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by abhinav22 2055 days ago
Surprised no comments so far. Can somebody give me the lowdown and how does this compare to the originals?

Can we get the same quality of electronics in 2020 as we did back in the 60s, 70s and 80s?

1 comments

I tried one of the recently purchased "modern model F"s. It felt a lot better than my old original model F battleship I sold for a lot of money about 7 years of. I don't know if it was how they felt in pristine condition, because the model F battleship was a lot older than me when I bought it.
Many thanks for the feedback. Which one did you buy? Would you recommend me trying out Model F from somebody who has Model M and TOPRE keyboards?
The weighting is lower than the model M, and the action is smoother. It is however louder.

I like the Fs a lot more, but I type very lightly. Model M is almost too stiff for my pinkies. I thought about ordering a new model F. The repairability is amazing. The firmware as well.

But then I realized: I don't want a keyboard where I might have to open up and solder something back in. I just want one that works. Currently I rock a silenced MX brown, which I find OK, but the MX switches have lousy tactility. Topre keyboarss, or even a regular rubber dome keyboard, has a lot better tactility and almost no noise.

Had the Matias keyboards not had their quality problems I would definitely have used one of those. They are, IMO, the best modern switches feel-wise.

Other than that: I don't know why there aren't any topre-ish "opto-electric" keyboards out there. You would get the smoothness of opto-electric, the silent tactility of a rubber dome, with key register before bottoming out. MX brown is a lousy tactile switch, but the easily available competition (apart from topre) is even worse.

So: no. Unless you really love your model m and would like it smoother with the caveat that you might have to whip out a soldering iron in a year, I would not buy the new model F. The guy is doing a great job, and QC seems to be a high priority, but they haven't stood the test of time yet.