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Drop DCX Black-on-White Keycap Set

$99

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... / KEYCAPS / DCX PROFILE KEYCAPS / DROP

Drop DCX Black-on-White Keycap Set

Name: Drop DCX Black-on-White Keycap Set
Brand: Drop
SKU: drop-dcx-black-on-white-keycap-set
Price: 99 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.720833 (240 reviews)

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Product Highlights:

DCX Profile

Doubleshot ABS

MX Compatible

Frequently bought together:

Drop DCX White-on-Black Keycap Set

Drop DCX Keycap Accent Kits

Drop Black and White Coiled Keyboard Cable

overview

details

story4

reviews240

photos82

q&a23

discussions165

Customer Reviews

4.7

(240 reviews)

(183)

(49)

(6)

(2)

(0)

97% would recommend to a friend

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erickong

7412

Mech Keys Moderator

May 29, 2022

A New Challenger Appears

Title: A New Challenger Appears

Drop sent me these keycaps to review, the following opinions are my own. I was not paid for this review and my connections to them did not affect my review. Number of ABS sets that I own: GMK (6), JTK (1), DCX (1) Shown in the review: GMK Godspeed (cream, grey, and blue), JTK Night Sakura (grey, black, pink), GMK Finer Things (Tiffany blue), DCX WoB (white and black), GMK Laser (purple and blue) Legends: GMK > JTK >= DCX I would say that the legends on the alphas for all three sets is amazing. The ranking above is based on the modifier legends. The gap between the “f” and “t” of the shift key on the DCX set is a little bigger than the gaps between the letters. The distance from the edge is consistent and not too close to the edge. Comparing the super and control keys, for the DCX set, it looks like there is a different line thickness. The JTK set’s modifier legends are really close to the edge, the line thickness is uniform but kind of thin. For the GMK set, the alignment is great and the uniformity is spot on.

Underside: DCX > JTK > GMK Even though the underside of the caps is hardly ever seen, I think it is worth mentioning. The doubleshot process on the DCX caps allows for the bottom to be super clean and uniform. The issue with GMK is that there is often burs, and in terms of the doubleshot, it isn’t uniform (vertical lines) but that doesn’t both me. The JTK caps are bur free and the doubleshot underside varies with the different caps.

Spacebar / warp: DCX > JTK > GMK The longer modifiers from the three different manufacturers were all fine. The ranking above is for the spacebars. The spacebars of the DCX set are very straight. I put them on a flat surface and when the sides were pressed to cause a seesaw effect to see if the opposite side would rise up, there was not any noticeable warp or movement. The unevenness was the greatest in the various GMK spacebars that I looked at. There was a noticeable curve or warp at the edges. The JTK set was between the two. Sprue mark: The sprue marks of the DCX caps are on the underside. The sprue marks vary based on the key: injection through the stem, a clean mark (picture shown), or a slight sprue mark on the edge of the underside. The sprue mark for the GMK and JTK sets are on the back face (away from the user), but still noticeable since it isn’t hidden underneath the cap. Thickness: I used my calipers to measure the “S” keys of the three sets (GMK Godspeed, DCX WoB, JTK Night Sakura). I’m not going to measure a bunch of different keys from the sets to get a larger sample, aka a more scientifically accurate representation of the average. GMK – 1.4 mm, DCX – 1.4 mm, and JTK – 1.5 mm. The thickness of the DCX set seems to be the most uniform across the four edges. The range for the GMK set was the largest, and the JTK set was the thickest. Note this will probably be different based on the key you measure. Packaging: JTK > DCX > GMK I like the GMK box art but the packaging can easily be damaged and doesn’t really keep them in place (base kits fit within two biodegradable trays that stack and slip into the box art cover). The DCX caps are packaged like other Drop keycaps: clear plastic trays with foam and bubble wrap (three separate trays to contain all the base kit) and a cardboard box to house all of it. The JTK packaging is amazing. The base kit has a high quality, plastic tray with a hinged lid and sliding locks. Child kits are in plastic trays with a lid, similar to the Drop packaging, but the thickness of the plastic is definitely greater and the lids lock into place. I am all about being eco-friendly, and the view that packaging is just packaging, but the JTK trays screams premium.

