Mice & Keyboards by stefan @ 2012-11-19
The new Quiet Pro keyboard from Matias impresses with it's newly designed switches, which produce less noise, maintain a tactile feedback and is equipped with anti-ghosting capabilities. Being a keyboard designed for Mac computers, the key functions are optimized for this platform and common/uncommon symbols are also drawn on the keycaps (which are laser-cut) for easier access.
At first I would like to thank The Keyboard Company and Matias for allowing us to test their Quiet Pro Keyboard for Mac.
"Matias began in 1989, in Edgar Matias’ parents’ basement, in a suburb of Toronto. Since that time, it has survived the dot-com boom & bust, the Great Recession, and every other manner of calamity that can befall a startup.
The two main co-founders (Edgar Matias and Steve McGowan) have grown it into a globally recognized brand, known for high quality and a high level of personal customer service — a real person answers when you call / email, and if you have a problem, we try very hard to solve it.
Matias has also gained a reputation for “rescuing” lost technologies, the most famous example being the use of Alps mechanical keyswitches in its award-winning Tactile Pro Keyboard."
"In 1989 Geoff Thomas bought a computer for his business. He didn't like the keyboard that came with it but when he asked the installation engineer about an alternative was told: "You just get what comes with the computer. I wouldn't know where to get a keyboard.
"This set Geoff on a quest - to find a more compact and stylish keyboard - that left some desk space for his lunchtime gin and tonic.
Eventually, he found a company in Korea who had a smart mini keyboard and a left handed model.
He ordered 50 of each and advertised the surplus in the Telegraph. They sold so well it convinced Geoff that there was a market. The Keyboard Company was born.It's all about choice.
And that is what defines The Keyboard Company. Our main purpose is to offer a wide selection – in an industry that mostly strives for less choice and more standard products.
Equally we give service. Our phone number is displayed on our website. Our phones are answered promptly, by a real person who is knowledgeable about every keyboard and mouse we stock, and who is proud of the products and service that we offer."
It feels amazing.
The Quiet Pro uses Matias’ new Quiet Click mechanical keyswitches. They deliver a feel that’s unmatched for comfort — without sacrificing the tactile feedback you need to type really fast.
It’s really quiet.
Mechanical keyboards offer the best performance, but they’re noisy — too noisy to use in most offices, or around other people. This is the first one that’s quiet. Over two years in the making, it’s the only mechanical keyboard that keeps both your fingers and your co-workers happy.
Mac-friendly function keys.
Just like an Apple keyboard, the Quiet Pro’s function keys let you control screen brightness, volume, iTunes, and more.
There's even an Fn key, that lets you momentarily change the function keys back to their traditional duties, when you need them.
™ € £ © are easy to find.
Extra handy (but hard to remember) symbols are printed right on the keys. Simply hold down the Option key for the bottom-right characters, or Shift-Option for top-right characters.
Laser etched keys.
All those symbols are handy, but what happens when they wear off? They won't. They're laser etched — burned into the keys with a laser — so they'll never wear off.
Sculpted keytops.
The latest trend in keyboards is to have very flat & wide keys, with little or no space between them. You see this a lot on laptops and netbooks. While they look great, they can also be a little tricky to type on. The flatness makes it very easy to slide out of home row and lose your bearings.
The Quiet Pro bucks this trend. It has traditional sculpted keytops, curved to fit your fingertips, and keep you from sliding out of home position.
3 extra USB 2.0 ports.
Some keyboards have 2 USB ports — most have none. We’re giving you three! You can plug in flash drives, digital cameras, your mouse, and more.
No ghost in this machine.
Most keyboards allow only a few keys to be pressed at once, so they can't keep up with very fast typists. The result is called ghosting — letters missing from what you actually typed, or additional letters that you didn't type.
The Quiet Pro has special Anti-Ghosting Circuitry (also called n-key rollover) to eliminate these problems. You can type as fast as you're able; the Quiet Pro will keep up.
The Quiet Pro keyboard from Matias is shipped inside a quite compact cardboard enclosure, with a clean design and on the front we can observe a photo of the main product:
On the back side of the box, we will see the main product features listed:
Right after opening up the box, we will see the keyboard, wrapped completely inside foam material:
The keyboard also comes with a small documentation leaflet which shows the functionality of the keys on the Mac platform, and also a product catalog:
The catalog teases us to check the other product types from Matias, like the iRizer series of stands for Macbook, iPhone or iPad:
The keyboard comes with the usual format for Macs and Macbooks, which means that we have keys like Control, Option or Command:
The Caps Lock key is provided with a small LED, so we would know when it is activated (the keyboard does not have LEDs in the top right corner like the usual ones on PC, so this one compensates):
Extra symbols are printed right on the keys for easy access and these can be activated by holding down the Option key or Shift-Option:
The F keys also hold functions like Brightness up/down, Expose, Dashboard:
Next, we have the multimedia keys along with the Volume controls:
On top of the full keypad, we also have the remaining F keys, along with the Eject button:
Here is also a closer look on the arrow keys:
The Matias Quiet Pro keyboard is equipped with not one, but three USB 2.0 ports, which are really handy especially on the Macbook laptops which do not have a lot of them available; in them we can plug peripherals that do not need a lot of power delivered to them like mobile phones, tablets, USB flash drives, mice and so on:
On the bottom side of the matte silver plastic chassis, we can see a sticker in the center, along with the feet:
The central sticker shows us how we can contact Matias in case of trouble:
The top feet are made of transparent plastic, a design which looks very good, but we would have also preferred the feet to have a small rubber portion on their edges for a better stability on the table:
The bottom feet are smaller and made of black rubber:
The USB cable is not braided and the connector is not gold plated:
The Quiet Pro keyboard from Matias comes with black colored keys and a matte silver casing, to get closer to the overall aspect of Mac/Macbook computers. The 3-port USB 2.0 hub is very handy for connecting multiple peripherals to it that do not require a lot of power to function and on the bottom we have two transparent plastic feet for raising the keyboard at an angle.
The new switches that Matias have used do not disappoint and succeed to be more quiet than the MX Reds found on the latest keyboard that we have tested from Corsair (K90). Matias say that the lowered noise level is down to sound dampening both on the upstroke and the downstroke. The switches are based on a simplified cream Alps switch, but have a more tactile feel. To check out the noise generated by the keys, we have placed the sound meter 30cm away from the keyboard and started typing fast by using the same keys, first with the Corsair and after that with the Quiet Pro for Mac. With the Corsair K90 we have obtained an average value of 52.7 dBA, while the Quiet Pro succeeded to get an average of 50.9 dBA. The Corsair was a good candidate for comparison because it seemed the most quiet mechanical keyboard we tested so far, thanks to its aluminum top chassis.
The keyboard is quite comfortable and thanks to it's tactile feedback, we do not hesitate to recommend it in office environments where a lot of typing is involved or at home for chatting or writing different articles.
The keyboard is also equipped with anti-ghosting capabilities so we won't have non-registered key presses when pressing multiple at the same time.
The Matias Quiet Pro can be found right now at The Keyboard Company for about £99.00 (USA), the rest of the localized variants being available at the beginning of January.
I would like to thank again to The Keyboard Company for letting us test their latest products.