Topre vs Matias-silent switches. My first impressions

[Trev]

I have quite a few alps switches, none of them wobble significantly except for the very cheap ALPS green. This concerns me a little. What is wobbling in not the keycap inside the stem but the stem itself.

Weird. I thought ALPS were known for having a bit of a wobble

Even if they are more wobbly than other ALPS, I wouldn't dwell on it. The most important thing (IMO) is what they feel like to type on.

One (possible) advantage to these switches is that they feel very low-friction. Nice tactile bump and resistance without any dragging or scraping.

[matt3o]

All the alps I have feel better than any of the MX (as a typing experience). MX is maybe a more robust switch. The stem stays steady into position, but I tried most of the (old) alps and they have a very low wobbling, I'd say comparable to MX, maybe just a tiny bit more. The only exception is the cheap modern alps green, I can make a quick video if it's of some relevance.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Well, I will say one thing about the Quiet Pro: it is most definitely quiet. Much quieter than my Realforce — all the keys are quieter, but the stabilised keys especially so, as we know.

100% office friendly product — it's not all that much louder than a scissor keyboard, but the pitch is a lot deeper.

The sound level does relate in part to where you hit the keys: off-centre presses are louder.

[LaCap]

The tactile version is definitely not for open space office
It's a really loud keyboard.

[7bit]

When these offices came into fashion, the IBM Selectric was the high-end technology in typewriters. So I don't see why keyboards need to be quiet in such large offices.

[BimboBB]

.....because you cannot sleep so well!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Having used it all afternoon, my feelings at this moment:

For a quiet board, Topre feels 10× better — so much smoother.

Matias quiet switches feel gritty and rough. Better than the black Alps in the AT101/2W, but but not well-oiled smooth and clean like blue Alps. It may well be that they break in after a while, and smooth out. I've never tried brand new blue Alps, only very worn switches.

They also feel lighter than the specifications suggests. They're nowhere near as balky as I was fearing for a 60 cN switch, and it's not fatiguing my hands too much, unlike when I started using Topre or spent time with the Tactile Pro 3. Still waiting for my FK-2002 from Ascaii, so that I can compare its white Alps switches with blue Alps, and compare the stiffer white Alps with Fuhua Alps and with Matias clones.

I'm finding typing on the Quiet Pro tough going — I'm making a lot of mistakes and fumbling over keys, and missing keystrokes. It remains to be seen how I feel about the switches after more use, as I'm used to Cherry MX, which is so light.

I also find the metallic sound of Topre to be soothing, and I love the sound of MX brown, and its light, clean feel. The Quiet Pro sound has no soul — it's just a dry plastic rattle. Nothing wrong with that, and it lives up to its name (exceptionally quiet for mechanical), but I like something with feeling.

My Filco has broken again (same key has died) so I will take the opportunity to send it back to Keyboardco and have them fix it again, and in the meantime I will see how I get on with the Quiet Pro.

[Trev]

Having used it all afternoon, my feelings at this moment:

For a quiet board, Topre feels 10× better — so much smoother.

Matias quiet switches feel gritty and rough. Better than the black Alps in the AT101/2W, but but not well-oiled smooth and clean like blue Alps. It may well be that they break in after a while, and smooth out. I've never tried brand new blue Alps, only very worn switches.

They also feel lighter than the specifications suggests. They're nowhere near as balky as I was fearing for a 60 cN switch, and it's not fatiguing my hands too much, unlike when I started using Topre or spent time with the Tactile Pro 3. Still waiting for my FK-2002 from Ascaii, so that I can compare its white Alps switches with blue Alps, and compare the stiffer white Alps with Fuhua Alps and with Matias clones.

I'm finding typing on the Quiet Pro tough going — I'm making a lot of mistakes and fumbling over keys, and missing keystrokes. It remains to be seen how I feel about the switches after more use, as I'm used to Cherry MX, which is so light.

I also find the metallic sound of Topre to be soothing, and I love the sound of MX brown, and its light, clean feel. The Quiet Pro sound has no soul — it's just a dry plastic rattle. Nothing wrong with that, and it lives up to its name (exceptionally quiet for mechanical), but I like something with feeling.

My Filco has broken again (same key has died) so I will take the opportunity to send it back to Keyboardco and have them fix it again, and in the meantime I will see how I get on with the Quiet Pro.

Interesting to hear your impressions. I wouldn't describe my switches as feeling scratchy, they seem too wobbly and free-flowing for that.

