One Keyboard to Rule Them All - DROP x LOTR Keyboards

we've got something pretty cool here today it's something that doesn't happen too often it's actually one of a kind hand-built sample and that's because we've got the black speech keyboard from drop they've done a few Lord of the Rings keyboards in the past we've actually got the Elvish and dwarvish ones here so I'm going to take a quick look at those as well but what I'm really excited about is the black speech one because it started as just a keycap set and then you know I think they just got way too much hype and interest for it so they decided to do a whole oh my God it looks good I've got to say I was like really excited for this and for good reason I wanted the keycap set myself I was thinking about buying it and as soon as I saw it I was like okay we got to just kind of unbox this thing so you know maybe I can buy it from a company after and just give my own copy we have to send this one back because it is a sample and I have to be incredibly careful with it apparently it was hand built for us so thank you drop really appreciate it it's currently on group buy and that's going for another two months or so but it's supposed to ship in may like right after the group buys done and you know what while I'm not crazy about drop keyboards for the most part like they're okay they're just not really my style right now they're consistent that's the one thing I can say about drop is that their their stuff's going to come out it's not like a lot of other keyboard group buys that it's just never gonna happen oh there's actually like a pretty nice set of stuff under that box okay we got a cable some other keycaps okay so basically if you don't like the red aesthetic that they've got on a lot of these you can change it to a black or gray keycap to kind of fit the rest of the set and then a keycap puller let's take a look at this cable looks like just a standard USB a to c Cable One thing to note is that this isn't going to be Wireless I don't even know if there's RGB in terms of features you might be a little lacking but you're not buying this board for extra features or anything like that you were buying it because of the super duper cool black speech keycaps and then the super duper cool like eye of Sauron kind of uh oh it's like it's got a physical like 3D feel to it which is kind of nice and feels a bit more premium than just like a painted on eye of Sauron or something that's even got what I think is narcel like the Silver's blade that gets shattered uh right here or at least it's got a sword cut into three pieces that's kind of what that is to me otherwise we've got like a ring wraith on the Windows key which is super cool there's the one ring on the Windows key on the other side as well then the big eye of Sauron up on the top left here as your Escape key and overall I gotta say it's super cool I was actually thinking of buying uh both the Elvish and the dwarvish keycaps and then this one came along I was like oh my God okay never mind I'm not getting those I'm getting this guy I do have to be a little gentle because like I said this is a one of a kind they're not even done yet one nice thing in case you can't read black speech or you forget where you are these all have front Legend or if they don't have front Legend then they are on just the bottom right of the keycap in a really small print so that it's not something that even stands out until you go looking for it the switches feel pretty good they're holy Panda X so if you like those then I mean hey here's your chance to get your hand on some holy pandas the one unfortunate thing as well about this board at least in my opinion is that it is soldered now in our case it's kind of cool because this was like hand soldered one of a kind you know sweet however in most cases especially if you're not a big fan of holy pandas which I mean I think they feel pretty good I don't know but if you don't like them for whatever reason so you want to switch to clickies or you have a personal favorite that you like to put in your own favorite boards uh you're not gonna be able to do that at least not easily you can de-solder switches and replace them that way but it is uh it's time consuming and it's a pain and I would not recommend it if you can avoid it it's part of why I love Hot swap so much it just kind of works but yeah otherwise like in terms of sound and everything it's not amazing it's about what you get from a drop control however you can mod this thing to sound a lot better so I definitely think that it's not the end of the world that this is the only way you're gonna get a black speech keyboard and one thing that I gotta mention of course is it's got adjustable feet flip up feet are a big favorite of mine that I really wish were a more common feature in more premium boards I want to take this apart so bad but I can't I promise them that we would be incredibly gentle oh I didn't even notice this on the back it's got like Drop plus Lord of the Rings let's open up the other keyboard see if there's any real differences and then try them all out so like don't get me wrong one thing is that the keycaps themselves are actually very similar it's really just the colorway like we've got almost the exact same oh no they are a little different like we've got a elf tree oh what's the alpha tree I don't know which one it is so I'm not gonna comment for the most part though the keycaps are pretty much the same the only real differences I'm seeing are like on the Windows Keys even the Escape key is still an IFR run I was kind of hoping that would be more unique to this set but I do love the color difference especially with this red and black versus nice like kind of vibrant green so let's take a look at the dwarvish set I didn't mention this before but the box that's like the the outer shell for the box is this really cool uh map of Middle Earth and one thing that actually really bothers me is Gondor there is an R here I promise they didn't