadily branching out towards the keyboard community and improving on their offering of keyboards and keyboard related products in a high quality market segment.

Novelkeys - with their heavies and their Big switches, they're reminding keyboard enthusiasts that this hobby can be fun.

Definitely Kaihl this year for listening to our needs and innovating with the click bar, supplying many BOX switches and the Speed switches. They're finally doing something very different and it's paying off in my eyes

I want to nominate Cooler Master for really acknowledging the community, the fact that they changed the bottom row for us is great, and all the keyboards I had from them were great.

I would nominate The Key.Company for successful and incredibly smooth group-buys (most notable being GMK Terminal_). They continue to lead in the MK community with newer projects, such as GMK LedZep and TKC1800.

Tai hao for making cheap popular Doubleshot sets that get people into the hobby.

The HHKB, i dont like it personally but it's iconic

How about Plum keyboards, because they are making affordable Electrastatic Capacitive switches (like those in topre) that are MX compatible and because mech greenhand is getting input from the community and answering questions in a public space. I think other manufactures can learn from that

Keyboard.io for running a very transparent crowdfunding campaign and shipping their beautiful and innovative ergonomic keyboard (Model 01).

GMK/Uniqey for their dedication to high quality cases and caps in a ready package.
The new prototype seems to be a bit late for the awards, unfortunately.

webwit wrote: ↑kailh, for genuinely trying to innovate and improve upon the legendary cherry deign with the click bar and

But apparently TTC has a patent on this: https://www.wstx.com/p-24796-1

MaxKey, giving option for SA other than SP.

Cooler Master of course LOL! But please consider this post for fun, I am not gonna nominate my/our -selves

Kalih's switches have increased a ton in quality now, and the click bar is so nice.

webwit wrote: ↑

akawillis wrote: ↑Leopold

Motivation?

Doubleshot PBT keycaps finally, cherry profile too for the extra awesomeness on top.

I'd like to nominate shapeways for their ingenuous approach to artisan keycaps:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/UMAFN ... sa-profile

Delirious wrote: ↑Doubleshot PBT keycaps finally, cherry profile too for the extra awesomeness on top.

*Cough* They are Stepsculpture 2 not Cherry profile *cough*

I'd also like to +1 Leopold.

They went from FILCO clone to arguably the best MX production keyboard manufacturer with their constant upgrades, attention to detail, quality control and out of the box typing experience.

Cherry: for innovating with the Cherry MX silent range of switches, engaging with the community with their "developer" kits and attending Mechanicon, and their work re-tooling their switches.

Switches company: KAILH

Here the choice was hard because Cherry started to approach the community. The retool and the silent switch was purely for gamers and not for the community but i appreciate that they started to sell the developer kits. They only reason because i didn't picked Cherry is because they are a bit late to the game considering they were the first in this. Also i don't like that they are not pushing their best switch for me, Cherry Clear.
A retooled cherry clear with a lower spring would be dope (stock ergo clears!)

Kailh on the other side made a lot of progress this year, they are still not perfect but they are up to realize anything new. Their quality passed from shit to good enough really fast. They can basically do everything, look at that dope giant switch from Novelkeys lul



Gateron that started good didn't showed anything new apart from copying others, also it makes me mad that they won't produce a good tactile switch because of the zealios.
In a nutshell my vote goes to Kailh, but in a ladder: Kailh > Cherry > Gateron

Keyboard company: Tie: Cooler Master and Vortex

Of course i'm talking about popular companies and i think CM is the only one in the between the gamers and the community. They produce good keyboards, their price is not crazy, they do things that other "company for gamers" don't even try (e.g. Novatouch).
Also look at their new MK750, it is not my layout but for a good price they are mixing many good features, including a good design, an aluminium case and a detachable type C cable (magnetic i guess? idk)
On the bad side, i didn't saw many new things this year apart from that.

Talking about Vortex, they did very good things this year, they made new liked layouts (e.g. VIBE, RAC3) with some nice new Keycaps (DSA, SA) so they look at our communities! I just think they should also try to interact more with the communities, for example the 1.5 esc key on the Rac3 wasn't a good idea. Afterall i'm happy with what they did this year.

Best modern keyboard: KBD75

There are many good and super expensive keyboards with a dope design (e.g. The Time TKL), but i want to give my vote to the KBD75, that in the last year went super-popular making KBDFans popular as well.
I'm voting this because it was one of the first keyboard that was good and at the same time affordable! It went popular for this.


Best modern shop (can we say this?): KBDFans
This was surely the year of KBDFans in our community, he went popular becuase he provided good things for a cheap price. They fucked up something like everyone, but they were nice enough to fix what they fucked up.
Clear example might be the KBD75 that might have sold 700-1000 units at this point (probably even more) or the simple KBDFans 60% alu case that sold 500+ units (wtf)

jkaos92 wrote: ↑ Best modern shop (can we say this?): KBDFans
This was surely the year of KBDFans in our community, he went popular becuase he provided good things for a cheap price. They fucked up something like everyone, but they were nice enough to fix what they fucked up.
Clear example might be the KBD75 that might have sold 700-1000 units at this point (probably even more) or the simple KBDFans 60% alu case that sold 500+ units (wtf)

+1 for KBDfans. With so many shops and people acting on pure greed, KBDfans and their affordable prices are a welcome change.