Magicforce 68 review

[ohaimark]

Here's a repost from the "Just Bought" thread with nicer keycaps:

[cookie]

How much were the caps compared to the board?

[gogusrl]

5x

[t!ng]

Wow. Where can one get them?

[ohaimark]

They cost about as much as the 'board -- $62 shipped. They're THICK dyesub PBT in Cherry profile with a relatively smooth texture.

Right now the seller, widebasket, only has blanks available.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/272119853961

This is the item I purchased.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281936489670

This is the item on its home website.

http://www.leopold.co.kr/?doc=cart/item ... 1446203046

They're amazing for the price. My only quibble is the font kerning, but that's minor.

[t!ng]

Thank you.

[space]

My Magicforce arrived earlier this week. I have the white/silver one and
it has Outemu blue switches.

The reason I bought is that I wanted to try blue switches (currently have MX Brown)
and also wanted to confirm that a 60%(ish) layout isn't something for me. I use all
my 104 keys often and need the F-keys for various programs I use.

But for 39.99 euro I thought I could give it a shot just to see what its like.

I think the build is very nice, doesn't look too bad. The font on the keycaps is a
bit tacky but I'm not looking at it anyway

I tried to work with it for a few days but the FN + F-KEY just gave me a headache,
so I don't think I would ever get used to it. But I'm mostly frustrated with the
lack of dedicated HOME and END keys. There is room on the board for two more keys,
if they just ditched the logo they could have added HOME and END buttons below the
block of 4 on the right. That would make me a lot happier.

I must say that I do find regular typing to be pleasant, I like the blue switches,
so I might change my MX Browns for Blues at some point.

I'll keep it around and use it from time to time if I have some typing to do,
for day-to-day work though this keyboard - and other smaller keyboards no doubt -
aren't for me - but it is fun to play around with that is for sure. And for those
times I know I need to work on someones laptop, I just might bring it along.

Edit: you have two HOME/END keys, first you have the ones very close to the FN key and the second one are on the top right as FN+ PGUP/PGDN - for some key combinations to work you need to press the HOME/END key on the PGDN/UP buttons making it very uncomfortable, for example alt-home in firefox should take you to your homepage. If you press alt-fn-; (; = the HOME close to the FN key) it won't work, so you have to press alt-fn-pgup.

[grasshopper]

I have to say, I do really like the layout of this board. It would never be my daily driver, but it's compact and portable enough to be used with a laptop/tablet/Rasberry Pi etc. without looking ridiculous. And the real genius of the layout is that you can just stick standard caps on it without the heights being wrong.

It's just a shame that the cheap £30 ones are currently only available in white/silver colour with blue switches. Personally, I'd prefer a black one that uses red switches, but I'm not willing to spend £50+ for the privilege.

Also, they don't appear to be available in ISO. But that's not a deal breaker for me.

[t!ng]

I find it hart to replace the spacebar keycap. Every single one that I tried was too thick so it stuck while pressing down.

[greenteei89]

I find it hart to replace the spacebar keycap. Every single one that I tried was too thick so it stuck while pressing down.

I had the same issue with some of the thicker pbt sets. Had to shave off a bit of the insides to get them to work properly.

[Wodan]

Couldn't get DSA keycaos to work on that keyboard, real bugger.
But GMK/Cherry pace bars worked ... and SP space bars are special. Hard to tell whom to blame.
Which profiles did you have troubles with?