YanboWuIt just looks way, way, incredibly lighter than the renders... I wasn't trying to accuse you guys of anything of course, but it just looks very similar to the K-Type I had for a bit.
BlueCrownedOf course, I definitely agree the renders used weren't a great representation of the final product.
I'm working on a more complete response to address those concerns but wanted to jump in with a photo to show that the colors are indeed different and not silver. For those of you that are still waiting on your shipment.
YanboWuCan you address the dead LEDs? It's pretty clear you should stop shipment and start QC ing these because the high reports of dead LEDs. It takes like all of a minute to make sure your keebs lighting work before sending out.
YanboWuCan you also comment on the keycaps? Some caps are very rough and grainy yet some are smooth and nice. I would say 80% caps are bad since they feel very rough and grainy and 20 % are smooth. Pretty poor quality control IMO on the caps. A membrane HP keyboard at work has better keycaps than the CTRL keyboard. The color of the keyboard is not as bad as I thought it would be though.
YanboWuLet's put aside the point if it is darker than space grey MacBook, which is debatable because the light makes the space grey in your photo more of a silver (I own spacegrey MacBook too and I will post once I got my ctrl). Let's put this aside because it is beside the point. What's not debatable is it is significantly lighter than the drop images.
If only two people complain about it we can treat it as personal aesthetics difference, but if most people were able to notice the difference in their first impression, it is just silly to keep debating the color as if it is the case of blue or black dress. It is not, it is a lighter keyboard.
However, I understand how hard it is to make things and maintain "Made by Massdrop" quality standard, so I look forward to know more about what went wrong. Let's have a two way conversations and I believe everyone wants to see MD making better and better keyboards, which benefits all of us in the community.
TheMagickConchKeep in mind that typically the large majority of people who will post are ones with an issue. The dozens and dozens of people with no problem aren't generally going to come here and declare their LEDs are working great. Of course you get a few good reviews, but the most vocal people are always the unhappy ones. The people who use the discussion on Massdrop are a very, very tiny portion of their actual customers/participants in any given drop.
BlueCrownedGood point, I am aware of the selection bias here, but I think that should be consistent across most drops, ie commenters will always over indexed on disappointed customers like you suggested. However, the absolute amount of complains for each drop, which is definitely significantly more in this one, is a good indicator that we should collectively discuss what went wrong and prevent this from happening again.