My FILCO Majestouch Keyboard (and why SteelSeries annoys me)

Today I received my FILCO Majestouch Tenkeyless Tactile Click Keyboard. It’s got Cherry Blue MX switches, which are (as far as I know) the same as the ones in the Das Keyboard. Because the blank keycap version wasn’t in stock at the time, I just opted to purchase the blank keycaps myself. What’s the rush to get a new keyboard you ask?

See, I’ve been using a Steelseries 7G keyboard for the longest time, and one day the keycap to the letter B broke. I contacted them on 20 December 2009. They told me to provide proof of purchase. After I furnished said proof in the form of a NewEgg invoice, they never responded to me. All I wanted was a replacement keycap for my B key. And somehow, they couldn’t even get back to me about that one little thing. I don’t know what their problem is, but I still have yet to receive a response. I emailed them several times through their support ticket system to no avail. Basi­cally, SteelSeries has a non-existent customer service department. Severely disap­pointing if you ask me. I highly doubt I will ever purchase anything from them again.

Anyway, with SteelSeries leaving me high and dry without a func­tional B key, I decided that I needed to buy a new keyboard. I wouldn’t trust Das Keyboard again (the first one they sent me malfunc­tioned: the keys were mixed up). I ended up finding the FILCO Majestouch series of keyboards. Fortu­nately, it was available in the United States through EliteKeyboards.com.

I ordered the keyboard. When it arrived today, I spent a good deal of time replacing the keycaps. The regular ones weren’t partic­u­larly difficult. No, it was the long keys that have a metal bar under­neath it (presumably to bounce the key back up). Such affected keys include back­space, the two shift keys, and the space bar. They all had these little plastic retainers of sorts to help the key distribute pressure and to depress when struck from off-center.

Anyway, as you can see, I replaced the Escape key with the included red one, and I left on the original tilde key. The rest are blank. I might decide to return the printed keycaps to some of the keys in the future, but for now I like the way it looks.

As for how it types, it is surely noisier than the Cherry Black switches in the SteelSeries 7G. While those are non-clicky and non-tactile, the Blue switches are both clicky and tactile. When I first got the Das Keyboard (which uses the Blue switches), I decided that I fared better on the 7G. Now, I think I prefer the Blue switches over the Black. I’m not superfast (only around 88 WPM), and I think this suits me pretty nicely.

The keyboard itself is well constructed: it has a nice heft to it that reas­sures me that this is a quality product that will last ages. I enjoy the smaller tenkeyless form factor (meaning it lacks the keypad). I barely ever use the keypad, so it frees up some much needed space on my desk.

Anyway, there’s not much else to discuss. The bottom line: SteelSeries has awful customer service, and EliteKeyboards.com is awesome.