Look, no $45 PBT keycap set is going to compete with GMK sets or the sort. If you know what you're buying these are actually a fantastic deal. Fits better than the keycaps that actually came with my board, so thumbs up there. Overall a great deal, therefore the 5 stars.
Wanted these for the shine through, PBT feels great and the sound's nice. Didn't find any blemishes on the keys, the underside isn't the prettiest in some of these along the edges. Legends are sharp, super crisp.
My only gripe is the uneven shine, most noticeable with white light. Some keys have the white LED come through clearly, while on others it's a bit muddled, with a tinge of color from the keycap instead of mostly white. Some of the light also bleeds through the keys outside the legends, with it being the worst on the W, being very apparent on max brightness.
There's a couple of really weird exclusions here, like the top row pg dn and end keys, 1u numpad 0 key, and 1.5u alt and fn needed for a drop shift keyboard and other 1800/96% layouts.
It would really help broaden compatibility if there was support for the non-standard bottom row using 1.5 u ctrl and alt and 6u spacebar. There's not a lot of nice pbt backlit sets out there right now and adding that would give lots of people with other brands of gaming keyboard the opportunity to get a nice set.
Add in 1u ctrl, alt, and fn keys for the 65%, 75%, and 1800 boards that use them and you'd also make this set work for a lot more people.
I personally would really like to see pg up and pg dn in rows 2 and 3 respectively plus a row 4 end for the 65% right column that's common on non-drop boards. This isn't as important to me as the other things I mentioned but I think that is a much more commonly used layout if popular GMK sets are anything to go by. (row numbers assuming #1 is the number row and #4 is the shift row)
Sweet sets though, I'm very interested to see where you can take them and I think it's great we are getting good pbt backlit sets lately.
EDIT: Oh, also I think the kit image makes it a little tough to tell the row height of some of the keys. The 1.75u shift being shown next to enter is slightly misleading, but it took me quite a while to realize that the navigation keys shown above the numpad are for the alt right column and not for 1800 layouts.
SECOND EDIT: I also didn't realize that the drop shift uses a 1u + key on the numpad, so that is missing here as well as the proper row "-" key to accompany it.
Oh man, come on. Missing so many keys. No 1u CTRL, ALT, FN, or OS keys. No 1.25u Shift key. No 1u numpad 0 key. No top row profile END or PGDN keys. No blank 1u keys; would have been nice to have a couple of blank 1u keys. No ISO support, for those couple of guys that use ISO layout keyboards; all 3 of them. ;)
Why am I bringing that up? Well, this keycap set won't fit a Drop Shift keyboard, or any 1800 style keyboard. Also doesn't fit most compact 84 key keyboards. Needs less than a dozen keys to make this more compatible.
If you have a Drop Shift, just move along. If you have an 1800 style keyboard? Move along. Lots of 1u on the bottom row, keep looking. 84 key compact? Keep looking.
@Kevin for future runs of this, you guys might consider adding those missing keys. Would make this set way more useful.
Please please please sell the SHIFT specific keys that are needed to make this set work w/ your own keyboard. Buying a barebones SHIFT and then this set will leave you w/ 4 keys that don't have a correctly sized keycap. I was hoping to use my Horizon and Valiant set on the SHIFT but noticed the "missing" keys. The valiant kinda works since the stock keycaps w/ the SHIFT are grey but it'd be nice to have exact matches. :)
Missing keys the set needs to be compatible w/ the SHIFT (all on the right side of the keyboard)
"ALT"
"FN"
"0/Ins"
"+"
superbaldeAMEN! I just e-mailed Drop support and their response was basically, "Sorry, we don't offer the stock set on the SHIFT..." They were nice and all but c'mon, I'm saying "take my money" and give me a COMPLETE Skylight set. #frustrated
Hey everyone!
We're excited to begin offering different base keycap sets for our CTRL, ALT, and ENTR Keyboards. Just a heads up, these keycaps have already been made and are sitting at our warehouse. As much as we want to sell and ship them to you immediately, we're currently backlogged at our warehouse (with 10,000 Holy Panda switch orders currently being packed and shipped out the door). In normal times we could adjust our warehouse labor to accommodate these fluctuations but with social distancing requirements, we need to give people lots of space to stay safe!
The ship-date for this run is set to July 22nd and we likely won't deviate from that by very much (i.e. no production-related delays). All photos featured are of direct production units, not prototypes or renders.
If you've got any questions about these cases, leave them here and we'll get back to you as quickly as we can.
thea1oneWhoops. Left off the TKL part when I was searching and all I saw was that notorious bottom row.
At least they got their act together and went standard
kahlilncI just bought this set in the Valiant colorway, also for my NK_65 Entry Edition but in Gold Cartridge. I was bummed to find out that it didn't have the 1u Right Alt, FN, and Right CTRL ones. Any chance we can get those made? I don't even care if I have to pay for them separately. Everything about my build is perfect except for those keys.
"There isn't enough interest in ISO boards to justify"
This is not completely faithful to reality, is it? It's more of a self-worsening issue. Because of the lack of ISO offer, a lot of ISO users have to switch to ANSI if they want to hope to get what they like. Or they give up entirely. They literally disappear from the market because of the lack of options itself.