KBTalking Pure - New mini keyboard with smarter layout

[developej]

can anyone comment on quality of the case (plastic, not limited aluminum)? does it squeak, does it bend easily etc.
thanks

[HzFaq]

The plastic case on my Pure was a little wobbly, but bent back into shape easy enough.

It feels a lot better then the Poker in terms of PCB flex and general stability though, I'll do a write up when I get a bit of time.

[maximAL]

I think the case is pretty sturdy. Solid plastic, no noticable flexing. The small size helps with that, of course. My second Pure had a slightly bend case making it wobble, but could easily be twisted into position.

[developej]

aaaand i got one
casing is fine, i don't have any problems with it (the plastic one)...alu is twice as heavy and i need it to be really portable too.

it's with green leds and mx browns...ordered via kbtpure.com (only one i found that ship to my country)...it came after about 6 days (im outside EU, hence the delay). im very happy with the keyboard...wanted mini mechanical keyboard for a long time now. love the sound the feel is still new, but i think i will get to love it.

also, i don't get the breathing led mode? i found a manual online (it came without one) and it says fn+b activates leds, pressing it another time activates the breathing mode, but it only gives leds max brightness...maybe it was the wrong manual

[Sinzz]

I think the breathing mode takes a while to actually "breathe." last I hear it was a slow start.

[Rafen]

Just received my first poker about a week ago and I have fallen in love with the layout. Now I am thinking about purchasing one of these as well.

Many people are saying that the build quality is better with the pure than the Poker. Has anyone noticed a difference between the two? If so which one was a better build?

[shambols]

I've had one for about a week now and it is much better than the Noppoo Choc Mini that I used to own with respect to accuracy in typing and just the quality of the keycaps. I'm really loving the red switches also (went through a brown, a blue and now the reds).

One personal gripe with the Pure is the location of the arrow keys. Although I've never tried the Poker, the location of those arrow keys looks more convenient. With the arrow locations of the Pure, I think I may have preferred the function key to be placed where the left windows/super key is (two super keys on a keyboard is a waste in my opinion).

I'm very happy with the build quality of the Pure even though I wasn't expecting anything spectacular. With that being said, I ended up getting the Pure because I couldn't find a Poker in reds and I would probably still look to get a Poker one day.

[bpierre]

I've had one for about a week now and it is much better than the Noppoo Choc Mini that I used to own with respect to accuracy in typing and just the quality of the keycaps. I'm really loving the red switches also (went through a brown, a blue and now the reds).

One personal gripe with the Pure is the location of the arrow keys. Although I've never tried the Poker, the location of those arrow keys looks more convenient. With the arrow locations of the Pure, I think I may have preferred the function key to be placed where the left windows/super key is (two super keys on a keyboard is a waste in my opinion).

Doesn't one of the DIP switch already allow that? Change the left windows key to an additional function key: http://ck-max.minus.com/lPosIkXTLkrYX

[shambols]

Ha! you do learn something everyday. Had no idea you could get the arrow keys working in the bottom right. Thanks!

[JBert]

One personal gripe with the Pure is the location of the arrow keys. Although I've never tried the Poker, the location of those arrow keys looks more convenient. With the arrow locations of the Pure, I think I may have preferred the function key to be placed where the left windows/super key is (two super keys on a keyboard is a waste in my opinion).

The problem with the Poker's default layout is that the Fn key is on the right and the arrows on the left. There is of course a DIP-switch to have an Fn key on the left, but then you lose a Win key.
Also, the ESC key is a bit of a kludge, you always have to press Fn to get to it - bad if you're a Vi junkie.

[sordna]

As a linux user, when I'm using my Poker, I'm making use of that DIP setting, and have Fn keys on both left and right (not really missing the win key). Moreover, I remapped the Menu key (with xmodmap) to tilde/backtick, so that the top-left key can be locked to Escape mode for or vi / vim.
So it works out well for linux / vi users as long as they don't need a Win/Super key...
For folks that do, the Caps Lock key (or one of the control keys) could be remapped as a Win (Super key) if they absolutely need it.
I guess the Pure is a more accomodating keyboard since it has an extra key, but I haven't had the chance to try one. If my Poker breaks, I'll probably replace it with a Pure, unless I can find a 67-70 key keyboard (something like a RACE or Key Cool 84 but without a function row... that would be pretty sweet but I guess until now only the HHKB JP has that amount of keys).

