Maxim Harper

Das Keyboard Ultimate

If you’re one of the people who likes to skim reviews and are not interested in scrupulous breakdown: I’ll save you the time and just say I love this thing. The Das has had its drawbacks with calibrating myself to blank keys and its behemoth size - but I don’t regret it one bit.

I first heard about the Das in a dropped comment on the Talk Show back in 2011. This was when the Mac version was first announced. From this comment I started to investigate. Unfortunately due to it’s lengthy delay until release date & the lack of a UK model - I lost interest. Especially with the lack of any reviews by the people online whos opinions I trust.

In the shadow of the comprehensive Shawn Blanc review - and with the seal of approval from Garrett Murray, Katie Floyd and Merlin Mann - I knew it was time for me to pull the trigger on the Das.

What I found interesting the Das company was its founding:

In 2005, in a personal quest to improve his own typing speed and accuracy, Metadot Corporation founder and self-proclaimed “Uber Geek” Daniel Guermeur asked to have a totally blank keyboard created. To his surprise, his typing speed doubled after just a few weeks of use.

As many friends and colleagues who tested the keyboard were mesmerised and wanted one, the business potential became obvious, and Das Keyboard was born.

As someone who preys upon maximising computing efficiency - I felt I couldn’t turn down the challenge posed by the uncommunicative black keycaps of the Das Ultimate.

One thing I hate about keyboards is how the print on a key can restrict remapping. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but the inconsistency of pressing something labeled one thing - then it doing another is too much to bear. This mental restriction amalgamated with my fussy key placement preferences: blank keycaps started shaping up to be the ideal solution. Providing I could deal with them.

Construction

Depending on your aescetic taste the Das can either be beautiful or a true eyesore - but either way there’s no denying it looks badass. You can only imagine the Das as Batman’s keyboard of choice. The matte black keys and glossy black body give a sleek look (providing you’ve got a microfibre cloth to hand) - but it doesn’t totally reduce the eyesore of it’s colossal size and 90’s styling it has inherited from it’s grandfather - the IBM model M. One may see this as a regression from the more modern styled chicklet keyboard - but it’s built for a different purpose. It sits like rock on the desk and is static during even the most intense cranking.

The keys themselves are curved to fit the finger perfectly - I only can sing praise about this. The angle provided by the under keyboard feet married with the curved layout result in one of the best typing ergonomics I’ve used. The cable to connect the Das is USB and comes with this ps2 adapter which provides a larger n-key rollover - though I don’t think I’ll need more than 6 simultaneously pressed keys (over USB) whilst I’m this side of 150WPM and Korean Starcraft tournaments.

Typing & Switches

The experience of typing on Cherry MX blues is one which can only be translated first hand. The keys do require extra pressure with every press - but this is negligible. The speed each spring recovers after a press make the keys feel so responsive it’s like they’re lightly attached to the fingertips. This spring mechanism is far quicker than a conventional rubber dome where you find yourself subconsciously waiting for the dome to reform after being crushed. Their springy nature and the reassuring click half way through travel provides a level of absolute certainty in every press - allowing you to really let loose and fly across the keys without doubt.

After you’ve become calibrated to the unprecedented responsiveness of the Cherry switches - you’ll quickly empathise with other mechanical keyboard users calling rubber dome keys “mushy” as it’s the only word to describe it.

This responsiveness eliminates the common bottleneck of ‘bottoming out’. This is where there is a need to attack every key so you can be sure it gets registered - this has it’s drawbacks as you waste kinetic every hitting the base of the keyboard making it is considerably slower. The absence of this with the Cherry switches makes you forget about the heavier key itself as you seldom need to push it in this nature. What’s surprising is that the Das feels less fatiguing than using a chicklet keyboard with less travel - which takes a while to get your head around.

The Das has some variation in ‘weight’ on different types of keys: the spacebar, backspace and enter are the most variant and are done so perfectly in comparison to other mechanical keyboards I’ve used.

The sound itself is very therapeutic - it’s similar to raindrops on the window sill. The clicking sound expelled from every key screams productivity and brings me closer to how I imagine 20th century writers must of felt when grinding on typewriter.[1] To quote Shawn Blanc - “When I set out to type a sentence, I am committed — it is like the typing equivalent of writing with ink.” This quote captures the experience perfectly.

I’ve yet to have a noise pollution complaint - this either is because it’s not that noticeable through a bedroom wall or my Mum is very polite.[2] In addition: the sound is barely noticeable when wearing over ear headphones - a relief for those who listen to music whilst computing. Many over exaggerate the volume of a mechanical keyboard but it’s really not that bad. Using a Yeti microphone and a noise meter from 30cm away the peak was 63db[3] - which for those not familiar with the decibel scale that’s about the same as a conversation from 2 meters. I can only see the sound being a problem if you’re podcasting or in a shared workspace.

Blank Keycaps

The art of touch typing is developed using procedural memory the same thing which allows people to drive at such ease and the similar. As an advocate of self improvement the forced training of this memory with blank keycaps gets me excited.

