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We've got a little piece of history here. We've got the Model F keyboard.

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They used to make these back in the 80s, and oh my God, they've got a bit of a reputation

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along with the Model M. IBM made these keyboards for quite a while,

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and they've been out of production for I think over 25 years now.

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And one company, oh, that's so heavy.

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One company is now recreating them.

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It's using die-cast aluminum, so there's no CNC going on,

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and frankly, I believe it. Look at how big and thick this thing is.

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I gotta weigh it. I wanna weigh it first thing. It's over five pounds for sure.

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This thing's awesome.

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It's so big. Have you ever, we've unboxed a lot of keyboards.

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Have you ever seen one this large before, right?

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Like we've done a bunch of full-size boards. This is nothing new in terms of that.

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Oh yeah, it's like 3.2 kilos. That's what, that's like 10 pounds.

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No, no, no, it's like eight pounds. Seven, six, it's over six.

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Yeah, seven pounds, so not quite 10, but oh man, this thing is chunky.

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Can I have a tape measure? Yeah, that'd be good.

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Let's measure this bad boy. It's almost 19, 18 and a half inches long.

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It's pretty long. And then we got just over seven,

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like seven and a quarters wide. And then how thick is it?

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I need to know the thickness. So up near the front here at the max height,

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it's about an inch and a quarter thick. It comes in a lot of colors.

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We've got the red, but it also comes in gray, beige, black,

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silver, gray, light blue and dark blue. I love it, we've got the old school

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num lock caps lock, scroll lock LEDs. It's, this really takes me back.

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I don't know if I was old enough to actually type on one of the OG Model F

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or Model M's in school. I am old enough where we had like IBM's and Model twos

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or Apple twos in school and they must use something similar.

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That's right. There's something incredibly distinct

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and interesting about buckling spring switches. And you know what?

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I'll be frank, I don't like them. There's something comforting about this sound,

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but there's also something terrible about it, you know? Like it's, it's this like high-pitched

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shrill kind of pingy noise. Sounds super rattly everywhere.

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However, I'm an uncultured heathen. A lot of people absolutely love these things.

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They grew up typing on them and they have got such crazy fond memories.

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For me, that's really not the case, but there is something really satisfying

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about the feel at least. Up until now, I'd only typed on really old Model M's.

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We've got a couple floating around the office from the Model M video that we did years back.

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If you want some more information, definitely go check that out. And I haven't enjoyed them too much

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and I think that's just because they're old.

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While I don't like the way this sounds all that much, I really actually do like the way it feels

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and I didn't on the older switches. They just felt bad.

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They just felt kind of gunked up and old. I don't really know how to explain it,

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but I wasn't a fan. These though,

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they feel nice and crisp. The big difference between a traditional switch

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that we know of today and a buckling spring that we've got here

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is that instead of the spring being on a center post,

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it's kind of just hanging out. And when you press down, the spring buckles

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and then connects on the side of the switch. It's a super cool design.

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And you know, it's got a really unique, both feel and sound, but I'm a bigger fan of kind of where we've come to

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rather than where we come from. While the typing experience is great,

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I can't get over the sound and how pingy it is. It might be a little better

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if you were to open this thing and mod it a little bit, maybe add some foam,

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maybe add a couple layers of tape, but alas, we've got the classic Model M,

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Model F experience right now. I can't say if it's perfectly replicating the original,

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but it does feel very similar and sound very similar to Model M's

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that I've personally typed on. We're gonna give it, you know,

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a classic typing test, plug it in. We got a really long cable actually,

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unless I'm mistaken, it's all coiled up here, so I don't know the exact length.

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Oh yeah, this is longer than six feet. I'll tell you that much. So this has got to be like an eight or nine foot cable,

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which is great, nice and sleeved. Most, I don't think I've ever gotten a keyboard

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that's got a cable this long. I know that I keep repeating that, but it's like, I don't know what to tell you.

