Before I went on my whole Taiwan Philippine trip, I actually visited the wonderful New
Zealand with my family.
And you know us Australian’s, we’re pretty tight with our cross Tasman pals, so the guys
there got together the 2nd Auckland, New Zealand Mechanical Keyboard Meetup.
A big thanks to Computer Lounge for accommodating us.
It was legitimately one of the nicer PC stores I’ve been to, like there’s actually a
showroom where you can see and try out different things.
They had systems with games, a few keyboards actually, audio stuff, and yeh, pretty cool.
But let’s get to the keyboards.
As I say over and over again.
Mechanical keyboard meets are by far the best place to try out all the different things.
You have different layouts, form factors, keyswitches, keycaps, and just everything
really.
But more importantly you have all that knowledge and experience with everyone who attends.
And we had a solid mix here.
Let’s start off with some ergonomic stuff.
The Iris from Keebio is a sweet little split board, which I’ve done a video on.
And this is all about shaping the keyboard to your hands with the columnar stagger, but
straight columns.
Taking it a step further though, we have the Dactyl which incorporates a curved design
to further fit the shape of your hand.
People usually 3d print their own cases and handwire the switches and stuff, as the files
and everything is available online.
And this guy has a similar principle to the Iris, being split and such, but just with
a more substantial case.
And to a lesser degree there were some ortholinear boards.
Now old mate Gok had some stunners.
Some of you may know his name as he’s behind the design of the Chiwi60, and also some keysets
and maybe other stuff.
But yeh, beautiful beautiful boards.
The white version with ePBT black on white was just so so clean.
And with the RGB underglow, it works perfectly.
And then going the other way, we had this glossy black finish, with GMK white on black.
Super fingerprint attractive, but again, a stunner.
And this one was made from brass.
So super heavy at about 2.8kg.
You could deal some serious damage with this guy, and it was a delight to type on as well
with the V2 Zealios.
The Leaf60 was another white board.
The thing that I liked most about this one was the Leaf brass weight at the bottom.
It was elegant, smooth, and the side profile was pretty cool as well.
And that was kind of the theme of the meet.
60% keyboards.
There was some ALPs, the Klippe 60%, the RAMA M60, and more.
This beastly looking 60% is a custom from B’Gnu-Thun, in which he designed and machined
himself.
It is a chunky boy with chunky bezels, and the blue greyish colour is actually quite
nice, and we don’t see it often.
This was another one he did himself, but in the HHKB layout.
This time with a glossy black powdercoat finish.
But you may know him from his beautiful keycaps.
He had a bunch of seconds that he used for testing and such, and where colours didn’t
match properly, which made for this satisfying board.
There was some Topre stuff.
The good old Realforce TKL is a classic.
And the HHKB will always have a presence in the mechanical keyboard community.
Funnily enough, the 2 of 3 full sized or I guess keyboards with a numpad were the oldies,
in the form of the IBM Model M, and the Model F. Both classic boards that will always have
a place in our hearts.
The only other board with a numpad was the KBD19x which was spruced up with some colour
with GMK Laser on top, and also a powdercoated yellow base.
Amazing boards as always with meetups.
All up, it was a really fun get together.
New Zealand’s population is like the same as just Sydney, so it was great to see some
of you guys come out and attend.
I know that there are others out there, so hopefully the community there grows and you
can have more meetups in the future.
Big thanks to the legend Gok and Dale for organising the meet.
Always gotta give big props to organisers for having the initiative and actually getting
everything together.
And of course Computer Lounge for letting us have the space for a while.
And yeh, these mechanical keyboard meetups are worldwide.
There’s communities everywhere.
I’ll put a link in the description about the mech communities and meetups around the
world, so definitely check that out if you’re interested.