As I’m writing this review, I hear nothing but the sound of keys click-clacking away with every keystroke. I turn my music off while I’m typing, simply relying on the rhythmic sound of the Das Keyboard to keep my entertained. It’s working. Sometimes I imagine that I’m a secret agent in a movie, hacking into the enemy’s computer infrastructure, creating a diversion, to allow the hero to save the day. With every click-clack, I feel as if I’m a step closer to my goal. This is what it feels like to use the Das Keyboard for Mac.
Read on for my full thoughts.
Das Keyboard has been around a long time. Traditionally, the company has made keyboards for the Windows platform. Recently, however, they have ventured over to the Mac-side of things, with a new keyboard to boot: The Model S Professional. Sporting an almost-identical design to its Windows counterpart, the Model S Professional features an all black-gloss design. This is mainly a burden: it easily reveals fingerprints and requires frequent cleaning to remain aesthetically pleasing.
The keys, however, are things of beauty. Laser-etching ensures that your keys letting will never wear out. Every single letter is laser-etched on this bad boy. The font Das Keyboard chose to use is futuristic and adds to the overall aesthetics of the keyboard. While I’m not a huge fan of the font itself, I think it was a good choice for the product.
The Function key is located on the right-hand side of the keyboard, instead of the traditional left-aligned orientation.
The Model S Professional keys feature a few things that should make age-old Mac users feel right at home: Command and Option keys, media player controls, and volume control. Furthermore, there are keys to adjust screen brightness and quickly put your Mac to sleep while you step away for a while. The only regrettable thing about this is that the Function (fn) key has been moved to the bottom-right of the keyboard instead of the traditional bottom-left orientation. This could potentially be a problem for those who opted to use the Function key on the Mac instead of bypassing it and simply pressing the “F” keys to complete the action, although it’s not a monumental change.
The Model S Professional isn’t a small keyboard by any means: this is a full-featured, full-sized mechanical keyboard. Mechanical keyboards are unique in the regard that the switches that lie underneath the keys have an actual mechanical mechanism to them. Mechanical keyboards are known for their longevity. Das Keyboard uses gold-plated Cherry MX blue switches inside of the Model S Professional, which are rated to withstand 50 million keystrokes, as opposed to the 10-20 million keystrokes commonly seen on dome-switch keyboards. In other words, you’re making an investment with a Das Keyboard product.
I cleaned this thoroughly before the review. Notice how much dust is attracted to the all-gloss finish.
The Model S Professional features two fully-powered USB ports for connecting your peripherals to. This is a welcome feature, as the keyboard takes two USB ports to power. Furthermore, the attached cable is 6.6 feet long, which is more than enough for any office setup.
While the Das Keyboard Model S Professional has a lot of cool features, the hallmark feature of this (and any other mechanical keyboard) is the experience you get when using it. As you read in the introduction of this review, the experience of typing on a mechanical keyboard is something that’s hard to put into words. It’s addicting, like popping bubble wrap or stretching a rubber band. The sound itself is reinforcing; it makes you want to do it more. If you have the chance, I highly suggest you use a mechanical keyboard just so you can get a feel for what it feels like.
I’m torn with the Das Keyboard. It has, without a doubt, offered the best typing experience I’ve ever had on a keyboard. And while it isn’t an ugly keyboard, it certainly doesn’t fit in with a modern Macintosh setup. I suppose this is a story of tradeoffs. Nonetheless, the Das Keyboard offers a euphoric typing experience that needs to be experienced if you spend a lot of time on your computer each day. You can purchase the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for $133 from Das Keyboard’s wesbite.
MSRP: $133.00
Pros: Fantastic typing experience, laser-etched keys.
Cons: Doesn’t fit in with many modern Mac setups aesthetically.