I've discovered that not only do the switch stems have a lot of play to them (which I can only assume is by design), but the switches themselves are quite loose on my model. I'm putting in an RMA request because despite being fun to type on, I don't consider the overall build quality and finishing to be acceptable for a $170 keyboard. There was already the issue of the crooked keys, so the loose switches definitely swayed my decision.

Run this full-screen and let me know what you think:

I used cosmetic tweezers to illustrate that not much force was being applied. The red gunk isn't mine (came free with the keyboard!).

I'd still love to try these switches on a custom kb, like Matt3o's project.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

One other thing that I knew would be annoying: no right Windows key, and no menu key. I use both these keys a fair amount. Topre give you one hundred and two normal keys. I know that 99% of people would prefer media keys to Windows and menu keys, but I can bind custom combinations for media control, but I can't turn Fn into menu, or create a nonexistent right Windows key (the key is physically missing from the keyboard).

[Limmy]

Run this full-screen and let me know what you think:

I popped several keys on my Dell AT101W and did the same thing. Mine seems to do move around quite a bit. Some switches didn't move as much, but some did.

I wanted to further compare Cherry vs Alps. So, I did the same exercise with my Poker. Switches with sticker mod didn't move as much, but ones without stickers moves a bit more. Compared to Alps, Cherry switches had considerably stable feel even without sticker mod. Switches with sticker and lube mod sounded different when I moved my fingers over the keys.

[Trev]

I compared to a brand new KBT pure. The Cherry switches were well mounted, despite being only attached to the PCB. The only part that had any play at all was the top-housing on the switches, and of coures a bit in the stem. A much more solid feel.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Day 3 (has it really been that long)?

Settling in nicely with the switches now, so much so that Topre variable feels somewhat light, with overly sharp bottoming out. I guess the keyboard and I needed to break each other in.

As a comparison, I have connected up an old "midnight grey" Dell rubber dome keyboard (RT7D50). The main difference is that the Dell keyboard has that cheap plastic rattle common to cheap dome keyboards. The Matias keyboard on the other hand is just simply quiet. I cannot compare it to Topre S, but the one thing that the Quiet Pro is, is quiet. The cheap rattle is absent — one dome board elsewhere in the room (a Microsoft wireless) is louder than my keyboard in front of me is. The Dell KB1421 is very nice for a dome board, but it's also pretty loud, too. The Quiet Pro is not only quieter than both PCB and plate mounted Cherry, it's quieter than many dome boards as well. The quiet stabilisers are really welcome, as the clang of the space bar on many keyboards gets annoying quickly.

The feel is definitely superior to the Dell dome board. It's hard to quantify, but there is a lightness and precision about the feel, plus of course with Matias switches you don't have to fully depress a switch to actuate it.

I used to like the RT7D50 simply because of its cleaner and more precise feel compared to the later Dell boards, but the Matias switches win out.

One thing that does suck as much as I feared, is the sub-switch LED idea doesn't really work all that well. More light comes out from under num lock by far than comes out the window in the keycap, under normal viewing (num lock is viewed from the side).

[Choker]

Trev, I apologize if you have already mentioned but I really can't find it: which is louder? The Matias silent or the Topre silent?
Thanks！

[Trev]

Trev, I apologize if you have already mentioned but I really can't find it: which is louder? The Matias silent or the Topre silent?
Thanks！

Matias is definitely louder, but's all relative. The Realforce silenced models are just extremely quiet.

The Matias dampened switches are quieter or similar volume level as many rubber-dome keyboards.

[matt3o]

what stabilizers do the keyboard has?

[Trev]

what stabilizers do the keyboard has?

I'm not sure. The regular keycaps were rather hard to remove, so I didn't feel like prying at the stabilized ones right before sending the keyboard back

[matt3o]

this is pretty important if we want to do a custom alps keyboard... let's see if the internet comes to the rescue

there you go

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88005189@N ... otostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88005189@N ... otostream/

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I'm not sure. The regular keycaps were rather hard to remove, so I didn't feel like prying at the stabilized ones right before sending the keyboard back :)

You sent it back? Why?

[Trev]

I'm not sure. The regular keycaps were rather hard to remove, so I didn't feel like prying at the stabilized ones right before sending the keyboard back

You sent it back? Why?

Overall level of finishing and build quality, skewed keys. I enjoyed typing on it enough to almost ignore the issues, but that shouldn't be necessary with a $170 keyboard.

