Realforce 104UG High-Profile (Black/Gray)

Ask yourself: Do you have money? Do you think you have taste? Have you found that mainstream mechanical keyswitches leave you wanting more? This is not my first, or second mechanical keyboard. It probably won't be my last, but as I sit here typing this review on the aforementioned item let me say this. No keyboard I have purchased or used before exudes class, or build quality like this piece of hardware does. Have you met someone in your life that makes everything around them seem less real? When you looked at them, it was almost as if you were staring at the sun? Too bright, so you had to look away, but each moment you regretted the loss of that vision? That, is this moment. It's restrained, gray against grey, accented by blue. Yet it will stand out amongst the objects around it because it is somehow more real than they are. Someone, or many someones, put a lot of care and effort into engineering and manufacturing this object before you. It is a bulwark against the flimsy plastic and fiberboard trappings of your modern life, if you drop it (and I feel your pain if you ever do), remember to wear gloves when you patch that concrete chip. The package? it was over five pounds shipped, no excess padding to be had here. It was a box, in a box. The box itself? A single black Realforce logo, printed on high quality corrugate (that's the industry term for this, don't get it wrong when you talk to a guy that manufactures pizza boxes, my life). You open the box, and there it is. A thin transparent plastic bag is all that separates you from the device. It's over, no tissue, no manual on top, no warranty card. There is no ceremony, it says "I'm here, let's get to work," The key feel: Take an IBM thinkpad, the good ones, from back in the early 2000's and some of the new ones now. A gently cupped key, with a little resistance and a soft bottom out. The gold standard for membrane, and especially mobile, keyboards. Complete garbage. Cherry MX brown, a little tactile bump and just enough resistance to remind you that there's a key under your finger. Gritty, harsh and it chatters like you did the day you forgot to bring your coat to school on the afternoon of the first cold front. Apple extended keyboard. A classic, highly regarded for its ALPS switches, matias carries that torch today. I own a keyboard with matias switches, until today it was the best overall typing keyboard I owned. It's like that, but the one you gave to your younger sibling because it kind of sucked and you knew their dirt caked fingers would ruin it anways. Techincal: initial resistance, then almost complete key travel to the firm, but not unpleasant bottom of the keystroke. The key actuates a little less than halfway down. Let's talk about these high profile keys. They might freak you out a little, that's okay. Trying new things can be scary sometimes, they've taught me I have a habit of hitting some keys in a less than ideal place. The home row cups your fingers just enough to let you know you're in the right place. Confident, but not cocky. Trouble hitting the number keys, backspace, shift? All of this has been engineered to make sure you hit the key you mean to hit, every single time. There is no profile out there that feels the way this does. If you type a lot, spring for the HiPro, you won't regret it. Lastly, they might not say it, but there is some weighting going on. The number pad and arrow keys are a smidge lighter to the touch than the main keyboard along with the left and right control keys. It feels...right. TL;DR: Typing feels like driving a luxury sports sedan in the countryside on a cool and sunny autumn afternoon.

I really wanted to love this keyboard but I don't. I ended up replacing it with the 104UB. Pros: The construction quality is excellent: the keyboard is heavy and very solid feeling. There's absolutely no flex in the case. The colour is really nice with the contrast between the light keys and dark case. It's nice that the label over the LEDs is dark to match the case, unlike the regular 104UB which has a black case and a light label which is really jarring. The PBT keys are very nicely made with a pleasant texture and a very solid feel. The curve of the keycaps isn't quite what I expected, but is very pleasant. Unlike SA keys there's a very distinct ridge on the edge of the keys which at first feels quite uncomfortable, but after a few days of use is hardly noticeable. The keys cup your fingertips in an extremely comfortable way that's hard to describe but really nice. The switches are excellent, incredibly smooth and nicely tactile. They have a somewhat higher pitched sound than the regular key Realforce boards. The weight on the keys is good, though some people may find it a little light. Cons: The high profile keys have a lot more wiggle than the regular profile keys of other Realforce boards. I assume it's because the stems are longer, but it's unfortunate. The key travel is still smooth and very precise feeling though. The ridged edge of the keys may be uncomfortable if you're used to hitting the key edge. You do adapt fairly quickly though. My main problem was that the high profile key made it difficult to accurately do key combinations that I use for various shortcuts. I have Ctrl-Alt-~ mapped to something I use frequently. I press control with my pinkie, alt with my thumb, and ~ with my ring finger. As a result my hand is stretched out and the angle I hit the ~ key with is quite shallow. On a regular keyboard that's fine, but on this keyboard it's very hard to not hit Tab at the same time. In fact, the whole first row is so shallow that I found this to be a problem with most key combinations. The high profile keys are intended to improve typing accuracy, but I found the opposite. My speed didn't improve but my accuracy went down slightly. Perhaps over time that would change. In the end I struggled to decide whether to keep going with it because the feel of those keys is so nice on the fingertips, or whether to abandon ship and get a normal key Realforce board. Ultimately I couldn't adapt and chose to switch. The keys are fantastic looking and get a lot of attention, they feel incredible on your fingers, and the board is very solid, but for me it just didn't work the way I needed it to.

Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoy typing on this keyboard! To be 100% honest, I normally don't leave reviews, but I figured it gave me an excuse to type more! :-) I have always read about how awesome the Topre keyboards are and just had to give it a try. I am primarily an IBM model M (buckling spring) user. Below is my list of pros and cons for this keyboard. PROS: Smooth and quiet keys. It really is a joy to type on. Very high build quality. They keyboard weighs a LOT. The pictures don't necessarily make obvious the fantastic build quality of this keyboard. The fit and finish is spectacular. Keycaps are shaped differently on the home row to assist in keeping your fingers in the correct place. They are slightly more concave than the rest of the keys. CONS: There are no nubs on the F and J keys to indicate where your index fingers should sit on home row. This is my number one complaint and the reason I could not give it 5 stars across the board. There is no cable guide that allows you to run the cable straight out the back of the keyboard. (I am sure this was made this way so that there is no possibility of excessive strain on the cable where it enters the keyboard case.) Price is quite high (though the quality is also very high).

I bought this keyboard because I wanted to try a full-size keyboard with Topre 45g PBT keycaps, and this happened to be the only such model. Unfortunately this keyboard suffers from a fatal flaw: the keycaps are too high. Realforce markets the high keycaps as a "feature", claiming that "complement professional data-entry applications by preventing finger slips and reducing hand travel away from the home row." In my opinion, the opposite is true. Due to their high profile, the keycaps are very wobbly, increasing the number of finger slips, and also have a greater than normal amount of travel distance, which reduces speed and detracts from the feel of Topre switches. I normally type 130-150 wpm with 99% accuracy, and I found that this keyboard reduced both my speed and my accuracy. I returned it immediately (luckily Amazon has a wonderful return policy). If you want to try a full-size Topre keyboard, I recommend getting the Leopold FC980C. Note it only has 98 instead of 104 keys, but Leopold has done a good job designing it in a way that you pretty much have all the keys you'd need. It's the only other keyboard that ticks all the boxes I want (Topre 45g, non-silent, PBT keycaps, full-size) and I couldn't recommend it more highly.

worst keyboard ever ....

This is a very high quality keyboard made from superior materials. The Topre switch is, in general, the best typist switch on the market...…. However, The keys on this board are very stiff. Far more so than the advertised 45 gram sensitivity. I REALLY, REALLY wanted to like this keyboard. But I simply couldn't. The amount of effort required to tap away on this thing is equivalent to a ZUMBA workout for the fingers. and not in a good way. I'd say this board actuation felt like 80 grams. No exaggeration. How long does that stay comfortable for the average typist? If this is your thing - go for it. For me - it got old very fast. Something about these keycaps, the extended actuation point - just too much. The keycaps are like little puddles for your fingers - again - you will love or hate this. It just did not work for me. It cost more $$$ - but most people will be much happier with the REALFORCE R2 PFU Limited Edition. This one is just too many willful design flaws for most people to overcome.

I've been using the 104UG for about a week now and I'm really impressed with the feel and sound. To my surprise, I actually prefer the 45g uniform weighting over the 55g and can type for longer periods of time at work. It's important to realize that adjusting to any keyboard takes time. Over the course of a few days to a few weeks, the body develops engrams/motor patterns to accommodate changes in tactile response, weighting and key profile. Typing on a Topre is like an elegant dance. The main thing I noticed is that it takes a flowing typing style and hand stance to get the most out of the Topre switches and hipro key profile. Google a few Topre typing videos on Youtube and watch how their hands move. It's probably a bit different typing style then what you're normally used to but once you get it down you will love it. It's very comfortable to use at work and the home office.

This keyboard was amazing the first ~5 months or so I owned it. The build quality felt top notch, the aesthetics were fantastic, typing felt better than on any of the numerous mechanical keyboards I had used in the past, it even game with a little gift (as is customary with larger purchases from Japan.) There was exactly nothing you could complain about. Since then it has been an absolute nightmare. Now-a-days it will frequently alternate between believing the shift key is being held down and not, meaning I have an almost 0% chance for a sentence to be written correctly the first time through. I type at around 98 WPM, but due to the aforementioned issue this very review has taken me upwards of 6 minutes to write. Shortly after writing my previous review the issue resolved itself, and ended up being an issue with faulty USB ports on my computer. As it is now, ~6 years later, this keyboard is still my daily driver and likely will be until I upgrade to Realforce's newest offering.

購入から5年経ったが入力がおかしくなったキーが一つも無い。 印字が薄くなったり消えたキートップも一つも存在しないので見栄えも良い。 追記）2020年にレビューしたが、2025年の時点でキーボード自体に全く問題がなくキートップも削られていない。 素晴らしい耐久性だ。

レビューで色々と細かいことをおっしゃってる方がおられますが、タイピングがそこそこできる方は どんなキーボード打ってもそこそこ打てるのです！ つまり、デザインや打ち心地でキーボードは選べばよいのです。 リアフォ2台、hhkbpro2types、他3台所有しておりましたが、このキーボード購入後すべて取っ払いました。 タイトルにあるように、どうせキートップの違いと高低差があるだけでしょ？と思っている方がいると思いますが、 押下圧45gとは思えないように軽く感じます。おそらくキートップの高さが影響してるのかな？ キートップくぼみも思った以上にゆびにフィットします（吸い付くような感じ？） このキーボードの欠点としては、キートップの高低差によりファンクションキーが引っ込んだ位置にあるので押しにくい事と、 音がガチャガチャうるさい、この2点。（dipスイッチはあえていれない！己で対応しろ！） この2点がどうしても譲れないという方は他のキーボードを！ 打ち心地がすべてでしょ！という方はこのキーボードを！ 以上

Topreはこのキーボードで4枚目です。 値段が高いことだけあって、タッチはいいですが、今までの機種に比べて打鍵音が結構します。

基本はテキスト入力がメインですが、タイピングの技術が2ランクUPした様な感覚に落ち入ります。 それ程、打ち易いキーボード。 仕事では、これ以外考えられません。 タイピングの音は大きめですよ。

どうせなら選んだ方が良いのではw