Think back to the trench run in A New Hope when Luke disables his targeting system. This is what it’s like having no keycaps - you’ve just got to use the force at times. For your brain can memorise the keys you press thousands of times a day so easily - only provided it’s forced to do so.

On the first day or so the blanks caused some nuisance with passwords, keystrokes and the numbers. But after a week without I don’t think I could go back to printed keycaps. There’s something mentally stimulating in the first few days of use where you look down at your hands occasionally and realise that that’s not helpful in the slightest - then are forced replace your hands; look up; embrace procedural memory and then carry on typing. The thing I hoped blank keys would improve the most is symbols and brackets for code/markup. I constantly look down to find the bracket I require which isn’t productive at all. After a few days of easing myself in with some MultiMarkdown and then HTML/CSS the symbol/bracket issue is non existent.

The only times I find myself in trouble is when I’m typing with one hand - You kind of lose the magic touch when both hands are not set on the F & J keys - though I imagine this will improve with practise.

“Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force [controlling my typing]” Seriously if you’re like this and you use a keyboard for more than 2 hours a day I don’t know what to say.

Tweaking for OS X

When plugging in you are prompted to hold the key right to the (left) shift by system preferences - this identifies the layout of your keyboard. This syncs the symbols and numbers perfectly. The only thing it does not do is remap the command and alt keys where you have to switch them in this preference pane.

Once you’ve made this tweaks the keyboard is fully usable - though the function keys are rather erroneous:

• F1 to F10 & F13 are useless without tweaking w/ keyboard maestro.
• F10 = Expose, F11 = Dashboard.
• F14 = Brightness down, F15 = Brightness up.

All of these can be remapped. I’ve got mine to correspond with the Apple Wireless keyboard with this keyboard maestro folder. Although some can be done though system prefs - and I do so for dashboard as double pressing takes you back to the desktop which keyboard maestro cannot do. Same with mission control and command F3 for showing the desktop. F8 I’ve mapped to random track next to the media playback as I see it fits the block of 4 media dedicated function keys. F12 I’ve mapped to eject although my superdrive is seldom used. F13, F14, F15 are still under debate for their use. Though when I start to master keyboard maestro I have a feeling that 15 function keys wont be enough.

Wrap Up

The Das feels like something designed for people who really care about their time spent at the computer. Ever since the rubber dome - the trend for keyboards has been to seduce with low price rather than high quality. People tend to neglect the importance of a good keyboard and stick with the included one with their computer - so inevitably dome will prevail. (Well at least until physical keyboards are obsolete looks at iPad)

The mechanical keyboard fraternity is a minority but one which cares. The tactile feedback and blank keycaps of the Das Ultimate has done much more than increased my WPM and cluttered my wire-free battlestation[4] - it has expressed to me the fact that keyboards do matter. This reduces the guilt of blowing a stupid amount of money on one of these things - for I know as it will by my side for the near future and hopefully for life.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Regarding the USB ports on the right hand side: in the era when mice were mainly wired - this would have been a great decision to have it on the right hand side considering most people are right handed. But with wireless mouses and given the increased width of this keyboard - it’s really a hinderance for the fact that whatever cable you’ve got sprawling out of the right side can really get in the way of your mouse/trackpad. If they’d been moved to the top of the right hand side this would fix this to some extent.
• For gaming the MX Blues’s have done me well - the click isn’t a big put off for FPS and is reassuring when playing RTS. Although if this does bother you maybe the Das Ultimate Silent with MX browns may be a better match - as they lack the click. Or even the MX red if you’re going to be using it for gaming constantly.
• The spacing between the keys is different in the fact that there’s not a physical 3mm aluminium spacing like on the Apple wireless - so when learning the Das ways it wouldn’t be uncommon to strike two keys at once but once you’re under the Das spell this is uncommon. This is no fault of the keyboard just the transition from chicklet to classic keyboard.
• For gaming the loss of the left hand side fn key is fantastic as most PC games are mapped for windows and the pinky finger is meant to be hovered over the control key not the fn key like on the Apple wireless keyboard.
• Being a resident of the British Isles I think it’s unworthy to not explain the larger enter key obsession. The stretch across the keyboard due to the less wide enter key is arguably superior - given you’ve got a larger target to hit. Plus who uses the “|” key frequently anyway?[5]
• Coming from a sans-numbpad keyboard the extra width provided by the seldom used number pad is one of the drawbacks for me - though I am actively trying to use it more often. Though if you think it’s too much of an hinderance - a tenkeyless Filco keyboard may be a better option.
• On windows no remapping is needed for the standard functions but Auto Hot Key can be used for media keys - I’m yet to test it out in Arch/Debian but I’m sure it’s fine.

Loupe Macro Lens

You may of seen the Olloclip and other iPhone lenses - whilst they are a great idea. They are $70 - which for a frugal student is not ideal. I recently ordered a dirty cheap £2 ($3 approximately) jewellers loupe off Amazon and it’s surprisingly good image quality for the money. Hat tip to Ben Furneaux for pointing this out!

Note these images are taken with a iPhone 4S.

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