I also realised that if I ever chose to eBay it, I'd feel obligated to mention that it had "crooked" keys.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I never thought to check if mine has skewed keys; the keys seem OK, although there's some "pixellation" in the lasering on the keys with descriptive legends.

The board does look cheap, I grant you, but at least mine is black, not "silver". The finish has an orange peel appearance even though it feels smooth. Rather odd — not the same as the photos though. I'd prefer it more if the case was closer in design to my G80-3000, which sits behind it (and reminds how much I prefer undamped switch clang ;-) G80-3000 has a lovely sound.)

I'm personally hoping for:

a) New Filco Zero with Matias switches
b) Matias tactile switches, that are non-clicky and undamped, so basically the same as Alps salmon

(Though this would in fact be a replacement for the ABS M1, not the Zero ;-)

[Jmneuv]

Shouldn't it be possible to remove the dampening from the matias switches?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Should be, yes, just means poking the dampers out of all the sliders. That will have to come after I've got around to swapping all the blue Alps switches from my Tulip AT keyboard to my AT102 :P

Ideally, Matias also need to release a linear switch, given how many people prefer linear, otherwise anyone wishing to use their switches cannot sell linear boards.

[Trev]

I never thought to check if mine has skewed keys; the keys seem OK, although there's some "pixellation" in the lasering on the keys with descriptive legends.

The board does look cheap, I grant you, but at least mine is black, not "silver". ...

I haven't noticed skewed looking keys in any other Matias side photos. I think mine was just special.

The "silver" looks ok from a distance, but as soon as you're sitting down it just seems toy-like and very cheap. The large plastic seam with some roughly finished edges didn't help either.

Personally, I'm also not a fan of the extra key legends. To take the most infrequently accessed symbols and cover and entire keyboard in them makes no sense to me. It's not a "feature", it's messy and unnecessary.

Hopefully as Matias switches become more popular we'll see better (PBT) keycaps being produced.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I have always had to make do with simply memorising the shortcuts on Macintoshes for extended ASCII symbols. I imagine that many people remain ignorant that it is even possible to type such a rich variety of characters on Macintosh computers without resorting to Character Palette (which is tedious). I have combined the UK International layout with AutoHotkey to permit me to type many of the same symbols in a very similar way — I've even re-used some of Apple's bindings in Windows (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+8 for •, Shift+Ctrl+Alt+8 for °, and the same –/— bindings).

The typewriter did typography a terrible disservice, and Matias keyboards are one attempt to rectify the sorry state of character entry. Sadly, Macs don't have any keyboard combination for minus (−, being the same width, height and thickness as the centre stroke of +, and not the same character as hyphen, -) and IIRC they can't do × either.

Maybe if I pointed my laser pointer through a magnifying glass I could inscribe all the missing characters onto my PC Quiet Pro :-P

On the other hand, the Quiet Pro loses the menu key to allow for Fn, which only activates THREE FRIGGING KEYS (which are on the opposite side of the keyboard to the remaining and inconsistently non-Fn media keys above the number pad). I hit menu and right win a lot, and I can't do that on the Quiet Pro because Matias consider media keys a higher priority. That stalls me many times a day as I reach for these keys and realise that they don't exist. This is on my desk at work, where I don't need media keys at all. Argh. I didn't realise until I bought it how often I used both keys, though I knew it would be a pain.

Hence Filco Zero — correct layout and Costar's superb trim, tidy design. (But only if someone orders a UK model. There never was one before, only US TKL.)

(The silver design looks rubbish even on the Web. Same problem I have with the Trophkey. Poor materials understanding and application.)

[Trev]

I have always had to make do with simply memorising the shortcuts on Macintoshes for extended ASCII symbols. I imagine that many people remain ignorant that it is even possible to type such a rich variety of characters on Macintosh computers without resorting to Character Palette (which is tedious). I have combined the UK International layout with AutoHotkey to permit me to type many of the same symbols in a very similar way — I've even re-used some of Apple's bindings in Windows (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+8 for •, Shift+Ctrl+Alt+8 for °, and the same –/— bindings).

The typewriter did typography a terrible disservice, and Matias keyboards are one attempt to rectify the sorry state of character entry. Sadly, Macs don't have any keyboard combination for minus (−, being the same width, height and thickness as the centre stroke of +, and not the same character as hyphen, -) and IIRC they can't do × either.

