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Drop ALT V1 Mechanical Keyboard

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Drop ALT V1 Mechanical Keyboard

Name: Drop ALT V1 Mechanical Keyboard
Brand: Drop
SKU: drop-alt-mechanical-keyboard
Price: 180 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 4.478293 (1359 reviews)

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Product Description

The Drop ALT mechanical keyboard is just like the CTRL, but with 67 keys instead of 87. Absent of function keys, it wastes no space—but it still has a full set of arrows and numerals Read More

Review Highlights:

Ukiyo

Best purchase of my life and I've adopted a kid.

cjd253

Day one of using this keyboard, it worked perfectly. I loved the LEDs, the feel of the MX Browns, just about everything about this keyboard seemed perfect compared to my previous keyboard. 

Day two of using this keyboard, I was playing a game and about 30 minutes in, I hear the disconnect sound from my computer and also notice that the default light pattern on the keyboard stopped moving and pressing any key on the board did not do anything. When I went to click the reset button, nothing happened, so I had to power down my PC. To my surprise, the keyboard lights still stayed on even though the PC was powered off, so I unplugged the keyboard and let it sit for 30 min. After I plugged everything in and powered up my PC, everything worked fine for the rest of the day.

Day three, everything that happened in day two was happening every 10 minutes of using the keyboard, making it unusable. Now I know that this is very unusual looking at all of the other reviews, but it is still upsetting.

I have reached out to massdrop and they are sending me a replacement. Hopefully the new one works like its suppose to, and if it does, I'll update this review.

Update to this review. 3/20/2019

They actually sent me the replacement before I sent in the defective keyboard which was nice (because I threw out the old box it was mailed in), and they also covered the cost of the return label which I can't complain about. 

I have had the new keyboard for a week now with no issues what so ever. Despite having to go through the exchange process, their customer support was very helpful and the process was very smooth. I am happy I have a working keyboard because this board is gorgeous!

I know defects do happen and because I got one that was defective I probably would of updated my review from a 1 star to a 4 star, but because their customer service was flawless, this review definitely deserves the full 5 stars.

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Customer Reviews

4.5

(1,359 reviews)

(870)

(362)

(69)

(23)

(35)

93% would recommend to a friend

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Sort by: Top Reviews

wildcat2083

Aug 4, 2019

Verified Buyer

Wonderfull Product Overall

The keyboard is well built and a joy to use, the leds are quite stunning and with a little effort in qmk the options are limitless

Recommends this product? Yes

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Memealopagus

Jul 18, 2019

Verified Buyer

I love this product. I got the Cherry MX Browns, and they are amazing. The keyboard is the perfect size for me and the lighting is the best I have ever seen. There is some texture on the keycaps, but are very easy to get used to.

Recommends this product? Yes

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B3NNN

Jul 18, 2019

Verified Buyer

A little pricey, but excellent quality

I'm new to mech keyboards, so I don't know a lot about them. What I do know is that it feels solid and looks great. Some others have mentioned the magnetic feet being an issue, but I haven't experienced that and I frequently use it for gaming. Never thought I'd make much use of the RGB, but I'm into it. Don't think I should have gone with the brown switches, though. They're just not clicky enough.

Recommends this product? Yes

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GrinninBarrett

Jul 17, 2019

Verified Buyer

Well-built

I really love this keyboard. I mean I adore it. I love the feel of the keycaps, the look of the RGB (thought I haven't done any custom programming of it - only used the on-board controls so far), and overall build quality. Though I'm new to the keyboard scene and so far only have a few, this is easily the most solid board I've felt or typed on. The stabilizers were very loud and clacky, so I followed some tutorials and clipped and lubed those, and now they're fine. I got it with Box Whites and loved them, but temporarily needed a quiet board so swapped to Aliaz 70g (hot swappable PCB is a huge plus here, but you knew that). The Kailh switches were SO DIFFICULT to remove - just so ridiculously tight - but when I swapped the switches again later from Aliaz to Kailh Box Jades, the Aliaz came out like butter. However, I could tell when installing the Box Jades that those Kailh switches will be just as difficult to remove as the whites were, if I ever decide to remove them (love these clickys but that's a separate thing). I guess it's something about the Kailh switches being just slightly wider, not the fault of the plate, but that's something to consider if you'll be using Kailh switches. Overall, I have nothing negative to say about the board other than the extremely loud stabilizers. It is an immensely satisfying board to type on, and I suppose gamers would be happy with it too. I've had to stop myself from buying a second one several times.