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Every keyboard usually comes with like a six foot cable. Anyway, this is cool.

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We've got this like huge socket here for the USB-C

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and it's actually way deep inside there, but luckily should be easy enough to plug in.

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Sure. A wrist rest, I think is gonna have to be necessary

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for just about anyone else who wants to buy this keyboard.

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All right, we're gonna try a buckling spring, see if I'm any less accurate, you know, less speedy.

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Ha ha ha ha ha.

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106, 96%, you know, it's not great. It's not awful though, it's okay for me.

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Man, I get it. I hate it and love it at the same time.

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I think that if you are in an office or if you have people around you,

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this is like the worst thing to have and they're gonna hate you. I would like be more annoyed by this

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than I think like a set of actual clicky switches. There's something about the high-pitched spring ping.

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It's like, that kind of just trails

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after every single key switch. I think that honestly, if you want to use this anywhere

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other than your own desk or your own office with no one around, you really should try to figure out

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a way to foam it or tape it or something. However, that might really detract

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from just the uniqueness of this keyboard.

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There's something incredibly special about this. I still am not

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super crazy about the feeling. It doesn't feel like a linear,

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it doesn't feel like a tactile and that's because they're just, it's so different.

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Actually, let me put some feet on real quick and see if that makes me like this anymore.

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You know, good, just a little stick on feet. These are great, these are fine.

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Oh yeah, with this you're definitely gonna need a wrist rest. Oh, that's not going anywhere.

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Those are some nice stable feet. Let me do another, oh man.

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You're not for this. Oh, thanks, Glenn.

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That being said, they actually come with a number of different options or at least ours did.

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It's got these little smaller flat guys here and then it's got these little four square guys right here.

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Oh, this is actually really cool. They've given you replacement switches as well.

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So what we've got, they're just springs sitting on these platforms here.

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This is something, you know, we're both kind of learning today. This is something I don't know a ton about

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because I, as much as I kind of grew up with these,

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I also didn't really. Yeah, so it's just kind of hanging out in there.

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That's so wild. And then this guy goes down and as you push down,

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it kinks the spring and then it makes contact. Really cool design.

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I don't like it all that much, but I think it's a really cool design at the very least.

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And anyone, you know, there's one thing that's got to be said is anyone who rocks one of these,

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it's definitely a conversation starter. One thing I forgot to mention is the color.

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I personally wouldn't have chosen red, but that being said, I do like it.

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It's a really nice metallic kind of red. They're calling it true red, I believe,

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which is a little weird. What is a true red? I don't know.

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All of those other colors I mentioned before come in a paint or powder coat finish.

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And at least on the website, they all look pretty good. If they look as good as this red does right here,

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then they're probably all beautiful. Honestly, this looks a lot like it does on the website.

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So I don't think you have to worry about ordering a certain shade and getting something completely different.

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That's probably not gonna happen here. As for the keycaps, what they've done

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is they've tried to replicate old-school keycaps as well.

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They feel really bumpy and gritty on top. On the sides, it's actually nice and smooth.

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But as soon as you get to the top, there's that textured feeling. And I actually kind of like it.

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Honestly, I would really like to buy a set of keycaps that are basically like this,

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except, you know, they fit across or box them

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so that you're not stuck trying to jam them onto a buckling spring that you don't own.

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The other really great thing about the keycaps is I just love this colorway.

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It's really simple. You've got like a beige and then a slightly less beige

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or gray kind of style. And then you've got just a little hint of blue.

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And it's a really nice blue that I think goes really well

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with this true red that they're calling. My only other issue, I guess,

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with the kind of fit and finish of everything is I don't like how recessed all of the keycaps are

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into the keyboard. The row up here, like row zero or row one

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is actually pretty high up compared to everything else.

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And this might feel a bit better if I had a wrist rest

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and I changed the typing angle a bit. But I don't know. There's something visually about it as well

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that I don't find as appealing as like this effero.

