matias keyboards experience?

[chelseayr]

wondering if anyone else here has been using a matias keyboard a lot too?

have the wired aluminium keyboard here, and at this point I'm wondering if its just my particular setup (skin healthwise as well) or that the matias quality itself is not as great as it should had been .. a few of the alphabet keys on top row are already worn down badly (but the 'a' key on middle row strangely only seem very lightly abraded even although its been used as much) beside that a lot of the less-used keys plus entire spacebar is showing some obvious yellowing (some of the yellowing seem a little random like eg f14 which I never touch is still very white but f15 which I equally never touch is obviously yellowing nevertheless)

I could try get a photo late into the day if the sun stays up nicely but I don't know how well it would capture hence trying to describe it in words alone now tho

 

[joevt]

I have a few of those matias keyboards because Apple doesn't sell their wired keyboards anymore. Bought them from OWC macsales.com . I like the quiet typing and that it has all the keys (full sized arrow keys, numeric keypad, etc) yet it's compact.
- The ink is poor quality and will disappear on the keys you use most (arrow keys, W, A, S, D, Z, X, C, V)
- It has poor debounce so you may see input characters duplicated occassionaally <- like that.
- They have a volume knob but I never use it. Maybe I forget it's there, or I just use the Volume Up and Down keys.
- The keyboard is slightly wider than the Apple keyboard - the extra width is in the delete, \, return, right shift, and space bar keys.
- I haven't noticed anything about yellowing. The keyboard is not in direct sunlight.

 

[LaPorta]

I have a Tactile Quiet Pro (not made anymore for some reason). Not the same as the aluminums, but I’ve had mine for 2 1/2 years with no wear or issues.

 

[macuserman]

If your looking for a quality replacement I'd checkout the slim profile keychron keyboards. https://www.keychron.com/collection...+&+Plastic&pf_t_layout_standard=Standard:ANSI

 

[4seasonphoto]

I purchased a couple of Matias keyswitch keyboards for someone at my last job, but they developed problems. Company was willing to cover them under warranty.

 

[chelseayr]

@joevt the lack of non-wireless from apple was exactly why I tried this matias keyboard at that time, and thanks for telling me that it indeed seem to be a quality thing with them re the keys. the small volume knob is indeed an odd thing thats very out of view that you just never seem to ever think of wanting to use it compared to the much obvious down/up/mute overlays on the functionkeys row

@LaPorta I did wonder about the tactile pro (which seem to share similar physical design save for being all-white instead) and thanks for mentioning about yours

@4seasonphoto I wonder if I want to simply say 'good grief?' to that or not, mind you as I still recall: when I first got it I was rechecking the box twice and even looking on the floor to be sure and somehow the usb-usbc dongle was indeed missing. mailorder store [after quite over a week of nothing showing up in the mail] willingly shipped their most basic one (which was startech's) at no charge but then it didn't take too much longer for a very late small bubblewrap envelope to show up directly from matis themselves tho
I had ordered well over $2000 worth of ever-varying things from that store several times in the past (especially two instances of a toner in my name for a relative's needs) so I didn't feel too bad about having that one tiny freebie from them nevertheless

@macuserman after I post this I'm going to have to look through that company you suggested, hadn't heard of that name before

 

[macuserman]

@macuserman after I post this I'm going to have to look through that company you suggested, hadn't heard of that name before

They make extremely high quality keyboards fully customizable, hot swap keycaps, and switches if you want to go that far with it. I did notice that the slim profile boards they sell seem to only be wireless. But the full height boards which is what I have are amazing if you don't care about slim. All of there boards are also Mac/windows layout compatible with the flip of a switch as well as fully customizable if you want. Highly recommend them.

Be warned custom mechanical keyboards are addictive and keychron is a bit of a gateway drug giving you fully assembled buy now option that gets you in the door, but it can get out of hand quickly.

 

[chelseayr]

@macuserman haha I had and at still rare times see too-flaming topics elsewhere in the name of 'mechanicals are heavy and makes noise so i do not want them' versus 'do not make me thump you with my ibm m! now thats a real typist tank there' parties trading blows with each others

I'm actually not particular to keys height, both slim (matias/apple/etc) and thick (appledesign/tactilepro/etc) are equally fine to me

regarding keychron themself I think I like the q5/q6 qmk with silver shell (although I'll have to doublecheck if the slightly compressed functions&page layout is something I could want to live with on the q5 variation itself tho)

 

[macuserman]

@macuserman haha I had and at still rare times see too-flaming topics elsewhere in the name of 'mechanicals are heavy and makes noise so i do not want them' versus 'do not make me thump you with my ibm m! now thats a real typist tank there' parties trading blows with each others

I'm actually not particular to keys height, both slim (matias/apple/etc) and thick (appledesign/tactilepro/etc) are equally fine to me

regarding keychron themself I think I like the q5/q6 qmk with silver shell (although I'll have to doublecheck if the slightly compressed functions&page layout is something I could want to live with on the q5 variation itself tho)

I actually have the Q5 and I love it it’s a wonderful board if you’re worried about noise the browns or red switches are pretty decent. I like a quiet board so I ended up putting in some other switches since it’s a hotswap board to make it nearly silent for my work setup. The Q5 came out before the Q6 or I would probably have snagged the Q6 but now that I have the Q5 I’m glad I didn’t I don’t miss the extra keys at all and it’s nice to have a slightly more compact board.

