We've got a little piece of history here. We've got the Model F keyboard.
They used to make these back in the 80s, and oh my God, they've got a bit of a reputation
along with the Model M. IBM made these keyboards for quite a while,
and they've been out of production for I think over 25 years now.
And one company, oh, that's so heavy.
One company is now recreating them.
It's using die-cast aluminum, so there's no CNC going on,
and frankly, I believe it. Look at how big and thick this thing is.
I gotta weigh it. I wanna weigh it first thing. It's over five pounds for sure.
This thing's awesome.
It's so big. Have you ever, we've unboxed a lot of keyboards.
Have you ever seen one this large before, right?
Like we've done a bunch of full-size boards. This is nothing new in terms of that.
Oh yeah, it's like 3.2 kilos. That's what, that's like 10 pounds.
No, no, no, it's like eight pounds. Seven, six, it's over six.
Yeah, seven pounds, so not quite 10, but oh man, this thing is chunky.
Can I have a tape measure? Yeah, that'd be good.
Let's measure this bad boy. It's almost 19, 18 and a half inches long.
It's pretty long. And then we got just over seven,
like seven and a quarters wide. And then how thick is it?
I need to know the thickness. So up near the front here at the max height,
it's about an inch and a quarter thick. It comes in a lot of colors.
We've got the red, but it also comes in gray, beige, black,
silver, gray, light blue and dark blue. I love it, we've got the old school
num lock caps lock, scroll lock LEDs. It's, this really takes me back.
I don't know if I was old enough to actually type on one of the OG Model F
or Model M's in school. I am old enough where we had like IBM's and Model twos
or Apple twos in school and they must use something similar.
That's right. There's something incredibly distinct
and interesting about buckling spring switches. And you know what?
I'll be frank, I don't like them. There's something comforting about this sound,
but there's also something terrible about it, you know? Like it's, it's this like high-pitched
shrill kind of pingy noise. Sounds super rattly everywhere.
However, I'm an uncultured heathen. A lot of people absolutely love these things.
They grew up typing on them and they have got such crazy fond memories.
For me, that's really not the case, but there is something really satisfying
about the feel at least. Up until now, I'd only typed on really old Model M's.
We've got a couple floating around the office from the Model M video that we did years back.
If you want some more information, definitely go check that out. And I haven't enjoyed them too much
and I think that's just because they're old.
While I don't like the way this sounds all that much, I really actually do like the way it feels
and I didn't on the older switches. They just felt bad.
They just felt kind of gunked up and old. I don't really know how to explain it,
but I wasn't a fan. These though,
they feel nice and crisp. The big difference between a traditional switch
that we know of today and a buckling spring that we've got here
is that instead of the spring being on a center post,
it's kind of just hanging out. And when you press down, the spring buckles
and then connects on the side of the switch. It's a super cool design.
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
rather than where we come from. While the typing experience is great,
I can't get over the sound and how pingy it is. It might be a little better
if you were to open this thing and mod it a little bit, maybe add some foam,
maybe add a couple layers of tape, but alas, we've got the classic Model M,
Model F experience right now. I can't say if it's perfectly replicating the original,
but it does feel very similar and sound very similar to Model M's
that I've personally typed on. We're gonna give it, you know,
a classic typing test, plug it in. We got a really long cable actually,
unless I'm mistaken, it's all coiled up here, so I don't know the exact length.
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,
which is great, nice and sleeved. Most, I don't think I've ever gotten a keyboard
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.
Every keyboard usually comes with like a six foot cable. Anyway, this is cool.
We've got this like huge socket here for the USB-C
and it's actually way deep inside there, but luckily should be easy enough to plug in.
Sure. A wrist rest, I think is gonna have to be necessary
for just about anyone else who wants to buy this keyboard.
All right, we're gonna try a buckling spring, see if I'm any less accurate, you know, less speedy.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
106, 96%, you know, it's not great. It's not awful though, it's okay for me.
Man, I get it. I hate it and love it at the same time.
I think that if you are in an office or if you have people around you,
this is like the worst thing to have and they're gonna hate you. I would like be more annoyed by this
than I think like a set of actual clicky switches. There's something about the high-pitched spring ping.
It's like, that kind of just trails
after every single key switch. I think that honestly, if you want to use this anywhere
other than your own desk or your own office with no one around, you really should try to figure out
a way to foam it or tape it or something. However, that might really detract
from just the uniqueness of this keyboard.
There's something incredibly special about this. I still am not
super crazy about the feeling. It doesn't feel like a linear,
it doesn't feel like a tactile and that's because they're just, it's so different.
Actually, let me put some feet on real quick and see if that makes me like this anymore.
You know, good, just a little stick on feet. These are great, these are fine.
Oh yeah, with this you're definitely gonna need a wrist rest. Oh, that's not going anywhere.
Those are some nice stable feet. Let me do another, oh man.
You're not for this. Oh, thanks, Glenn.
That being said, they actually come with a number of different options or at least ours did.
It's got these little smaller flat guys here and then it's got these little four square guys right here.
Oh, this is actually really cool. They've given you replacement switches as well.
So what we've got, they're just springs sitting on these platforms here.
This is something, you know, we're both kind of learning today. This is something I don't know a ton about
because I, as much as I kind of grew up with these,
I also didn't really. Yeah, so it's just kind of hanging out in there.
That's so wild. And then this guy goes down and as you push down,
it kinks the spring and then it makes contact. Really cool design.