[developej]

I think the breathing mode takes a while to actually "breathe." last I hear it was a slow start.

yeah, i can confirm this now...but the breathing isn't smooth like i saw on one of the videos...low fps

btw, can anyone tell which font is used on keycaps?

[naisanza]

Am I seeing that correctly? Dedicated Arrow Key Stuffing opportunity!

Finally a TRUE HHKB Killah!

I like it when clones clone clones.

The HHKB still looks really nice though! I thought not having dedicated arrow keys would be a problem, but then I realized when I work with code in emacs I never need them.

[maximAL]

The broken coating of the keys (both shift, both ctrl and one win key) really bugs me. I could just return it to Amazon but honestly it just bugs me to see a good keyboard go to waste just because of a few asthetic nuisances. But since KBT does not even have to seem a web page or anything (http://kbtalkingusa.com/ just seems to be about the BT model?!) there seems to be no way to get a few replacement caps.
Am I actually the only one having this problem so far? I bet there are a few more people here who use their Pure all day.

In case I actually return the keyboard, I might replace it with a non-backlit version, which is finally available at the moment. Caps should be more robust there, it's cheaper and I didn't want the backlight anyway. Is the layout really the same? On the manual of the non-backlit version, the position of the home/end/pause and volume-up/volume-down/mute keys seems to be switched. But maybe the manual is just out of date.

[laffindude]

KBT is an enthusiast forum. KBTalKingUSA is setup to sell KBTalKing Pro, which is setup through Zippy who developed the board. I don't think they'll deal with Vortex developed stuff, but I think the guy is independent so he theoretically could.

It is probably not nice to return the board after using it so long. May be that's just me. If you don't need the backlight, you can just buy regular caps from WASD, and pick up a 1.75x R1 key for Rshift. Ducky's backlit replacement caps just came on the market. No 1.75x Rshift though.

The caps are painted, so wear would have happened eventually even without fingernails digging into it. That was a concern of mine so I never used the stock caps. The anniversary was supposed to come with cherry profile translucent jello POMs, but that didn't happen... because Vortex.

Non-backlit version has the exact same firmware and PCB. Most likely the writer of the manual screwed up. I've talked to a distributor about PBT caps for pure. Don't know if it'll happen. I'll ask him again next time.

[maximAL]

Thanks for the explanation, the whole KBC/KBT/Vortex thing always confused me.

As for returning the board now...well, what difference does it make? The coating was not good to start with and don't forget the LED I had to resolder (see few pages ago). I should have sent it back right away, but in the end the result will always be Amazon throwing it in the dumpster and sending me a new one. Also, for the first 6 months German laws are on my side when it comes to issues like this

I understand you got a Pure, too? And never used the caps? What did you do with them?

[laffindude]

And people wonder why Europeans pay more for stuff Not that I disagree with it, since you should have gotten a replacement board when you had the LED issues.
My stock caps are in a baggy in my keycaps bin. I use the unobtainable PBT set on my Anniversary edition, and plain white PBT on a regular edition (I have more still in boxes. Collection and spare boards).

[maximAL]

Of course the subtext of my last post was if you want to get rid of the caps for a few shiny coins...
But I guess that might turn out to be expensive anyway, when you are from non-EU.

[laffindude]

I caught that but didn't want to presume Like I said to another guy, the caps are worth nothing to me monetarily. Meet up for coffee or a beer and it's yours. Of course the subtext is that I only want to do it locally

I would say don't waste any money on the stock caps, since you'll just wear them out again if you're that hard on your caps. The basic Pure's caps isn't that great either. They're just uncoated lasered ABS. You can probably piece together some caps from Cherry. Pure is originally envisioned with Cherry profile key anyways.

[maximAL]

Well, I wasn't so sure the caps are so bad to begin with. It's not like I just wear them off, the coating was simpy done improperly on some keys. The main row (especially F and J) are real shiny by now but don't loke like they would break anytime soon.
I know, it's not rationale, but when I actually do have an illumintad keyboard I want the feature to work
The caps of the unlit version might wear off, but probably not "break" in such an ugly way (would be more of a dignified aging ).

[ne0phyte]

How's the quality of the Pure without backlighting? (especially the keycaps)

[laffindude]

@maximAL: I can understand that, eventhough I only turned on the backlight 3 times, for pictures. That 1.75x Rshift really is a killer for replacement though. Ducky's replacement caps have the 2.75x.