Pricing and wait time: DCX base ($79 early bird, $89 preorder), JTK Night Sakura base and included latin alphas ($115 GB), GMK base kits ($120 average). I don’t know the exact GB wait time for the JTK set, since I got it for a good price on the aftermarket (based on the zFrontier listing, it looks like it was about 1 year). There are some GMK sets that are in-stock, mostly through Drop or extras (typically marked up about $50) from other GMK GB vendors. But the wait time, pricing, and availability factors into most keycap customers decision. GMK GB times are getting quite long and I don’t know the state of the JTK queue. Final thoughts: I would like to see Drop start working with designers and making some new, original colorways. Novelties are always more expensive per key since the molds are new, but I think the community would be excited to see novelties for different sets. The kitting available through the base kit and spacebars kits is good, obviously there will always be someone that isn’t satisfied. It’s super hard to get a picture that is aligned and level, but the difference between cherry profile and DCX is minimal. The best comparison would be a side profile wireframe of the cherry profile and DCX CAD models. It’s neat to see some innovation in the doubleshot process and the uniformity of the keys (thickness and underside) is amazing. Considering the price, availability, spacebar quality, and execution of the doubleshot, I think this is a very solid keycap set. Rating: 5/5 Recommend: Y

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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GBN

190

May 24, 2022

Verified Buyer

A Worthy Alternative to GMK

Hi, everyone! Drop sent me a sample of white on black kit to review at MMORPG.com in exchange for my honest opinion. I wanted to share it here also to help provide a little more insight for anyone curious. If you enjoy keyboard content, please feel free to follow me at the link above!

Drop DCX White on Black: A Worthy Alternative to GMK
Star rating: 5/5 Drop just released its latest line of keycaps, this time in the all-new DCX profile. Featuring a spherical profile similar to Cherry and doubleshot ABS construction, these keycaps take aim squarely at GMK while coming in at early bird pricing of only $89. Join us as we take a closer look and see how they stack up! In the mechanical keyboard world, GMK has been the go-to manufacturer for high-end ABS keycap sets for years. As the hobby has exploded, so has the lead time for these sets, recently approaching wait times of 18 months to two years. That’s obviously untenable, but the company had what amounted to a death grip on the hobby. For high-end ABS sets, they were the market leader. But all of that may be changing with Drop’s new DCX keycaps. These new keycaps are made with similar doubleshot ABS construction, a great attention to detail, and come in at a much cheaper price. Right now, the three available sets — white on black, black on white, and Genesis colorways — are available for only $89 dollars with normal pricing only $10 more. GMK sets are often $120 or more and then skyrocket in price once they hit the aftermarket. Perhaps best of all, you won’t be left waiting months for these keycaps to be available to buy. According to Drop: DCX Keycap sets will be produced with the same ethos as all of our keycap offerings: to expand community accessibility via in-stock availability. It takes us 4 – 6 months to go from an idea, to color matching, to resin acquisition, mass production, quality control, and finally shipping. When in production, we can make sets quickly and efficiently at scale so that we can deliver preorders and have sufficient inventory for drop.com and other distribution channels. Of course, all of that matters little if the keycaps don’t live up to the high standards set by GMK, so let’s take a closer look. DCX Black on White: Closer Look and Comparison

Starting with packaging, we have a pretty good arrangement here. There’s no exterior sleeve like GMK sets have, so it’s a bit less fancy, but given the cost difference, I’m not bothered. The keycaps are held in plastic trays with bubble wrap. Even though the keycaps had been handled through shipping and then moved around repeatedly in their shipping box, there wasn’t a single keycap flipped or out of place. The packaging is simple but effective, which is what matters. At first glance, the keycaps appear well-made with very crisp legends. I wanted to see how they would stack up against GMK, however, so I pulled a selection of keycaps from my Blue Samurai set I picked up earlier this year ($150, by the way).

