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Heiwashin
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Found a cool noname keyboard

Mon Dec 25, 2017 8:09 pm

My razer turret fell apart in several ways... and they don't sell parts for it. Regardless of the fact that i've previously had serious problems with a mouse handling the vibrations of the truck, which the turret excelled at with it's magnetic mouse and pad, i decided to give getting a real keyboard and mouse set a shot again.

I wanted a wireless mechanical keyboard. The offerings for this are few and far between, for whatever reason, and the one that had the best match for my semi-truck needs is this sketchy brand LTC.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0774 ... UTF8&psc=1

I consider it sketchy mostly because it's obviously a very tiny outfit at best, and at worse it could be a useless piece of junk. The price seems suspiciously low for a mechanical too. Regardless i gave it a shot and so far i've been pretty happy. The key response is as perfect as any other keyboard and it feels great and is small. The laughable 4 hour life with lights on almost defeats the purpose of it being wireless, but it's much better with the lights off and i at least have the option of using the lights if i need them.

The only annoying part is that they built in this always on function key grouping, and you can only move it around the keyboard to d ifferent groups of Fn keys instead of turning it off. The default setting is the least intrusive which is the arrow keys are always active disabling ? alt and control on qwerty, and for me on dvorak instead of ? my z key. Now every time i normally type z it arrow keys to the top of the page or something and starts typing junk there, then i have to undo it and press Fn + up arrow. Unpleasant but i'm used to having to make concessions to fit things into my environment. Still.... why in the hell would you even make something like that cyclable, but not add a cycle with none of the groups on. This is what happens when really tiny companies make things. :roll:

So far it's been suprisingly nice which is why i'm even taking the time to post about it, but still unless i can find another compact mechanical wireless keyboard, it'll just have to do. My hope for the durability of this thing isn't very high though.
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whm1974
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Re: Found a cool noname keyboard

Mon Dec 25, 2017 10:52 pm

Well if you are happy with it, but I don't think I would be happy using such a keyboard. A ten keyless keyboard, maybe? But I'm not even sure about that.
 
farmpuma
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Re: Found a cool noname keyboard

Tue Dec 26, 2017 3:10 am

You could contact the company and see if they have or could make you a firmware update to disable the "feature." It might just be an oops in the firmware coding.
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Heiwashin
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Re: Found a cool noname keyboard

Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:22 am

Well they're at least aware of it because in the instructions it tells you that you must hit FN to press ? Maybe if it was a hot seller I could hope for a firmware update but it having only two reviews and not even a page on their own website doesn't give me hope :p.

I have noticed a recent trend where it seems no brand Chinese junk can actually have a quality comparable to reputable manufacturers. I wonder if it's the continued growth of Shenzhen and other massively growing low price tech centers.
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Re: Found a cool noname keyboard

Tue Dec 26, 2017 11:00 am

Heiwashin wrote:
Well they're at least aware of it because in the instructions it tells you that you must hit FN to press ? Maybe if it was a hot seller I could hope for a firmware update but it having only two reviews and not even a page on their own website doesn't give me hope :p.

I have noticed a recent trend where it seems no brand Chinese junk can actually have a quality comparable to reputable manufacturers. I wonder if it's the continued growth of Shenzhen and other massively growing low price tech centers.

I suspect it is because most of the "reputable manufacturers" now contract out their production to the same Shenzen factories that make the no-brand stuff.
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NovusBogus
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Re: Found a cool noname keyboard

Wed Dec 27, 2017 7:09 am

Yes, it's basically that. There's an old saying in manufacturing that if you deal with a Chinese factory both first and second shift will be making your product, but only first shift will put your logo on it. Also, they have some pretty bright engineers and product designers who lack the clout to get assigned to work for the rich Americans and thus make nice things for small companies that don't cross the ocean very often.

I looked at a lot of no-name KB/mice back when I was going to CES, and it is indeed very nice stuff. A couple of aluminum frame mice were particularly striking; I'd have totally bought one if they were doing show specials but as is usually the case they were there to get the attention of buyers like Corsair for the large scale refine-rebrand-and-distribute.

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