Before we begin i would like to confess and an apology to the Mechanical Keyboard Community or any Hobbyist in nature.
Everyone from r/MK (Key and Peele)
I LIED about the title.
There is no such thing as END-GAME !
There is no such thing as END-GAME in any hobby, sure...you might come across something you think is worthy of END-GAME but just like warframe's "end-game" it doesn't exist.
(Kung Fu Panda)
, just many different late-game content with no end in sight.
The term END-GAME while paradoxical as it may seem is still a term widely used by many communities to express an idea or more per say an expression. to say something is "END-GAME" is to express that the subject/object in question is very much worth the money and is in the TOP spot of their personal tier list, which makes "END-GAME" a highly personal opinion.
But let's put the philosophy lesson and trivia aside, i suppose that this is where i can easily transition into the subject in question... the MT3 Serika, made by Drop (Formerly Massdrop), in collaboration with Zambumon the original designer of the keyset/colorway, not the profile mind you.
To get the perspective that i am coming from i think it's in the best interest of everyone that i describe what it feels like to order one of these keycaps.
Step 1: go to drop.com and order your own very keyset that is available if not wait.
- This might seem strange to many but this is what Group Buys are like, it is a community/group pool driven pre-order and since it's a group buy, the group as a whole has higher buying power to negotiate for lower prices in product instead of buying it individually since manufacturers favor large bulk orders compared to smaller individual orders as they do not need to spend the same amount of time for less production.
Step 2: Pay for the order
- Pretty self explanatory...
Step 3: WAIT.....
- you might think that this seems strange but remember, a group buy is just a BULK order, the item is still not yet in production the materials are on hand but not the final product because remember a group buy is a pre-order. so you have to wait...... probably a long time... I lied, actually a very very long time.
Step 4: receive the product*
- you might be wondering why the asterisk... well, there is always a catch, but generally you will receive the product in the mail if everything goes to plan or in very rare situations, you receive nothing, which means either you have been scammed or your courier decided to be a slop and send it elsewhere. when you receive your order, you will be greeted with everything you ordered... which makes sense given the product in question is expensive especially for a niche product from a niche category.
and if you read the news lately, COVID19 happened which means everything is delayed, even your mail-man or woman will have to delay the shipment. - OPTIONAL -
Step 5: CRY
- proceed through the five stages of grief as you slowly accept that your wallet has been drained of money for quite a while because of your financial decisions to persue your hobbies with how much you spent on it and then move on and do not look back, because if you do, you will find yourself restarting Step 5 again.
PRODUCT INTRO
Now that we have gone through everything else, now we can get into the meat and potatoes of the review, the keycaps in question.
MT3 is a keycap profile, that is designed by Matt3o (i see what you did there) with help from the community in 2015 in hopes to create not perfect but close to perfect high profile keycap set, but is now sold in many different colorways by drop.com as they have invested monetarily in the project. while looking at the profile itself, you might notice that it looks strangely familiar with vintage keyboards and computers, well yes it looks similar but they are very different and with it came the first MT3 keyset, MT3 Dev/tty or MT3 device terminal. when it came out, the end users all agreed that the profile itself is really good and possibly "END-GAME" but the issues came very quickly like the fact that it's biggest achilles heels were
1, the keycaps were only available in Dye-sub pbt not Double-Shot pbt, which while is generally slightly inferior in terms of how the legends will wear out, however is 1 cheaper in terms of production, effectively cutting the cost by as much as half as it would have been if it was double shot because remember, double shot means that you need 2 molds for the casting process 1 for the legends itself and the other for everything else. while the dye-sub method works by using 1 mold and adding in the legends through dye-sublimation ink with heat and pressure, something which ABS keycaps are very weak towards, while PBT once cooled has a higher resistance towards making it suitable for the process.
And 2, the first round though as much time and care as it took, the final QC was not the best, many users reported that the first round had legend problems being with how many of the legends are either not sharp enough or are tilted from one another making it an eyesore, some users even reported that the keycaps was warped especially with the larger spacebars, a common problem with PBT spacebars are that because of how it's made, the spacebars are generally prone to warpage during casting, since the material itself is melted at much higher temperatures.
After a few years and a few different keysets like susuwatari, the first keyset to be produced with MT3 profile with doubleshot injection using ABS which was designed by Matt3o himself,
Credit to drop.com and Matt3o
GodSpeed another variant using PBT designed by MITO another community celebrity,
Credit to drop.com and MITO
all very iconic keysets, which ended up being well received by the community.
and finally the subject of this review, SERIKA designed by Zambumon.
Credits to drop.com and Zambumon
A beautiful prelude.
