Massdrop TECK Keyboard Group Buy
by Jarred Walton on September 30, 2013 4:13 PM EST_678x452.jpg)
Earlier this year I reviewed both the TECK and ErgoDox keyboards, the latter coming via Massdrop. As I discussed in the ErgoDox review, Massdrop does a group buy of selected products in order to get reduced pricing, which can result in substantial savings. Right now they’re doing a group buy on the TECK, and while it wasn’t necessarily my personal favorite of the ergonomic keyboards I’ve tested, it has some good elements as well – plus TECK has also released their public remapping utility, which allows you to permanently change key mappings if you want to, as an example, swap the location of the Shift and Control keys.
At present, the TECK Massdrop group buy has six days remaining, with six of the required 25 slots filled. That will get you the keyboard at a price of $212, which is about 15% off the retail price of $248 – not bad. If the group buy gets at least 50 purchasers, the price will drop to $199 (20% off), and the maximum discounted price of $188 (24% off) kicks in with at least 100 buyers. That’s about the lowest price you’ll find on any ergonomic keyboard with mechanical switches, period.
Of course, maybe you don’t want the TECK and would prefer my favorite of the keyboards I’ve reviewed, the Kinesis Advantage? Well, the TECK apparently won in the Massdrop voting stage over the Kinesis Advantage, at least this last round. You can wait for another voting round, or you can also vote for the Linear Feedback model with Cherry MX Red switches. It could be a while before Massdrop offers a group buy on either Kinesis, unfortunately (and the best price I've found outside of eBay is from Sears Marketplace for $269). If there’s enough interest I’m sure Massdrop could hit a better price point, but patience will definitely be required. Massdrop lists a variety of other mechanical switch keyboards as well, mostly in the voting stage, so you could give those a look as well.
Let me wrap up this post by noting that keyboards are a highly subjective device, so when I say that the TECK wasn't my favorite and that I preferred the experience of typing on the Kinesis Advantage, that doesn't mean everyone will feel the same way. The TECK isn't necessarily perfect, but that's also true of the Kinesis, Microsoft, Logitech, ErgoDox, etc. keyboards – no product is perfect for everyone. You can see in the comments below that quite a few people have complained about this "advertisement", but let me assure you that I received nothing from Massdrop or Truly Ergonomic for doing this post; rather, I feel like the TECK will actually be a good keyboard for many people, and considering most quality ergonomic keyboards cost a lot of money and don't usually go on sale, the potential to get one for under $200 makes this something I wanted to pass along.
Source: Massdrop
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garadante - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
This isn't an ad. Jarred has done reviews on all of these ergonomic keyboards over the last year or so, and this is a quick note to all the people who read those reviews and were interested, but were turned off by the pricing. What's the difference between this and listing cheapest available prices for computer hardware, oftentimes through Newegg or Amazon? The only difference is these are much more niche products and go on sale far less often. So much less often and through such a (comparatively) unconventional channel as to warranty a quick heads up on an otherwise slow news day.So I don't see any reason to bash Anandtech over this as it's really just a follow-up for already established, quality reviews.
Hubb1e - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
I think this post is different than just a post about a 15% discount because it is about a group buy for a low volume product. A group buy requires people to know about it, and since a review was done on this product it would make sense to post this message about a group buy to people who might be interested in buying it. And every post on this website is about some sort of product, so they are all about product promotion and if I didn't want to know about products then I wouldn't come to a site that only posts content about a products. I'd love to know more about discounts on products reviewed on the site. It only benefits me. I ended up buying a Surface because of a deal posted, and while I like my surface but feel a little buyers remorse as more and more products are announced, that doesn't mean I don't want to hear about more price reductions because price is always a factor in how something is reviewed. There are no bad products, just bad prices and AMD knows that well. If the price of an FX6300 goes down to where it's now in a different price class, that is part of a review and I want to know about it.thinkwhy - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
So long as you're not getting paid by TECK to post this, I see no problems. But if you do get paid for this post, then this is an ad and should be disclosed as one.In the future, you can include a disclaimer that no one in Anandtech is receiving any payment for these posts. That should clear up any misunderstandings and suspicions.
JNo - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
We know you're not an ad man or specifically promoting this product Jarred. Your integrity is undiminished.Nonetheless, it just feels slightly out of place on a site of Anandtech's calibre which focuses primarily on *reviews*.
JarredWalton - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
This is the whole purpose for our Pipeline section -- rarely do full reviews go into Pipeline; it's for little stuff including press releases, product launches, other news, games, etc.BMNify - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Thanks for posting this in the pipeline section. Guys complaining in the above comments: why are you behaving like retards? This is Group Buy of a niche product which seldom goes on discount, just don't click if you feel so bad about it.nitram_tpr - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Wow what a bunch of whiners. From the looks of this Jarred is doing two things:1. Letting AT readers know there is an opportunity to purchase the keyboard at a discount price
2. Perhaps helping the Massdrop hit a better pricepoint.
It doesn't look to me as an advert per-se just some useful info. I'll bet people would bitch and moan if they bought a keyboard at full price then found out later they could have got it cheaper if only AT had let them know!
pstreitz - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Why don't those concerned with keyboards take a look at the AEIOU Keyboard. It is a complete departure from QWERTY and overcomes the main problem of QWERTY: it is a random arrangement of letters that is difficult to learn. The AEIOU Keyboard is now available as an App and will soon have a hard keyboard. The idea is not to switch users from QWERTY, but rather to first institute the keyboard on peripheral devices such as Apps, GPS devices etc and then start with young people first learning to type and introduce them into a much easier system. Not an easy task. www.aeioukeyboard.comPaul Streitz
Inventor
overzealot - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Now *that* is how you write an advertisement.Why use QWERTY when we could use your patented layout, that doesn't even have a physical product, based purely on your assertion that it's easier to learn?
"Alphabetical left to right is most logical, but we can't patent it. I know, lets just put the vowels first and go top to bottom!"
Innovation at it's best. I doff my hat to you, good sir.
phillyboy - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
I cannot recommend this keyboard to anyone due to the lack of customer support that I have received stemming from issues with this keyboard. I have had issues with the z, c, v, b, n, e, t, left space and enter keys since I have started using this keyboard last month. These keys either do not register when pressed or register multiple presses when trying to type with this keyboard.I saw the technical support faq about the keyswitches needing to "break in" for thirty days, which was never an issue with my Rosewill or Razer Cherry MX boards (why would their keys be different?), but I decided to slough it through anyways. The keyboard still has issues with key presses!
I have been through three RMA requests over the past two weeks (two via website, and one via email). My last email request was on Friday and I just opened up a paypal dispute today because I have received no responses back from Truly Ergonomic.
Just to let you know that I am not the only one who has suffered from lack of communication with this company - if you check geekhack.org or read some of the keyboard reviews out there other people have this issue as well.
It's a shame because I really enjoy the keyboard design too - I think having the enter, tab, backspace keys centered makes a lot of sense and the small size is perfect for me. Just disappointed that there are so many issues with the keyboard design and support.