I've spoke to one of the Topre representatives online they told me they had no plans to make a silenced topre for the "RealForce RGB" keyboard. They also told me that he/she will discuss with other "topre people" to see if they will release a TKL and that the keyboard will be available before Christmas season.Hypersphere wrote: Actually, I am not sure if the Topre RGB is going to have silencing. I thought I had read this in one of the early announcements, but I just went back to check, and I cannot find anything about silencing. Looks like the main new features are RGB backlighting, variable actuation, and Cherry mx-compatible stems.
Hmm, interesting theory. Actually sounds somewhat reasonable.Wodan wrote: The more I think about it, the more it feels like this is all part of Topre's big plan.
Let's say you're Topre and sell keyboards for 250$+ and want to keep it that way. Your keyboards are held in very high regards by a lot of people but they are cut off from the great world of custom MX-compatible keycaps. The smart thing to do is make a keyboard that is Cherry MX compatible and see how it sells. Gain some experience with a new concept. Then again, you don't want to be associated with a failed experiment and few people are willing to pay your standard price for something experimental. So you find a third party and let them perform this experiment for you. They can sell the keyboard for way less without ruining your price structure and they will take most of the blame for the shortcomings of the keyboard.
Now - let's assume the experiment was a success ... what you do now is integrate this new technology into your own main product line and make sure the experiment disapears from the market before you launch it as part of your own product lineup ... with some nice extras (RGB) to make sure people don't question the 100% markup.
TL;DR This feels like Topre wanted to experiment with MX compatible stems and needed a third party to put their brand name on the line. It was a success so they sell it for Topre prices now and the CM probably made a nice profit for the risk they took.
My opinion is that it costs too much for a company to import Topre switches from Japan, just like the new Razer Ornata which uses a "Razer Mecha-Membrane" a hybrid membrane rubber dome with a clicky mechanical switch and Cooler Master's "2016 Mem-Chanical" which both is basically a Topre-clone but built in-house rather than importing it (due to cost reasons, i'm assuming).002 wrote: I'd wager that the Novatouch was still a very good seller when they cancelled it. The discontinuation might have something to do with Topre wanting to go their own way with the RGB and possibly couldn't keep up with the demand of producing both...It just doesn't make sense to me that they would cancel it when it was clearly a popular keyboard in spite of its minor shortcomings.