@ne0phyte: Quality is ok. The soldering is mainly an issue on the LED. However, it feels unsubstantial and disturbingly light. I stuck one in my laptop bag, so I appreciate the lightness. My boards are modded to give PCB extra support, and to kill the resonance. PCB feels less supported than a Cherry board.
In regards to the keycaps, I am not exactly sure what you're asking about in terms of quality. They're uncoated OEM profile ABS caps. I believe there are only 2 MX caps factories in Taiwan. Most caps you see come out of just 1 (easy to tell by the mold), so they won't be better or worse than most other boards with ABS caps.

[ne0phyte]

Does anyone else have a "problem" with the modifier LEDs?

This might sound stupid, but the LEDs often dazzle (at night even more) when I type as always
Any idea how to get rid of that without desoldering the smd LEDs? Tiny mirrors? Just a piece of paper (still quite bright)?
It's kinda annoying and I'm not sure what to do about it.

This is what I see:

[laffindude]

You can try electrical tape. They are pretty bright, and even worse on the low cut aluminum case. I don't use the modes myself though.
http://www.lightdims.com/ There's this if electrical tape is too cheap of a solution.

[ne0phyte]

Thanks for the lightdims.com hint. That looks good.

Another question... the ctrl+alt+del mapping on lshift is incredibly annoying. Wouldn't it be possible to "swap" the shift keys by cutting the conductor path and soldering a thin wire to swap left and right?

[laffindude]

I saw someone do something similar on a different keyboard, but they only cut the trace, and wired the switch as a double, not as a swap. You need to continue the signal path on both side of the matrix if you want to swap them. So that would probably need 8 wires total (to and from for row and column x2 switches). 4 total if you do a parallel arrangement (2 to jump the 2 connection to the other side, 2 total to continue signal path for column and row you cut).

I thought of this as I typed the post. You'd also have an extra up arrow if you do parallel, and arrow lock mode would be very odd if you swap L and R shift. Not sure if recommended /strokes beard. ctrl alt del thing has been blasted a few times already though. The layout designer figured it would be a hard thing to do with FN key. I did explain it is just 1 extra key, no big deal. Now we're stuck with it for certain key combo. Have to remember to hit the shift before hitting FN.

[ne0phyte]

I just thought of the simplest solution:
I could just remap Capslock to LShift. Even though I'd have to use scrolllock or numlock to enable/disable the remapping 'cause I have many scripts that use Caps as modkey.

Will try if that works for me when I get home

[maximAL]

Can anybody share long-term experiences with the unlit keycaps? I know, they are not special or anything, but I would still be interested on how durable the lettering is. I saw mechanicalkeyboards.com sells them at the moment and I'm thinking of downgrading my pure to an unlit version. Of course, the price is ridiculious, but I'm simply not happy with some fancy double shot caps that just don't have all the caps or the false lettering etc.

[shibbyllama]

Can anybody share long-term experiences with the unlit keycaps? I know, they are not special or anything, but I would still be interested on how durable the lettering is. I saw mechanicalkeyboards.com sells them at the moment and I'm thinking of downgrading my pure to an unlit version. Of course, the price is ridiculious, but I'm simply not happy with some fancy double shot caps that just don't have all the caps or the false lettering etc.

I've used my Pure (green backlit) as a daily driver at work for the past 6 months or so. I type quite a bit on it throughout the day. So far I'm pleased with the durability of the keycaps. They have plenty of shine to them, but I expect that with ABS. But that's about as far as the wear goes. None of the coating has worn off or anything like that. I keep it under a clear keyboard roof over night, but that's more for dust and I don't think it has much effect on the keycaps themselves.

[maximAL]

Lucky you, my caps start cracking one after another. Probably It's really a faulty model. A college of mine has a KBT Race that is almost as old as my Pure and the caps still look like new, but the coating also has a slightly different texture. So obviously it is possible to make not completely crappy backlit caps.
Anyway, I had the chance to have a look at a non-backlit pure and was not impressed by the caps at all. The lettering doesn't even seem to be etched, it looks like they just put it on top of blank keys. The color (or whatever it is) is pretty thick and looks like it's just waiting to crumble in big chunks. Sure not worth the money.