The first thing that stood out to me is just how crisp the legends are. Drop’s doubleshot process results in very nice legending. This comparison is a bit slanted due to the high contrast of the white on black set, but it also highlights how consistently well done it is across these keys. There are some differences between sets where one looks better than the other — the GMK Esc key looks slightly more crisp than the DCX set, but the arrows on Tab are way more crisp on DCX — but these differences are small and generally reflect very well on the DCX keycaps. Like GMK, the caps are lightly textured. They feel slightly smoother under the finger, but Drop states that “not all ABS plastics are created equal” and that these are made from the same blend as found on its MT3 profile keycaps. These are fairly shine resistant, in my experience, but like all ABS will shine more quickly than PBT. Still, as someone who hates shine, I’m happy to hear resilience was a key factor in the plastic blend used here. Time will tell how they hold up. Also notice that Drop got rid of the centered Control legend from the GMK set, which makes it look more unified with the rest of the bottom row.

Flipping them around, the DCX caps are way cleaner. There’s no comparison. Look at those solid doubleshots! The sprue marks on the DCX caps are smaller and harder to notice too. Here’s a close-up that shows the sprue mark on a 1u a bit better:

Tiny! Thickness is comparable between the two sets, but it looks like GMK may have the slight edge — I will update this review with caliper measurements as soon as my new set arrives. Visually, both sets are thick and feel substantial under the finger.

Installed on the keyboard, you can see that the DCX set sits ever so slightly higher. It’s visible, but in truth, I was able to type with these keycaps installed and not really feel any difference. The change is present but hardly a game-changer. When it comes to typing on them, the sound and feel is incredibly similar to GMK. On recordings, typing sounds identical. In person, I find the DCX keycaps to have a slightly lower pitch, but it’s so close it could be a placebo effect. There is virtually no difference between them when it comes to sound and feel.

Final Thoughts - A Worthy Alternative to GMK Taken as a whole, Drop has really done a great job with this new profile. It’s close enough to Cherry that you can easily jump between the two profiles without missing a beat, and the doubleshot process is excellent. Sound and feel are both on par with GMK, with the side benefit of much cleaner doubleshots and legends that are frequently crisper. Add in the much cheaper pricing and ready availability, and you have a keycap set that’s a worthy alternative to GMK. Right now, Drop is launching this set in three colorways (Black on White, White on Black, and Genesis) to start. It plans to launch many more in the future, and if its MT3 keycaps are anything to go by, I’d say that’s a safe bet. While we’ll have to see how subsequent sets turn out, I think this is a very good thing for the industry and provides a great alternative to fans of ABS keycap sets.

Recommends this product? Yes

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ThatDudeDeven

Jun 27, 2022

GBNThanks for the in-depth review. I think you just swayed me to grab a set. GMK WoB is $79 right now, with the DCX sets being $89 with a longer wait time, but I think this convinced me to try something different. Sort of digging the Handarbeit-esque Genesis set anyway.

•

Andy_Who

359

Keyboard Club Member

May 25, 2022

Pretty good!

Review Title: Pretty good! Star Rating out of 5: 4 out of 5 Would you recommend to a friend: sure, pretty solid alternative to GMK if not still a little pricey. Hello!, Note:
I was randomly selected as a keyboard club member for an early review of this DCX keycap set, but it didn’t influence my opinion in anyway.

Elephant in the room first - These look A LOT like GMK white-on-black. I got the keycaps before the email notifying me that I was selected. I thought I ordered the GMK white-on-black and totally brain wiped it! Thankfully I am currently not insane. It was after looking at both DCX and GMK sets on DROP, I noticed this was the DCX set. As someone who has a bunch of GMK sets, that alone is impressive! They look and feel just like GMK keycaps. DCX profile is the same as GMK, the legends are sharp and slender (like less font-weight) on the keys. Looking closer I feel that the GMK may be slightly thicker, but it’s hard to tell.

