Thoughts on a couple of boards?

[aisle9]

I have an unexpected Amazon credit lying around, and these two boards really look good. Good enough that I might forego getting a Keychron V1, LK75, GMK68, whatever and building my own from scratch:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Keyboard-Bluetooth-Swappable-Programmable-PC/dp/B0CCP8KYGG

https://www.amazon.com/Keyboard-Bluetooth-Wireless-Mechanical-Hot-Swappable/dp/B0C9THQ36P

 

Anyone have any thoughts on either of these? I love the look of the Nintendo board, but maybe not the price. I like the XVX Retro board a lot, but Outemu switches at that price point...scares me to think about any other corners that might have been cut. They're both 100% hot-swap and I have plenty of Gateron yellows, browns and Cherry reds lying around if I don't like the stock switches.

[saintlouisbagels]

2 hours ago, aisle9 said:

I have an unexpected Amazon credit lying around, and these two boards really look good. Good enough that I might forego getting a Keychron V1, LK75, GMK68, whatever and building my own from scratch:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Keyboard-Bluetooth-Swappable-Programmable-PC/dp/B0CCP8KYGG

https://www.amazon.com/Keyboard-Bluetooth-Wireless-Mechanical-Hot-Swappable/dp/B0C9THQ36P

 

Anyone have any thoughts on either of these? I love the look of the Nintendo board, but maybe not the price. I like the XVX Retro board a lot, but Outemu switches at that price point...scares me to think about any other corners that might have been cut. They're both 100% hot-swap and I have plenty of Gateron yellows, browns and Cherry reds lying around if I don't like the stock switches.

What's wrong with the price of the 8BitDo? $99 is great for PBT keycaps, wireless dongle, aluminum, hot-swap, and knobs. Plus they're not an unknown brand (they've been making great peripherals for a while), so I would trust them for warranty support.

 

XVX is just another one of those "wow this is an amazing price" Chinese keyboard brands. And yeah, using Outemu switches makes me think they probably cut corners in other places too.

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

I think XVX is a sub-brand of Womier, which apparently is making some decent boards for the price. It is not quite clear how all of these companies relate to each other, but apparently Yunzii has a board that is virtually identical to a Womier one. Might be a case of factories just selling on their own again, who knows.

 

14 hours ago, saintlouisbagels said:

What's wrong with the price of the 8BitDo? $99 is great for PBT keycaps, wireless dongle, aluminum, hot-swap, and knobs. Plus they're not an unknown brand (they've been making great peripherals for a while), so I would trust them for warranty support.

I think only the plate is Aluminium, the case is plastic and apparently can't be opened easily, at least as far as I can tell from a few videos on it. Seems that the two halves are clipped together and the screws are covered by the rubber feet.

The XVX one seems to be a pain to disassemble as well: screw under the sticker and rubber feet, fragile ribbon connector to the screen etc. 

 

I think both of them are probably a good choice for the money, if you don't plan on modding them and go for style first. Especially when you have better switches to swap them out. However, if you are looking for a board to work on or to mod in the future, I think the V1 or GMK68 would be better. The V1 is pretty barebones in a good way, easy to disassemble and mod. GMK68 I don't know much about, there seem to be a lot of keyboards with the same or similar name to that. Some look decent though, depending on the price.