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I just love how high all of these sculpted, almost SA, if not actually SA profile keycaps are.

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They look great. But then as soon as you've got them almost like level

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with the edge of the case, I'm just not crazy about that look.

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The keycaps do come in a number of colors and languages,

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but I think that they're all the same profile. So if you don't like something super sculpted like this,

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if you want something really flat, you're probably not gonna find that here.

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And this probably isn't the keyboard for you at that point.

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But yeah, just stuff like the numpad, like I love the zero and I just don't like how close

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the seven and the four are to the rest of the case.

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It's a really minor thing. Same with the delete home insert, all those guys.

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I really wish that they were just a bit more pronounced, but it's really not the end of the world.

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Just kind of weird. And you may or may not be a fan of it. One kind of neat piece of history

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is the original model F122 key layout

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cost $295 back in 1984.

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Adjusted for inflation, that's like over 800 bucks, almost $900 today.

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So this is a bit more premium

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and it comes at a higher price tag. It's still nowhere close to if you had bought one of these

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and then adjusted for inflation, which is actually pretty nice. If you had to modelfkeyboards.com

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and wanna pick one of these up for yourself, whether it's this guy, the F104,

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or one of the different layouts, this one specifically is going to run you

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a bit of a higher price tag of $400.

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The other guys come in a little lower, more like 350. I think the least expensive one is about 300 or 330,

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which is still a decent chunk of change for anyone. And I gotta say, you are getting what you pay for.

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This is an incredibly unique product. And on top of that, it's not plastic.

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You're paying for die cast aluminum. You're paying for a neat little LED screen.

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You're paying for these unique buckling spring switches that you can't find all that easily.

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You're paying for these unique keycaps that feel like you're typing on a keyboard from 25, 30 years ago.

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Man, it's really like rose tinted glasses. Like, I don't know if everyone just remembers these fondly

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and if they were to type on it today, they wouldn't actually like it all that much.

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I know that for myself, to make this a lot more enjoyable,

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I'd have to open it up, go in and mod it a little bit just to become a little bit more modern, I guess.

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But overall, it's pretty sick.

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If you wanna kind of break the bank a little bit and go extra, you can get yours custom serialized.

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It'll cost you though. Single digit is upwards of $200.

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And below that, you're looking at 100. And then for just $30, you get something standard.

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I don't know what exactly they mean. I'm guessing that by single digit,

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all you're paying for is a lower number

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so that you can say, oh, I've got number eight, I've got number nine, I've got number one.

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So you're paying 200 bucks for basically bragging rights.

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If that's worth it to you, hey, feel free.

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Get number three or four, whatever one you want. There's one other really cool add-on though

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that I actually highly recommend everyone and it's their Repair Kit.

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One of my problems with a lot of boutique keyboards these days is they don't really ever come with extras

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or at least not anything in terms of screws or hardware.

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You might get extra feet, you might get some extra gaskets

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but that's typically about it. So I would be totally okay with paying an extra

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like 20 to 50 bucks if it just comes with an extra set of screws.

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This is a statement piece. If you buy one of these, if you want to daily drive it,

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good for you, I'm glad you like it. However, personally, I would probably get this.

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Try to mod it a little bit. There are a bunch of screws on the bottom here

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that you can take out and open it up and do whatever you want to it.

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But I think I'd just leave it and I would put it on a wall somewhere

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so that people could walk up and try typing on a Model F.

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Cause it's an experience that kind of sticks with you. I remember as soon as I came here,

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one of the first things I did was seek out the Model M or Model F that we have in stock

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and I tried typing on it cause I needed to see what all the fuss was about.

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I wasn't crazy about it then. I'm still not crazy about it now, $400

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just for like materials and uniqueness alone.

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I think that's a fair price. If you want to take a look at another modern, very unique,

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but similarly priced keyboard, you can check out the Cyberboard video

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I did a couple of years ago. That thing is also sick and it sounds a little better,

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but you know, that's always subjective.