deskthority

Hi guys,

I did not see any thread about that brand new keyboard from Cooler Master:



http://www.cmstorm.com/en/products/keyb ... ickfiretk/


That's the fifth they release, and comes with a pretty strange layout as you can see.
Now, let's argue. Pros:

-Steel plate. No cheap PCB mounting, that's what I call a good piece of news.
-Multimedia keys on the function row. But the layout is pretty awkard. Why did they choose to put the control keys from F5 to F10, and not on F1/F5? Gonna be pretty difficult to mute the computer only using one hand.
-Full backlit. Comes in three colors, blue, red, and white.
-Small form factor.
-The layout you want. So yeah, here is the first (?) not full size keyboard which will be available as a Qwerty, Qwertz, Azerty or Nordic. Good news!
-3 Cherry switches: Blue, Red, and Brown.
-Removable USB wire.

Cons:
-The weight. Only 544g? That's strange, knowing it features a steel plate. A tenkey less from Ducky is around 1.2 kg. I'm afraid of a cheap plastic case. We will see.
-The design, not really smart.
-You cannot change the backlit color. Red goes with red switches, blue with blue, and white with brown.
-ABS keycaps. I wonder if they will be easily replaceable.


I think I said it all.
What do you think? Better or worse than KBT Race, Ducky Shine II, Key Cool 87, and so on? Build quality is my main concern here.

I agree that the orientation of the function keys seems weird. On my ducky they have the media control to the left and the light controls on the right, and that seems to make more sense.
Also, is it normal to have brown steel plate coating? Brown really? That seems weird, especially with a white blacklight. Wouldn't it look way cooler with black on white?
I bet it will be worse build quality than say a ducky (you noted the weight difference) but I bet it will also be a bunch cheaper!

lxrogers wrote:I agree that the orientation of the function keys seems weird. On my ducky they have the media control to the left and the light controls on the right, and that seems to make more sense.
Also, is it normal to have brown steel plate coating? Brown really? That seems weird, especially with a white blacklight. Wouldn't it look way cooler with black on white?
I bet it will be worse build quality than say a ducky (you noted the weight difference) but I bet it will also be a bunch cheaper!

The steel plate color and the back lighting change depending on what color of switches it uses.

Are those media controls behind fn? If so it's really not that bad considering fn is on right side.

Hi guys,

about the weight, the keyboard is actually 950 grams. There is a mistake in the official description. I got the information from this review of the TK:

http://www.cowcotland.com/articles/1222 ... re-tk.html

Still waiting for availability.

The one problem I can see is that some software (primarily old DOS games, though) will expect the scancodes to be in the right layout with numlock off (so, the brakes in a racing game will probably be 1 or 3, if they were smart enough to do that remap properly, and if they weren't, no brakes for you). Still, an interesting layout.

There is also the Bios access problem. For me it's F11 so no problem, but some mobos use Del. According to the same review, the keyboard is recognized as numlock off when booting. But software is always nebulous.

Also, about the steel plate, yeah, it's brown. At least the first batches. Then, the new ones will come in white. They are expected around January.