Recommends this product? Yes

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foreiignboii

Feb 2, 2021

GrinninBarrettare all of the key switch options RGB ? or is it only the ones that are marked “RGB” ?

GrinninBarrett

Mar 15, 2021

foreiignboiiHi, sorry for not seeing your reply sooner. The PCB is what is RGB, so it doesn't matter what switches you put in. The board itself is what lights up. You can program that lighting, too, using their guide. It's not as user-friendly as VIA, but still works.

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Ukiyo

Jan 19, 2019

Verified Buyer

Best purchase of my life and I've adopted a kid.

(Edited)

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Minor

Jan 13, 2019

Verified Buyer

Typing this review on ALT now, very happy about it. So, I decide to write a little about it. I am fairly new to Mechanical keyboard. I am software developer, I am using the same Das Keyboard Professional 4 Cherry MX brown in both home and office. As the keycaps on my Das start "shining", I started looking for replace keycaps. As a result, I started ramping up my knowledge around keyboards. I was about to settle on KBD75 from KBDFans and had already ordered my solder set and flux when I found ALT. Hot swappable is so appealing to me since I have never soldered anything in my entire life. And QMK is also attractive. Being able to customize my keyboard freely sounds really cool. My working environment is MAC. But I use windows at home. So, besides two MAC version Das keyboard, I have to have another Das Cherry MX Ultimate 4 at home for my windows. With QMK, I can solve this problem by simply add a layer. RGB backlight is not big to me, but it is a nice add on. The keyboard arrived on Thursday, the slick looking caught my eyes immediately. The floating RGB light effect looked so cool. The building quality looks great. I have used it with a Windows 10 desktop and a MacBook Pro (Old version which still uses USB-A). I like the layout as well. I am not the geek type software developer who likes the cool Linux/Unix tools as VI/EMACS. I am one of these "DUMB" developers who works on GUI editors. Therefore, arrow keys are important to me. I think a 75% might work better given they have dedicated FN keys that I am using during debugging. But I think I can live with a 65% as long as I have easy access arrow keys. I am a mediocre typist with clumsy figures. I know that my feeling regarding typing experience doesn't mean anything. The chassis of ALT is a little higher than Das. I think it is probably due to the RGB under-glow. This makes me easier to hit spacebar accidentally. I wish ALT can tilt a little bit more. It feels still a little flat even with the addition footer. The typing feeling of halo true is quite different from my cherry MX brown and blue. It feels a lot heavier, but quieter. Combining all these facts together, I feel it is a bit more tiering typing on ALT than my old Das. However, it is within acceptable range. I think it just takes time for me to get use to the new board. I actually like the feeling of Halo true. The thing I like the most of ALT is QMK. Massdrop provided an online configurator to customize the layout. However, the mdloader to download new firmware is a command line tool. It is not a problem to me. The whole process is easier and smoother than I thought. As a developer, I skipped the online configurator and dived directly into QMK source code. I am a service developer who haven’t use C for more than a decade. The biggest challenge to me is to setup the environment to make the source code build. I followed the QMK instruction and installed MSYS2, ran qmk_install.sh after that. However, I still had to install some missing packages manually. After all the environment related stuff sorted out, the codebase itself is simple. There is not a lot of code. The entire pipeline of QMK is just a big loop. There are a lot of MACROs has been predefined such as change layer. One weird thing is, ALT doesn’t leverage QMK standard way dealing with LEDs. Therefore, the QMK document regarding RGB lighting is irrelevant. For some reason, ALT hooked the LED logic into TMK directly. But it is not that bad. It is still easy to control everything in rgb_matrix_init_user and led_matrix_run functions. Playing with the firmware code is interesting. It feels like a boy playing with a beautiful toy. Once the firmware is built, the flushing process is straight forward. It just took couple of seconds. I’ve done it tens of times today. Added a mac layer, configured locking in to function layer by triple click FN button, reserved the LED under FN key to show which layer the keyboard is currently on… And there are endless possibilities such as creating a shortcut layer, adding a password layer which have a mis-ordered char area, highlight the anniversary date number keys on starting up, and so on. I know I am not a typical user. However, ALT filled all my bills. The per key RGB Led light gives me a lot of things to play with, the keyboard looks really nice. I love it. Pros: Really fun to play with it. Great looking. Compact but functional. High quality. Cons: Still hope there are FN key row. Combined “ESC” and “`~” key makes Ctrl+` switching window in mac not as easy as before. As someone mentioned, I do hear the PING PING sound when hitting spacebar. I am not very sensitive to it though. The angle and the height of the chassis could be better. Not very easy to find PBT keycaps which support backlight. I wish the legend of Ctrl Meta Alt keys on Row1 could have neutral icon/label on it so that it doesn’t look strange when switching between windows and mac layout. I know it's a long one. Thanks for reading. ------------------Updated--------------------------- After two months of usage, I still love my ALT. Here are some pictures I took for your reference: Green backlight:

