Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

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I've bought three DasKeyboard Model S's, and so far I've had one starting to fail on me (one block of keys not getting their key presses registered) in five years (I have one at home and one at the office in use). That's not a bad track record, but I did notice a decline in their offering.

The newer Model S introduced the 'fn' key left of the left super-button, resizing that one in the process. Now the old key-caps don't fit on the newer model any more. It also doesn't feel quite as solid as the previous Model S.

The newer 'cloud connected' keyboards take DasKeyboard in a direction that makes no sense to me. Fortunately, there are now plenty of competing mechanical keyboards, for much friendlier prices. I got a nice mechanical keyboard for €90 on Amazon last year for my girlfriend (Fnatic Gear Rush Silent LED); no complaints whatsoever, and her colleagues are jealous of it.

My next keyboard won't be a DasKeyboard.

A high-end keyboard failing after 5 years is "not a bad track record" ?

I have 40-year-old keyboards at home that still work great - one or two are even the awful membrane type.

That could easily be survivorship bias, though. How many of those 40-year-old contemporaries died decades ago?

There are still two left in parents inventory that can survive til 40!

My IBM model M I got in the mid-late 90s has a "Lotus 1-2-3 Release 2.2" sticker in the area over the function keys. That should make it about 28 years old and not a single key ever failed. Missing Windows keys are a nice feature also :)

It should have the manufacture date on the bottom. Mine's got a month until its 29th birthday.

The sticker underneath mine is damaged but readable: made in UK and the date is "1990-09-05", then other numbers one of which a lot bigger which could be a serial number (1391404). I have another model M somewhere, probably a bit younger than this one; they were throwing it away from a govt server room I worked in many moons ago because it didn't fit in a rack drawer. The crap they put there probably broke in less than 2 years.

I’ve had a microsoft curve 2000 for ten years, a mechanical keyboard should last way more.

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