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The 104 key Type Heaven keyboard is a no frills design and doesn't feature any fancy backlighting or macro features. It is marketed for typing so gamers may find the lack of flashy gimmicks somewhat unappealing. There is simply a hardwired USB 2.0 cable at the back of keyboard.
The keyboard is reassuring heavy, tipping the scales at 1.4kg. It measures 455 x 156 x 31 mm. Topre designed this keyboard in Japan, but opted for Chinese construction, to reduce the costs.
Like many of the KitGuru team, we generally rely on Ducky keyboards for our day to day work. My favourite is the Ducky Shine 2 special edition with Cherry Blue Switches – shown above beside the Topre Type Heaven keyboard. Cherry Blue are always my switch of choice – reminding me of the ancient IBM keyboards of yesteryear. Cherry Blue are loud switches, but immensely usable in holding my 100+ wpm typing rate.
The Type Heaven board uses unique high reliability electrostatic capacitive switches included in many Topre keyboards manufactured for use in banks, airports and other critical environments. The Topre capacitive key switches are a patented hybrid between a mechanical spring based switch, a rubber dome switch and a capacitive sensor which when combined offer tactility, comfort and excellent durability.
These switches also require no physical mechanical coupling and therefore key switch noise is reduced. The keyboard we are reviewing today features 45 gram weighted keyswitches.
As we mentioned earlier in the review, this keyboard is not laden down with gimmicks, lighting or macro settings. The operating system will simply install the necessary drivers without the need for a CD or website download. We tested this on both the very latest version of OSX and on Windows 7 and Windows 8 and experienced no issues getting it to work perfectly.
The black matt chassis is very well made and doesn't attract fingerprints either – unlike my Razer BlackWidow Ultimate which I had to clean almost every day. Another great, high cost keyboard mind you featuring Cherry Blue switches, which I used for a long time.
The Type Heaven brand name is highlighted top right of the chassis in Gold letters – a fine contrast against the matt black finish of the chassis. All these letters are laser etched into the unit.
A closer look at the keyboard highlights that the keys are in fact dark grey – not black. This company have designed it this way to give it a little more 3D depth.
There are two feet underneath the keyboard at either side – to raise it higher. I didn't use these at all, as I much prefer a flatter position when typing. I find this angle places less strain on the wrists.
Underneath, at the front of both sides of the chassis is a little textured panel which helps hold the keyboard steady on a variety of surfaces. The keyboard is heavy and is unlikely to slip, but it is nice to see the company adding little touches like this.
As this is an American keyboard, the return key is single height. This always causes a problem for me as I often press the key above accidentally, but American users reading this are likely to be wondering what on earth I am talking about.
You can import these via ebay if anyone can’t find them in local stores. they make more expensive models – this one is considered their budget model, still good though, but as the reviewer said= no frills and quite boring looking, but great keys.
I had to laugh when you said you hit the enter key in the top part. I’m a fully trained RSA Text Processor Level 3, RSA Typing Level 3 and Word Processor Level 3 Typist and here are my thoughts on your review:
Advice: When you press the ‘return’ key, your index finger on your right hand should not lift off the ‘j’ key. Similar to you left index finger not lifting off the ‘a’ key when pressing ‘b’. You’ll learn this in RSA level 1 lessons. Seen as a bad habit of so called ‘touch’ typists.
So if you are a typist which this keyboard is aimed at don’t worry too much. As having a single height ‘return’ key gives you a double length left shift.
Typists don’t need backlit keys by the way… touch typing is about muscle memory not using sight.
The left profile of the keys is to the perfect setup for typing for the placement of using your fingers. Many keyboards overlook this. This is also for the keypad too. This may have felt weird to you as you are used to a flat/flatter keyboard design. Pictures of these profiles are not used in your review and is a major selling point of the keyboard.
Furthermore as the keyboard is not mechanical it doesn’t need maintenance, e.g. oiling keys and you can type with 30g of pressure on the keys too which give less noise on this keyboard.
Finally, with correct actuation of the key profiles and less pressure needed for the key to type this keyboard offers you long typing sessions without fatigue in the fingers. Trust me I’m a typist and when you type for 8 hours a day you’ll notice the upgrade.
As for buying in the UK… go here… http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard/topre-type-heaven-104-key-usa-45g-black-keyboard.asp