How do they stack up? I compared this set of DCX keycaps to 3 other GMK sets and did sound tests on 3 different keyboards. The three keyboards I compared them on was the DROP ALT high-profile, the GMMK Pro with aluminum plate, and last a Melody65 using polycarbonate plate and sound dampening foam in case and behind plate. Only the Melody65 I noticed a difference in sound.

Comparing the spacebars, notice there is more going on in the GMK spacebar (bottom) vs the DCX (top). I think this contributes to the stabilizer keys sounding slightly higher pitch to my ears. I will note I only noticed it clearly on the Melody65 – the board with the most sound dampening. Those legends though!

Are the DCX worth it over the GMK? As I write this review the DCX White-on-black are $89 and the GMK White-on-black are $99. That’s probably not enough of a price difference to make me pick the DCX over GMK because of my own person sound preferences. DCX’s legends look great. They feel almost identical to typing on GMK sets. I feel like if the price was a $20 difference instead of $10 it would be a no-brainer depending on the set. As it is now, I would probably pick up GMK set personally. The only downside to the DCX is the higher sound I notice on stabilizer keys and that could be attributed to my personal preference. I don’t think most people would even notice it, but once I heard it, it was hard to un-hear it. I feel like If I picked up a set of DCX I would add spacebar foam or applying something like adhesive putty to the underside of the stabilizer keys. If you want a TL;DR DCX
Good:

Better legends.
Slightly cheaper price (but still up there).
Feel just like GMK when typing.

Bad:

Stabs may sound higher pitch than GMK.
Not much cheaper than GMK.

Bonus note: DCX and GMK both will be prone to shin as they are ABS keycaps. I would put them WAY over my NicePBT and any other PBT keycaps I currently own - easily. Here is a youtube video containing some comparisons and the sound tests I did. https://youtu.be/SmdXrAZPMlo Start of sound test: https://youtu.be/SmdXrAZPMlo?t=105 Thanks for reading!

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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samagior

Jul 22, 2022

Verified Buyer

WARNING !!!

Do not buy these if you plan on working with it! I got them with a bunch of Holy Panda X and now I can’t help myself but pianoting on these all day long without getting anything done at all... They are so soft I am forced to put gloves on to prevent myself from wanting to caress them... They are so beautifully shinning I am forced to ware sunglasses over my already equipped computer glasses... No seriously, I'm in love! Lettering, home bumps, uniformity, everything is perfectly done at a very decent price compared to some well-known competitors. As for the DCX profile; it kind of feels more uniform than CHERRY on the alpha row while having a higher, more distinct number row. Don’t quote me on that, I haven't even looked at the data sheet, but overall feel just right. My new favorite as a usual CHERRY typist.

Recommends this product? Yes

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badmark

Keyboard Club Member

Jul 9, 2022

Verified Buyer

Why didn't Drop focus on kerning?

So many keys on this profile have kerning issues, but the most obvious is between the 'T' and the 'F' on the shift keys. The 'T' looks like it's running away. Everything else about this keycap set is great, I just could not get over all of the legend issues. For this price, the legends should be perfect. When I can get clones for a third of the price that have better legends why would I buy these? Compared with NK Sand and MT3 /dev/tty. This is unacceptable.

Contacted Drop and they said that "the extra bit of gap is expected on most keycap sets". Not true, I do not see this bad of an issue with the dozens of other keycap sets I have. I also made a video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ThKk9Ivig

Edit: Although I checked "No" for would recommend this to a friend, Drop still shows 100% would recommend to a friend. False and misleading advertising anyone?

(Edited)

Recommends this product? No

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badmark

Keyboard Club Member

Jul 18, 2022

When we are paying this much for plastic, the devil is in the details.

involuntarysoul

Aug 7, 2022

badmarkproblem is once you see it, it cannot be unseen

RayBaer

Keyboard Club Member

Jun 26, 2022

Verified Buyer

Drop has dropped the mic on this one.