No backlight:

Alt with pomegranate backlight:

(Edited)

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sleepynerd

Jan 24, 2019

MinorA ping ping sound? That is a little worrying, I'm wondering what that would sound like in real life.

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Minor

Jan 25, 2019

sleepynerdIt happens infrequently. I wouldn't notice it if not someone else mentioned it. It seems only happen to spacebar. I don't think this is a problem to me.

aznafroboi

Aug 5, 2019

Verified Buyer

Worst. Experience. In. My. Adult. Life

This is not a product review because I never received the product. Been over a month since I ordered this keyboard; still hasn't arrived. Through this process I've contacted customer support and connected with at least 3 customer support staff members. None of them was willing to help me instead opting to provide the generic "we're sorry, its coming soon" response. What's great was the variety of different excuses they were giving me: first it was that orders are dropped once a week so my order probably was part of the next drop, then it was they are using a new shipping company so its causing delays, then it was I got to wait 14 days before they can "see what they can do" to help. I asked for refund TWICE; first time ignored, second time denied. Tracking shows it was delivered last Friday to an "agent" Not sure what that means; I did not receive the package. Worse company I've ever dealt with my entire life.

Recommends this product? No

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luckybastian

Dec 1, 2020

i approve of this response lmao

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ChillsSauce

Jan 11, 2021

aznafroboiyeah i can agree

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Buckling

Jan 19, 2019

Verified Buyer

I wish there was a "Del" keyboard to complete a set. 90/100 solid.

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bennyl

Jan 30, 2019

It would be cool if they do an easter egg if you got all three hooked up and press ctrl+alt+del lol. Update: I got the ALT keyboard after all, crossing my fingers for the DEL. @Massdrop if you are reading this, find a way to make DEL keyboard so I can complete this collection!

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jackaroniandcheese

Jan 14, 2020

BucklingI feel like a DEL mini macro board would be awesome

Dog-Juice

Nov 5, 2018

Verified Buyer

This is a beautiful, well-constructed, feature-rich keyboard. It's a shame it's let down by a couple of flaws that I don't think are acceptable for the price. The biggest is easily the USB-C compatibility issues. Since my laptop only has USB-C ports, and because that's the way wired devices are headed, I only buy USB-C devices. This keyboard is advertised as such, but it's not exactly the case. My keyboard hasn't worked with any of the USB-C cables I've tried, and I know other people have had the same problem. Sure, it'll work with an A-to-C cable, but that wasn't stated in the promotional information, it negates its future-proof-ability, it means I'm forced to use a dongle, it's counterintuitive, and frankly isn't acceptable at this price. I've used two other keyboards with keyboards with USB-C ports (one similarly-priced, one significantly cheaper) and had no problem whatsoever. Less important and more predictable, but still annoying, is the programming that's required to get this thing working how you want it to. Lots of keyboards are like that, and it just requires a bit of reading to get going, but potential buyers be aware: you won't just be able to customise your layouts and LEDs in a couple of minutes and get going like you can with some other keyboards. There are lots of things to like about this keyboard, and other reviewers have done a good job of detailing those things. For me, however, it just wasn't worth wait and the price I paid.

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