Best modern keyboard or company

Best modern keyboard or company

Poll ended at 06 Dec 2017, 20:00

Kailh
63
33%
GMK
36
19%
Cooler Master
13
7%
Cherry
9
5%
KBDfans
68
36%
 
Total votes: 189

User avatar
webwit
Wild Duck

01 Dec 2017, 20:22

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Sponsored by:
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Vote in this category to win a MasterKeys S, a Knop Mini, and a MasterMouse from Cooler Master!

Round 3 rules:
Please vote for the best best modern keyboard or company of 2017.

This is the final round. See the first round and second round for reference.

The final round ends on Wednesday 6 December, 19:00 UTC. You can change your vote until the end of the round by resubmitting the poll. The winner and full results will be released soon after the vote closes.

Official nominees:

Kailh
Kaihua Electronics, branded as Kailh, is a Chinese electronics component manufacturer, founded in 1990. Kaihua's new copper, bronze, gold, silver, and BOX switches have very interesting designs. They genuinely tried to innovate and improve upon the legendary Cherry design with the click bar and BOX switches.

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Kailh made a lot of progress this year.

GMK
GMK electronic design is a German manufacturer specialising in keyboards and custom peripherals. They acquired Cherry's double-shot molding tooling and are therefore able to produce Cherry double-shot keycaps, from where Cherry left off in 2011. The keycaps are exclusively produced in Germany. GMK's holistic approach, from product design to in-house manufacturing, reflects their strive for excellent results regarding quality and flexibility.

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GMK steadily branched out towards the keyboard community and improved on their offering of keyboards and keyboard related products in a high quality market segment.

Cooler Master
Cooler Master really acknowledged the community, the fact that they changed the bottom row for us is great, and whatever your preference - LED lighting, or functionality over flash, ISO or ANSI - they deliver, with a variety of possible MX switches. If you're looking for a quality brand that's widely available, Cooler Master provides.

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The Cooler Master Masterkeys S competes with the Filco Majestouch TKL, the quintessential vanilla mechanical keyboard.

Cherry
Cherry, the German manufacturer of the very popular Cherry MX switch range, stepped up their game this year. They innovated with the Cherry MX silent range of switches, re-tooled their switch production, engaged with the community with their developer kits, and attended Mechanicon.

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Has it always been a wish of yours to own an individually customised keyboard, but you don’t know where to start? Try the Cherry MX switch developer kit.

KBDfans
This was surely the year of KBDfans in our community, becoming popular for providing quality products and services for a cheap price. Even when they make a rare error, the customer service is great and they just fix it. The KBD75, the KBDfans 60% aluminum case, and various other products have found their way to many satisfied keyboard enthousiasts.

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KBDfans and their affordable prices for good products are a welcome change.

User avatar
mecano

02 Dec 2017, 22:12

Just to be sure, because of the Plum connection, KBDfans = ez mandarin = mech greenhand?

User avatar
jkaos92

03 Dec 2017, 11:05

mecano wrote: Just to be sure, because of the Plum connection, KBDfans = ez mandarin = mech greenhand?

No.

KBDFans = KBDFans (KBD75, 5' degree case, many other good things), popular and loved on the community
EZ Mandarin = a bad aliexpress shop if i'm not wrong?
mech greenhand = A user here on DT who sold Plum keyboards?

AuthenticDanger

03 Dec 2017, 23:00

KBDFans is making this hobby extremely accessible for newer members.

User avatar
mecano

03 Dec 2017, 23:38

jkaos92 wrote:
mecano wrote: Just to be sure, because of the Plum connection, KBDfans = ez mandarin = mech greenhand?

No.

KBDFans = KBDFans (KBD75, 5' degree case, many other good things), popular and loved on the community
EZ Mandarin = a bad aliexpress shop if i'm not wrong?
mech greenhand = A user here on DT who sold Plum keyboards?
EZ Mandarin is mech greenhand if I'm not mistaking.
I won't say his shop bad as I never used it.
Never red any bad things about it here.
Turns out, he and KBDFans are selling similar things (more variety on KBDFans I guess).
On some stuff (like acrylic 60% cases pack of 2) mech greenhand is cheaper but prices look close so I wondered.

User avatar
Menuhin

04 Dec 2017, 00:40

By "modern keyboard company", I believe it refers to those that still exist today.
For innovation and daring to be different, Fingerworks and DataHand came to my mind. Fingerworks was acquired by Apple for its gesture and keyboard implementation, though totally not mechanical.
DataHand... I dunno, it seems to be hanging in here, carrying on.

https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stoc ... Id=5018196

But...
https://www.datahand.com/about-us

User avatar
jkaos92

04 Dec 2017, 01:25

mecano wrote:
jkaos92 wrote:
mecano wrote: Just to be sure, because of the Plum connection, KBDfans = ez mandarin = mech greenhand?

No.

KBDFans = KBDFans (KBD75, 5' degree case, many other good things), popular and loved on the community
EZ Mandarin = a bad aliexpress shop if i'm not wrong?
mech greenhand = A user here on DT who sold Plum keyboards?
EZ Mandarin is mech greenhand if I'm not mistaking.
I won't say his shop bad as I never used it.
Never red any bad things about it here.
Turns out, he and KBDFans are selling similar things (more variety on KBDFans I guess).
On some stuff (like acrylic 60% cases pack of 2) mech greenhand is cheaper but prices look close so I wondered.

Well many aliexpress/china sellers have similar things but KBDFans also sells unique things. They both have an aliexpress shop but i never heard good things about EZ Mandarin honestly.

KBDFans went very popular this last year because he keeps having new things, doing new GBs and he always keep low/accessible prices for good products. Most of his GBs are directly from his designs, while EZ Mandarin should just be someone selling already known things, just a Taobao/aliexpress vendor i guess (?)

User avatar
Menuhin

04 Dec 2017, 01:48

I hope there can be more companies like KBDFans, the community can accommodate a few more of them.
And for those who have money, please keep them stay alive, healthy and happy! :D

User avatar
Haaaaaandrew

04 Dec 2017, 14:44

KBDfans is great, I've purchased several items from them and it was some of the best customer service I'd seen from an online seller. They host smooth GBs and keep coming up with attractive products at pretty attractive prices. We really need more small vendors like them.

Origami_Rabbit

04 Dec 2017, 16:41

A big shout out to KBDfans. ;)

User avatar
webwit
Wild Duck

05 Dec 2017, 22:56

Less than a day left to vote. Currently, between two nominees, it's a tight fight, it's a dirty fight, it's still undecided! The results will be announced Wednesday 6 December from 19:00 UTC.

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