Do they resemble a popular keycap? Sure. Are they better? In my humble opinion, a huge YES!! They’re bang-on equal in quality in every discernible way. Where they’re better is: in the tooling, not leaving spur marks, huge in my mind; in their availability and turnaround time on new projects; and in their price. These are not clones. They are not exact reproductions. They have their differences from that other company’s ubiquitous shape. For a community that obsesses itself over the smallest of details, I think we can all appreciate those small differences in two completely different cylindrical shaped keycap sets. Personally, can’t wait for DCX Dolch, and I really hope Cyber is in the works. updated: knocking a star off for some problematic legends. Notably shift and delete. Leave it to Reddit to ruin something for you (haha, j/k it’s that community that holds our expectations high). I’m hoping Drop does something about these legends as well as offers replacements for early adopters. Update 2: I wanted to add a comment on the packaging. Drop has greatly improved on the tray insert that they're using to package these. Some early reviewers just had a layer of foam under the keycaps in the packing trays. What I received in my package is more of a suspended insert. The the whole tray is the same plastic with white paper/board insert that has been used for MT3 packaging. If you're familiar with that, then you know these trays are deep, as they can support the height of MT3. To support the height of the shorter DCX, trop has created "legs" on the white inserts that raises them to the perfect height to keep the keycaps nicely sandwiched between the top of the tray and the insert. This does a great job minimizing keycap movement within the packaging. To add to my earlier statement about problematic legends, the one's I see that can be improved are: Shift :: Spacing between the f and the t Delete :: alignment of the e's, they appear lower. Super :: thickness of the font, it has a "bolder" look than control and Alt

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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Jyri_Drop

453

Outreach

Jun 26, 2022

RayBaerThanks you for the review, and for being a DKC member. Dolch was launched and should arrive in July. Cyber is also in the works and coming very soon. :-)

RayBaer

Keyboard Club Member

Jun 26, 2022

Jyri_DropAwesome, thanks for the update! I pre-ordered Dolch as soon as I saw it was available. Cyber will be next for me for sure.

Om3ga25

Apr 23, 2023

Verified Buyer

Prefer GMK WOB but this set is decent on sale.

If you like ABS, want to try DCX and want a simple set, I'd get this or BOW (on sale). I'd give it a 6/10 Some complaints about the kit are as follows(starting from the most obvious)

The weird Enter & Shift keys.
Forced ws1 numpad enter (this is a problem in BOW as well) . That is a severe oversight by the designer which forces you to use the accent enter on an 1800/full size keyboard. Include a accent colour spacebar as well if you are going to force
No 2nd B, there were talks about them being added later but there has been no update.
Lack of F13 in all DCX sets.

5. I don't think I will ever be a fan of the alphas legends but that's preference.

Recommends this product? Yes

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AndyIsRaggedy

Keyboard Club Member

Sep 1, 2022

Verified Buyer

I Like Them Better Than GMK

These are almost indiscernible from GMK sets. I actually prefer the sound of the DCX caps as they are slightly less clacky than GMK. I've got the BoW of both sets and will almost always choose the DCX over GMK.

Recommends this product? Yes

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MichaelZhang

Jul 6, 2022

Verified Buyer

Good alternative to GMK with one slight nit

Great quality overall, legends look sharp as well. One nit picking is the Shift looks like Shif t, Delete looks like Dele t e. The spacing around the letter t is a bit off. But I'm happy to daily drive it, would absolutely recommend it if Drop can fix it in their future runs.

Recommends this product? Yes

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Quakemz

280

Jun 26, 2022

Verified Buyer

A strong value and good alternative to GMK

I've been using the set for a couple of weeks now and honestly I'm pleasantly surprised. I love GMK, don't get me wrong, I own more of it than any other keycaps and have for many years, but I also really appreciate a great alternative and a good value, which these are. I was sent a set of this to check out, courtesy of Drop, however I did purchase my own set as well, at the preorder price of $79. At that price, I am VERY happy with the purchase. At the in-stock price of $99, I'm slightly less excited about it, but still find it a solid value and good alternative for people not wanting to spend more than $100 and still get a clean high-quality set. I have no idea what's in the cards for the future of DCX, but I would love to see some more community colorways be used for DCX, especially if more sets can be closer to that $79 mark.

Recommends this product? Yes

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