I don't like it all that much, but I think it's a really cool design at the very least.
And anyone, you know, there's one thing that's got to be said is anyone who rocks one of these,
it's definitely a conversation starter. One thing I forgot to mention is the color.
I personally wouldn't have chosen red, but that being said, I do like it.
It's a really nice metallic kind of red. They're calling it true red, I believe,
which is a little weird. What is a true red? I don't know.
All of those other colors I mentioned before come in a paint or powder coat finish.
And at least on the website, they all look pretty good. If they look as good as this red does right here,
then they're probably all beautiful. Honestly, this looks a lot like it does on the website.
So I don't think you have to worry about ordering a certain shade and getting something completely different.
That's probably not gonna happen here. As for the keycaps, what they've done
is they've tried to replicate old-school keycaps as well.
They feel really bumpy and gritty on top. On the sides, it's actually nice and smooth.
But as soon as you get to the top, there's that textured feeling. And I actually kind of like it.
Honestly, I would really like to buy a set of keycaps that are basically like this,
except, you know, they fit across or box them
so that you're not stuck trying to jam them onto a buckling spring that you don't own.
The other really great thing about the keycaps is I just love this colorway.
It's really simple. You've got like a beige and then a slightly less beige
or gray kind of style. And then you've got just a little hint of blue.
And it's a really nice blue that I think goes really well
with this true red that they're calling. My only other issue, I guess,
with the kind of fit and finish of everything is I don't like how recessed all of the keycaps are
into the keyboard. The row up here, like row zero or row one
is actually pretty high up compared to everything else.
And this might feel a bit better if I had a wrist rest
and I changed the typing angle a bit. But I don't know. There's something visually about it as well
that I don't find as appealing as like this effero.
I just love how high all of these sculpted, almost SA, if not actually SA profile keycaps are.
They look great. But then as soon as you've got them almost like level
with the edge of the case, I'm just not crazy about that look.
The keycaps do come in a number of colors and languages,
but I think that they're all the same profile. So if you don't like something super sculpted like this,
if you want something really flat, you're probably not gonna find that here.
And this probably isn't the keyboard for you at that point.
But yeah, just stuff like the numpad, like I love the zero and I just don't like how close
the seven and the four are to the rest of the case.
It's a really minor thing. Same with the delete home insert, all those guys.
I really wish that they were just a bit more pronounced, but it's really not the end of the world.
Just kind of weird. And you may or may not be a fan of it. One kind of neat piece of history
is the original model F122 key layout
cost $295 back in 1984.
Adjusted for inflation, that's like over 800 bucks, almost $900 today.
So this is a bit more premium
and it comes at a higher price tag. It's still nowhere close to if you had bought one of these
and then adjusted for inflation, which is actually pretty nice. If you had to modelfkeyboards.com
and wanna pick one of these up for yourself, whether it's this guy, the F104,
or one of the different layouts, this one specifically is going to run you
a bit of a higher price tag of $400.
The other guys come in a little lower, more like 350. I think the least expensive one is about 300 or 330,
which is still a decent chunk of change for anyone. And I gotta say, you are getting what you pay for.
This is an incredibly unique product. And on top of that, it's not plastic.
You're paying for die cast aluminum. You're paying for a neat little LED screen.
You're paying for these unique buckling spring switches that you can't find all that easily.
You're paying for these unique keycaps that feel like you're typing on a keyboard from 25, 30 years ago.
Man, it's really like rose tinted glasses. Like, I don't know if everyone just remembers these fondly
and if they were to type on it today, they wouldn't actually like it all that much.
I know that for myself, to make this a lot more enjoyable,
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.
But overall, it's pretty sick.
If you wanna kind of break the bank a little bit and go extra, you can get yours custom serialized.
It'll cost you though. Single digit is upwards of $200.
And below that, you're looking at 100. And then for just $30, you get something standard.
I don't know what exactly they mean. I'm guessing that by single digit,
all you're paying for is a lower number
so that you can say, oh, I've got number eight, I've got number nine, I've got number one.
So you're paying 200 bucks for basically bragging rights.
If that's worth it to you, hey, feel free.
Get number three or four, whatever one you want. There's one other really cool add-on though
that I actually highly recommend everyone and it's their Repair Kit.
One of my problems with a lot of boutique keyboards these days is they don't really ever come with extras
or at least not anything in terms of screws or hardware.
You might get extra feet, you might get some extra gaskets
but that's typically about it. So I would be totally okay with paying an extra
like 20 to 50 bucks if it just comes with an extra set of screws.
This is a statement piece. If you buy one of these, if you want to daily drive it,
good for you, I'm glad you like it. However, personally, I would probably get this.
Try to mod it a little bit. There are a bunch of screws on the bottom here
that you can take out and open it up and do whatever you want to it.
But I think I'd just leave it and I would put it on a wall somewhere
so that people could walk up and try typing on a Model F.
Cause it's an experience that kind of sticks with you. I remember as soon as I came here,
one of the first things I did was seek out the Model M or Model F that we have in stock
and I tried typing on it cause I needed to see what all the fuss was about.
I wasn't crazy about it then. I'm still not crazy about it now, $400
just for like materials and uniqueness alone.
I think that's a fair price. If you want to take a look at another modern, very unique,
but similarly priced keyboard, you can check out the Cyberboard video
I did a couple of years ago. That thing is also sick and it sounds a little better,
but you know, that's always subjective.