Maybe if I pointed my laser pointer through a magnifying glass I could inscribe all the missing characters onto my PC Quiet Pro

On the other hand, the Quiet Pro loses the menu key to allow for Fn, which only activates THREE FRIGGING KEYS (which are on the opposite side of the keyboard to the remaining and inconsistently non-Fn media keys above the number pad). I hit menu and right win a lot, and I can't do that on the Quiet Pro because Matias consider media keys a higher priority. That stalls me many times a day as I reach for these keys and realise that they don't exist. This is on my desk at work, where I don't need media keys at all. Argh. I didn't realise until I bought it how often I used both keys, though I knew it would be a pain.

Hence Filco Zero — correct layout and Costar's superb trim, tidy design. (But only if someone orders a UK model. There never was one before, only US TKL.)

(The silver design looks rubbish even on the Web. Same problem I have with the Trophkey. Poor materials understanding and application.)

Have you considered remapping something like ⌥+hyphen to output a correct minus symbol? It wouldn't shift you too far away from home row. Controller Mate would help you here, but the UI isn't very intuitive.

I recall there was also a way to enter unicode hex by enabling input combos like: ⌥+2212 (somewhere in system prefs)

I don't think the majority of users need extra characters, which is why they're not printed on caps. We're the guys that know what they are and actually use them. We're far more edge-case than we think (IMO). How many people know the difference between a hyphen and minus, or en-dash and em-dash?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I don't use a Macintosh. (I have piles of them, but only one from this century, and only just.)

Matias make edge-case keyboards, and they help edge-case users understand that rapid and easy entry of proper typography is in fact possible. Also, a lot of the symbols presented are for international use, e.g. I can type Österreich easily, or Umeå (I know someone who lives there).

Have you seen the Space Cadet keyboard? That would be like Medusa to your eyes.

[Trev]

I don't use a Macintosh. (I have piles of them, but only one from this century, and only just.)

Matias make edge-case keyboards, and they help edge-case users understand that rapid and easy entry of proper typography is in fact possible. Also, a lot of the symbols presented are for international use, e.g. I can type Österreich easily, or Umeå (I know someone who lives there).

Have you seen the Space Cadet keyboard? That would be like Medusa to your eyes.

Ah, a very valid point. Perhaps it would be better for Matias to offer "extended"/international legends as an opt-in feature.

I do have a strong preference towards all things minimal (not to the point of sacrificing usability). For the relatively few extra chars that I use, I've known their key-combos for years.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Sure, after they've given me right Win and menu back! :P And started selling Alps RGB mods ;-)

[Daniel Beardsmore]

For comparison, I swapped my Quiet Pro out with my Topre Realforce 105UB (variable) earlier and used it for a couple of hours.

Topre feels stiff and mushy in immediate comparison — the Quiet Pro is a lot more tactile and it feels like keys take a little bit less force to start moving. I can still use the Topre board perfectly well, but the smooth force curve just doesn't have the same tactility.

Seems like the Matias switches need to be broken in a bit. The Fuhua switches in the Tactile Pro 3 also lightened up after a few weeks of occasional use, while I've been using the Quiet Pro all day at work.

The Matias switches do still have a bit of a dry, scratchy feel, but for tactility, they're good.

[Trev]

For comparison, I swapped my Quiet Pro out with my Topre Realforce 105UB (variable) earlier and used it for a couple of hours.

Topre feels stiff and mushy in immediate comparison — the Quiet Pro is a lot more tactile and it feels like keys take a little bit less force to start moving. I can still use the Topre board perfectly well, but the smooth force curve just doesn't have the same tactility.

Seems like the Matias switches need to be broken in a bit. The Fuhua switches in the Tactile Pro 3 also lightened up after a few weeks of occasional use, while I've been using the Quiet Pro all day at work.

The Matias switches do still have a bit of a dry, scratchy feel, but for tactility, they're good.

What's your accuracy/speed like between the two.

I found Topre to feel a bit mushy in comparison. Topre speed and accuracy were up quite a bit, so I decided not to argue with results. ALPs feels more "fun" and definitely nostalgic for me, but Topre gets the job done

I'm not testing in Typeracer or similar. It's purely my own subjective experience cranking out CSS/SASS/JS/HTML. It's enough to be noticeable and reproducible. The reduction in errors/typos without any changes on my part is a very useful bonus. Much less backspacing and navigating around blocks of code.