My Kingdom for Smooth ABS SA Keycaps
Every time I build a new keyboard, I go hunting for keycaps. And every time I go hunting, it eventually devolves into a desperate search for SA (or equivalent) profile keycaps with a smooth finish. SA is the ultimate profile, IMHO, and they're relatively hard to come by. Signature Plastics, which is where a lot of SA sets come from like the T0mb3ry SA Carbon set (they might actually hold the trademark on the SA profile if I'm not mistaken), is reportedly going through some management/ownership struggles (last I heard, they're looking for new ownership), and along with apparently the rest of the industry, they seem to be neglecting this superior keycap profile in their own stocks. If you order direct from them, they have a couple themed sets in stock (maybe), but generally you can have any color you want, as long as it's black or white. Drop carries a fair number of MT3 profile sets, which are very similar to SA. But just like SP's SA-P profile, they're made with a different...
Apr 10, 2024
It's the cheapest I could find with brown switches and non-red back light.
But without prior experience, £100 seems a lot before I know whether I like it.
I had (perhaps naively) thought there might be a cheaper option I could use as a trial first (around £50-60).
in Germany the advice for newbies is often the Cherry MX Board 3.0 for ~ €60, we've allmost every week good deals for Coolermaster mks around €70 - €90, depending on model at http://www.zackzack.de/html/index.html, but this won't help you.
Something around €100 is a "normal" pricerange to look for genuine Cherrys, i've no idea about possibilities/deals in the UK, but i like to shop at http://www.keyboardco.com/, i've gotten my Filco Minila there, good reliable english business.
You might get lucky looking at Ebay or https://www.reddit.com/r/mechmarket/search?q=%22EU%22+NOT+%22CA%22+NOT+%22US%22+NOT+%22AU%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all to find something for a better price.
The need for ISO-UK is limiting you, it's the same for my german mates insisting on ISO-DE, the wider freedom of possibilities is starting to go ANSI mks and use something like http://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/start.html?lang=en. I love it for years by now and won't switch back to ISO, but i understand it's not possible for everyone depending on needs, work whatever.
Good luck to find something pleasing you!