screw it up and and put gondo on the map but when I first just saw a flat image in teams I was like oh my God they screwed it up but it's really it's just a really nice little touch that it sets it apart from just a regular drop keyboard like you are getting something pretty unique here speak friend and enter oh I like this one the most this is a clear winner for me personally so don't get me wrong as much as I absolutely love uh this eye of Sauron kind of printing or artwork or whatever is going on here I love this Starry kind of motif on the Dwarven keyboard and I love these keycaps I really dig the gray almost Stony kind of looking keycaps and I am in love with this one like way more than the other ones you know what my only real problem though is that unlike the Elvish and the black speech ones uh the legend isn't super hidden like as you can see here it's pretty clear that it's like a one and then a you know Rune dwarvish Rune to indicate instead of like a really tiny kind of just barely visible English or I guess or Arabic numeral for the numbers oh you know what the cool thing is too they're really okay so the really cool thing about this one the Dwarven one versus the black speech or the Elvish is that instead of the eye of Sauron you get a dragon and you probably get Smaug chilling up on the Escape key that's great I love this thing man you know what I don't know which one I like the most I think it's the dwarfish one but there's something really unique and cool about the black speech one that kind of just draws my eye even though I think I like this one visually the most there this just it's very eye-catching okay we've got I think all three of the variants here which is amazing I can't believe they sent us uh these guys too I really wanted these but I just couldn't ah my God it's hard to get out even with the glove on okay I'm just gonna that's not working either wow that's fine uh Mount Doom is clearly gonna go with our black speech board and then let's get lothlorian with our dwarves and anduin for our elves beautiful now obviously I'd be taking the keycaps off and replacing them and everything they don't go right here they go on the Escape key or actually you could put them on basically any of this top row uh and it would fit and look pretty good so that's up to you I think they're great I honestly kind of wanna see what I can take home after the end of this yes nothing okay I'm gonna I'm gonna type on all these in a sec here but not before you check out our sponsor thanks Warframe for sponsoring today's video Warframe is a Cooperative free to play online action game with over 70 million players on PC series X PS5 switch and more their newest expansion the duviri Paradox is a roguelite adventure where you find yourself exploring a Time Loop this new story based Quest has you escaping an enormous open world that shifts based on the mood of its ruler the child King indominus thrax not only is it free for everyone but both new and old players can jump in right now so start living out your space ninja Dreams by using the code at the link below and Warframe will hook you up with a bundle that's perfect for new players okay I'm gonna try it out I'm gonna type with the finger gloves on this is probably gonna go poorly but you know we'll see how it goes oh yep I'm gonna Reef not Mulligan Mulligan that never happened 112 97 it's not bad not the best I've done but it could have been worse there's something about the cupping on all of these keycaps a lot of you might be familiar with feeling the home row not through cups but through uh the little bars or dots on the f j key and that's not happening here it's going with the more of a I don't think these are sa but they're almost sa and so they're going with that really cupped feel so that you know where your fingers just kind of sit and it does a good job but there's also this kind of weird raised Edge on some of them that feels a bit exaggerated and so this doesn't feel like a typical sa keycap set or essay variant and because of that I would ever so slightly sometimes feel like I'm struggling to lift my fingers just a little bit and they'd catch on some of the keycaps not much and I would definitely get used to that over time it might also help if I had the feet up and I was typing at a bit more of an angle so that might be something to be aware of but other than that like it feels pretty good now in terms of sound these aren't like the best I've ever used or heard myself however you can modify drop control keyboards without too much ease and there's tons of videos on YouTube uh to show you how to do that if you're ever worried about you know running into a big project that you don't know how to do my only real complaint has got to be that this is not hot swap I really wish it was let's take a keycap off and take a look and while I only typed on the black speech keyboard all these other guys are using the same switches and it's basically the same keyboard aside from some uh you know artistic design changes so you're going to get the same typing experience relatively across each one one of the really nice things about this too is that while I didn't think there was RGB there's definitely at least illumination so while you can't see much of it on these keycaps in particular because they're not shine through or anything if say you like the board and you like the artwork design on it so you want to keep it and you like the switches you want to keep those you can do that and just change the keycap set to something else that's more shine through if you want to take advantage which is actually great if you want to maybe just swap out wasde or something for something shine through for when you're gaming so that you I don't know some people do that like I've had rubber keycaps on my wasd at one point just to get a feel for it one thing to note though is that they do appear to be North facing so if you prefer south facing LEDs then that could also be a problem for you what do