Perhaps, it's due to the colours being yellow, white and black... but it is undeniable, my camera doesn't do it justice. the yellows are more saturated than it looks. you will need to see it in person to know how good it actually is.
so what do we get for this, well that depends on the kits you ordered, yes like all keycaps, everything comes in sets rather than one complete set because well... it'd be ludicrously expensive if you want it all,
the base kit comes with only the alphanumeric block and if you pay a little bit more, the modifier keys enough to populate a standard TKL board. but for everything else, you need to as they say, PAY UP.
In total it costed me 192 in american dollars or for my college english literature lecturer 264.69 in canadian rubels, which includes shipping and taxes so yeah.. pretty good bargain with 5 kits in total just for the HHKB, because compatibility, but i do regret not getting the extra Geometries kit but hey you win some or you lose some, and there's always next time.
And my god are these THICC... at the walls measure at 1.8mm - 2mm or 0.07 in ye olde american inches.
This is compared to many other keycap sets which measure at 1.5 mm maximum or if you really want to compare SIZES,
Devlin K-series keycaps are measured at 2mm - 2.2mm or about 0.0000013678104 american miles for the few countries still stuck in 1756 AD on all sides.
This gives the keycaps itself a slightly deeper sound when compared to SP SA, but still louder than cherry profile keycaps because of the extra height.
The texture of the keycaps are rough but not the bad rough kind of feel, using it feels like a very different experience fistly the dished face of the keycaps caresses your fingers into the wells as to discourage you from making bad habits and mistakes, as the gaps between the tops of the keycaps are slightly smaller at 6 mm as compared to cherry profiles chasm 8 mm for Americans, that is the difference in distance between your medical healthcare costs and every other country. this reduction of gap while small makes a very huge difference as there is a smaller chance of missing a key or pressing the wrong key since you will be have a much larger margin of error to land a keystroke, if anything this lead to a difference in typing speed
which with every other variable being equal in a typing test, MT3 leads further than cherry by 13.45% at 98 WPM as to 85 WPM on cherry profile keycaps.
but while that number may seem less important because it kinda is, the largest improvement is at typing accuracy, which MT3 somehow crushed Cherry profile by a large margin at 96% average accuracy as compared to 79% when spanned across 10 tests. this is a very important margin, this means that your typing is less fatiguing since you do not need to type as much. but also it gives you the sense of security and gives you the confidence in typing faster.
here is a demonstration on how it sounds with the following
HHKB JP Type-S
45g stock domes + 10g spring
Niz EC sliders + 3d printed Modifier sliders.
Foam Modded
----- https://bit.ly/3c2LMri ----
the sound sounds really close to my ideal sound which sounds like this
shoutout to taeha types, subscribe to him if you like really cool custom keyboard builds or his cats, or both.
the sound mine makes can be attributed to a few reasons
it's not lubed, like i said lubrication makes all the difference, if you haven't lubed your keyboard and you don't like it, try lube it first and see if it makes a difference 9/10 times it improves it drastically, you can read up this article which explains which lubricant to use in this article in KeebTalk ----- https://bit.ly/2LXglEa -----
The stabilized stems themselves are very rough, since it is 3D SLA printed while it is really close to smooth, it isn't "smooth" there is still a perceivable and noticable roughness, almost close to the stock topre sliders on my HHKB that review will be coming soon so stay tuned or sign up for the newsletter to get updated on when i upload that.
i did not have Sorbothane, while it may seem like nothing Sorbothane as a material has very interesting properties as it is primarily used to dampen acoustic vibrations, and it is very dense which helps muten the sound by a large chunk, i instead used
CONCLUSION
Now this brings me to the end of the review, where i rant how i feel and give a level headed answer, should you buy it?
Me internally
Well... i'm not so sure, i honestly can't tell you that you should buy it... since.. well you might not even like it, really it's hard for me to even say. don't get me wrong here i like it, and i personally think you should buy it, but and its a BIG but, you should first try the profile first before you commit any money, try going to keyboard meetups near your location when lockdowns are lifted and one pops up near your location, trust me its very common to find one you just need to know where to look and here's one conveniently placed for you to look at. https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/meetups
there is always one being held in almost any country, go ahead and go look at the vibrant community, they will let you try it out, you just need to ask.
but if you are dead set on buying it, well... go ahead, i won't stop you but just make sure to be willing to wait.
Thanks for reading this far into the review... this took me quite some time since i received it but thankfully here it is, for those around the world i hope you stay safe during the Covid 19 Pandemic and not flout the stay at home order just to protest against the government... like please just stay at home, the sooner you follow that order the sooner that will be lifted and the sooner the economy can return to work and the more lives you can save.
but otherwise if you are looking for more content, well just wait a few more are coming soon just wait....