 

[macuserman]

Here's mine in fact, I have custom caps on there so you can ignore that, but it's a really nice setup I think you'd be very happy with it.

 

[chelseayr]

you like to 'drive' your keyboard don't you? is super short for 'super fuel'? ;-)
just a friendly small suggestion but always could think of replacing 'home' with 'garage' someday if you feel like that
(driving to the garage sounds better than driving to the home)

as for noise, I wasn't going to mind a tiny bit of it as long as I could avoid the obvious constant sharp clak-clak's given that its a shared space

anyhow I'll look at this in the next awhile and see what I end up wanting to order as a replacement to here

 

[shadedream]

Matias QC switches are decent... their boards aren't great and are on the cheap/rattly end of things. Of course, building a custom alps board with the switches is a bit of a pain (no easy off the shelf options). Plenty of modern MX based options out there these days and hotswap will at least allow you to get beyond the basic so-so cherry options. Be careful with the hotswap sockets and support them while inserting switches so you don't rip off the pads though.

 

[chelseayr]

thanks @shadedream I've indeed noticed a few projects that either had matias switches in a different chassis
(on a slight different note: I've even seen a few people who have taken to custom caps in non-beige colour for their appledesign keyboards!)

looking to order a keychron with custom keycap kit, beside also a wombat (but will also use keyboard directly with my laptop too) to go with it so may still come back to this topic one more time later on

 

[gcp]

I have a few of those matias keyboards because Apple doesn't sell their wired keyboards anymore.

Y'all might already be aware, but Apple's current keyboards work great as wired USB keyboards when plugged in via USB. I have several that I use as keyboards for my various Raspberry Pi & similar small form factor computers, and even my vintage Macs (with a wombat adapter)... They're great all-purpose little keyboards, that also happen to work with bluetooth.

(Trackpads - same way btw - work great as wired USB mice when plugged in. Presumably the harpoon mice would work also if you wanted to engineer some sort of sled to roll them around on while plugged in?)

 

[joevt]

Y'all might already be aware, but Apple's current keyboards work great as wired USB keyboards when plugged in via USB. I have several that I use as keyboards for my various Raspberry Pi & similar small form factor computers, and even my vintage Macs (with a wombat adapter)... They're great all-purpose little keyboards, that also happen to work with bluetooth.

(Trackpads - same way btw - work great as wired USB mice when plugged in. Presumably the harpoon mice would work also if you wanted to engineer some sort of sled to roll them around on while plugged in?)

So the system requirements "Bluetooth-enabled Mac computer with macOS 10.12.4 or later iOS devices with iOS 10.3 or later" are not true?
https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/MQ052LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-numeric-keypad-us-english

 

[register]

I use a BT wireless Matias keyboard that allows to quickly switch between four different host computers (or an iPhone, iPad…). It does not use as high quality mechanical keyswitches as are in the good old Apple Extended Keyboard, but is quite usable. I miss in all the modern keyboards that unique feature from AEK or the Mitsumi made ADB keyboard II, which is the tactile feedback of the caps lock keyswitch mechanics: It pretty much resembles the caps lock feature you would find in a mechanical typewriter keyboard. Super intuitive and discernible from all other keys, it helps everyone who doesn't always closely follow one's own writing on the screen.

 

[register]

Y'all might already be aware, but Apple's current keyboards work great as wired USB keyboards when plugged in via USB. I have several that I use as keyboards for my various Raspberry Pi & similar small form factor computers, and even my vintage Macs (with a wombat adapter)... They're great all-purpose little keyboards, that also happen to work with bluetooth.

(Trackpads - same way btw - work great as wired USB mice when plugged in. Presumably the harpoon mice would work also if you wanted to engineer some sort of sled to roll them around on while plugged in?)

Thank you for sharing this great piece of information!

 

[CC_333]

So the system requirements "Bluetooth-enabled Mac computer with macOS 10.12.4 or later iOS devices with iOS 10.3 or later" are not true?
https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/MQ052LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-numeric-keypad-us-english

I think those requirements are just for full compatibility. If it's anything like Apple's prior keyboards and mice (both wired and wireless), in my experience, it'll function fine as a basic keyboard, with varying levels of feature completeness dependent on what the OS supports. It should thus be usable on almost any Mac or PC new enough to have Bluetooth and/or USB 2.0 (or some means of adapting to it from an older interface, such as the aforementioned Wombat). Any OS since the late 90s should thus recognize it as a standard USB keyboard and "Just Work".

iOS is much pickier, though, so the stated minimum may very well be correct in that case, but as I've never tried to use a keyboard with my phone, I don't know for sure.

c