you prefer a lot of you in the community prefer south facing apparently you can see the shine through a little better I've never stopped and like tested that myself personally so I don't know for sure but it does it is a sticking point for a lot of people out there another really minor nitpick that a lot of people might not even care about is uh you can't really put the space bar upside down and still have it fit the rest of the keyboard because of the Elvis scripture or black speech scripture on it and other than that it's pretty nice it's an anodized aluminum and so it's a little Hefty it's also a tkl I I don't know why I didn't mention that yet but basically you're just you're not gonna it's 10 key less you're not gonna get your numpad and all that but it is a smaller profile on your desk so for those of you who care who need that little bit extra desk space decal is often preferable or even you know will go as low as a 40 if you really want to why not don't go as low as 40 don't do a 40 it's gross yeah I agree what was I gonna do oh wait I was gonna weigh this zero pound how many pound now 2.164 so it's not that V it's definitely enough that you've got it's got a bit of weight to it and you can tell that it's not just all plastic but it's not going to be some like six plus pound thing that just sits on your desk and doesn't move that being said the rubber feet on the bottom aren't great they're not like bad and it might work a little better with the feet flipped up oh yeah that's a bit better although you're always in danger of this or it just flops down like that is it the keyboard for me not particularly but that's mostly because I'm kind of getting away from tkl's right now I've been really a lot more into getting that numb pad back on my desk but in a compressed layout whether that's like a full compressed keyboard or if it's like an 1800 with like just a bit of a gap kind of there it's pretty sweet and for the switches the keyboard and the keycaps and the cable like everything that you see here except for these novelty keycaps because these are much more expensive on their own they are beautiful though dwarf Factory does a really good job if you like these maybe check out Jelly key as well they're they're great if you like these Artisan keycaps that's what I was gonna get to these are about 65 a piece for a 1u keycap which is actually pretty on par for most uh kind of specialty custom keycaps like this range fluctuates a bit if you are okay with that price and you like this kind of design where it's a 3D model and then they've resined it over top or whatever you then check out Jelly key as well they do a bunch of cool stuff I've got a few keycaps on the way from them but 65 bucks for a single Escape key when I'm like I'm alert of the Rings fan but I'm not like oh yeah everything Lord of the Rings like it's just I grew up reading the books and I love the movies and I've played most games it was a banger the book's great hey the book's great first movie not so bad second and third movies we just don't speak of those yeah I'm not I'm not like the hugest fan so I don't need this in my life however if you've already got like a themed setup in your room or you're looking to do that with like Lord of the Rings everything then this is absolutely kind of the best choice to go with unless you're willing to pay really big bucks for something super duper custom now the keyboard itself with keycaps with switches with the cable with everything else you saw in the Box this goes for right now it's on group Buy for 169.99 so it's 170 bucks and it is 199 at launch I don't know if they're gonna do another round if it's all gonna sell out during the group buy who knows but they are looking to ship in May of this year which is always great at 170 or 200 there are a lot of full keyboards that you could buy that are pretty good competitors to this thing out of the box they're honestly even better in a lot of ways in terms of especially in terms of like sound and maybe type feel on the stabilizers the reality is you just these days you kind of want like some really good tape on the back and some foam silicone on the bottom maybe just to make it all sound everyone's looking for that like either that creamy thock kind of sound or they're looking for that like high ping like old IBM kind of sound and this is definitely more on the old IBM kind of noise but for me it's just not what I'm looking for right at the moment if you want to get something like this that is basically the same but without the really really cool art style um then you can get I don't know anything from kikron is going to be similar price and maybe even a gmk pro if you want one but I gotta say they have crushed it in terms of just Lord of the Rings stuff they've absolutely done a number on the design here and I'm really pleased with it overall when it comes to a product like this that is attached to a very marketable IP it can be really tough to get something down in price that is anywhere close to this to be perfectly honest I've actually got a set of keycaps alone I've got the forexian keycaps ordered and those are 150 bucks just for the keycaps I gotta say this is a pretty good deal if you're a big Lord of the Rings fan and you want any of these three keyboards or even the keycaps like they're beautiful and they're very well handcrafted like absolutely stunning it's kind of your option and I think you should go for it that's the drop control and Lord of the Rings keyboard specifically the black speech set that we've got to be super careful with if you want to check out any other kind of Ip related stuff I opened a Star Wars LG C2 recently it was good it was just also really expensive

Channel: ShortCircuit

Views: 217,835

Keywords: shortcircuit, SC, unboxing, first impression, tech, gadget, home, fun, buy, keyboard, lord of the rings, lotr, fan service, cool, fan, nerd, geek, orc, hobbit

Id: 5UAvvX2uW5o

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 13 2023