Spoiler:
* My boss heard me typing during a meeting and immediately gave me a $50,000 a year raise.
* The Tamale Lady heard me through my open window and gave me the entire cart full of tamales.
* My kid heard me typing and got straight As on her report card.
* After typing for a week, my RSI cleared up and my back feels like I'm 18 again.
* After typing for a week, I converted 50lbs of fat into raw muscle.
... Yeah.
OK, while I haven't been working on keyboards extremely long, I have acquired two salmon/pink Alps keyboards (Wang 724/725 and AEK II), two orange Alps keyboards, 3 or 4 pine white Alps keyboards (including a Northgate OmniMac), one yellow Alps keyboard, and 4 or 5 cream damped Alps keyboards (all AEK IIs). So, I have some idea of what some of the more popular Alps switches feel like. I'll also mention that the white Alps switches in my keyboards are from at least two different generations, as one has the Alps stamp on the bottom housings and the other has the stamp on both the bottom and top housings.
You can also see from the (bad) pic I took of this blue Alps keyboard that the keyboard I have is in fantastic shape with very little yellowing. The case is visually similar to the Dell and SGI bigfoot cases, which I've heard are supposed to be very good for clicky switches.
It's ... good. It's occasionally excellent, especially when I type quickly. However, do note that I'm not trained as a typist and use two to three fingers on one hand and one or two on the other, so "real" typists might like this switch more.
Someone mentioned in an old thread that blue Alps feel a bit like a Model M. I'd like to change that to "Model F." It's got some of both the ping and feel of the F, but with more travel depth.
The spacebar sounds fantastic and both feels and sounds like Kailh thick click Box Jades or Box Navys.
The big thing people want to know is how blues compare to the much more common whites. If we're talking about the early pine whites, they're very similar. The weighting feels considerably higher on the blues, more like salmon Alps or a bit higher, and the sound is much better on the blues, as the high end ping of the whites is gone. The second gen whites in my Northgate compare less favorably for both feel and sound, even though the Northgate is built like a tank and has a metal bottom case.
It is possible that this keyboard will be better after cleaning and lubing. However, I'm not sure I'll do that as the #1 rule of Alps club is, if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. I will ret0bright the keycaps (doubleshot, btw), but not the case.
I've got to say that one of the reasons I bought a blue Alps board is because of the massive amount of hype about them. If you want a blue Alps keyboard, I recommend that you half your expectations. It's a very good switch. If you want something a bit lighter that doesn't sound quite as good, get a keyboard that has as old as possible white Alps. Of course, you want a keyboard in good shape. Not a beater.
That's it for this review. Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. And following is a typing demonstration of me typing on this keyboard.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
