Yeh.. couldn’t continue that sequence, but awesome packaging even though that this is
just a prototype.
Presentation is on point.
And yeh, today we’re gonna build the Square.X 60 from iNETT Studio.
Inside we have the PCB.
There’s just a piece of foam in this section, but that’s for extras, like an extra plate.
And here’s the assembled case, which is actually wrapped in plastic twice.
As said, this is a prototype unit, and I have the polycarbonate version which is sweet.
I haven’t played around with a heap of polycarbonate boards on the channel, and in general really.
But the renders of this board looked really cool, quite unique, and you can see it already
that it has a bunch going on.
In particular, the plate is different to a lot of what you see.
Let’s take it apart.
There’s a bunch of hex screws on the bottom.
And that looks pretty normal.
But the top pieces.
As we can see clearly by the yellow, the plate isn’t just a flat piece with holes, but
is much more integrated into the top piece, but it isn’t mechanically fastened to it,
so you can just slide it out from the poly piece.
And then for the bottom, we can take out all of these screws to get the weight out.
But also for the additional pieces on the other side.
So the plate.
It’s nearly just like a top piece actually.
I have the HHKB version, so the blockers in the bottom corners are integrated, and the
sides come up all the way as well.
This one is made from aluminium, however I’ve been told that it can be upgraded to brass,
which would be even heavier But with this design it’s super ridgid, and no flex whatsoever.
That’s what happens when you put folds or anything in a different direction, it just
stiffens it up, which kinda goes against what a lot of other boards try to do with flex.
The E-yellow finish looks nice though.
And we’ll see later how much of a role the plate plays in how the board looks.
The top polycarbonate piece basically just slips over it.
On this one there are spots for gaskets, but that won’t be on the final version.
So no gasket mounting.
And that’s the same for the bottom poly piece as well.
The weight, well it’s not really a weight being just a small piece of alu, but again,
plays a big part in the aesthetic of the board.
And of course holds these pieces.
Alright, I was given these Gateron N1 switches, which are custom coloured in this cool sandy
colourway.
And they lubed them for me as well.
5 pin, no SMD LED hole, so through hole only, and a 67g spring.
Let’s build this thing.
The PCB is also yellow, which is cool because you can see it in this poly case.
A lot of SMD LEDs as you can see, and remember just then I said these switches don’t accommodate
for that.
But whatever, there’s a bunch of underglow LEDs which will illuminate this case.
And let’s see how long it takes me to realise my mistake.
Honestly when I’m filming a build, there’s so much going on in my head.
Like I write and script all this stuff and that takes a lot of time, it’s just my style
of video.
So I’m constantly thinking about all the details and taking notes in my head.
And this sort of rookie stuff happens.
Imagine soldering before putting in stabilisers.
Stabs are the worst though.
Takes like half an hour lubing and tuning them.
And then screwing them in.
Makes me miss using clip in stabs, so easy.
Anyway I used Krytox 205g0 for the housings, and some dielectric grease for the wires because
I had some trouble controlling the rattle with these C3 stabs, especially on this occasion,
so that thickness helped.
Oh also this LED got in the way of the washer for
the stab screw.
So they describe this as a sandwich mount board, meaning that the plate is sandwiched
between the two main pieces.
Typically, this creates a slightly harder bottom out, and with the very stiff plate,
it’s probably gonna give that sort of experience, but we’ll see.
Screwing the bottom pieces, I actually didn’t realise that some of the screws were going
too far, because the holes in the metal weight were too deep.
But always with poly, you gotta be careful not to over tighten, because it is just tapped
plastic, and you can wreck the threads quite easily.
Keycap time!
Yeh nah MT3 Serika didn’t really work in my opinion.
The yellow was too cool against the warm E-yellow plate.
And the whole aesthetic of the board is very angular with hard straight lines, very striking.
So the curved nature of MT3 yeh, didn’t match for me.
So good old GMK.
Thanks Eric.
And wow, I’m so happy I decided to go with GMK Oblivion.
Honestly in my head I was thinking, oh yeh, GMK White on Black or Minimal would be nice,
but Oblivion, I love it.
I really really love the two tone grey on yellow, also with a splash of colour on the
mod text.
And the poly is basically light grey right?
I can’t pinpoint the vibe that I’m getting.
Like it feels nostalgic to me the yellow and grey.
Very industrial looking as well.
And the poly adds to that nostalgia.
I don’t know what it is, but I love it.
So now we can see how integral the plate is to the aesthetic of the board.
The HHKB and winkeyless versions will show a bit more of the plate on top, but it still
goes all around, and especially with the other colours with more contrast, it would be super
noticeable.
I like it, it’s different, gives it a lot of character.
We don’t often get to have differing colours on the top.
Usually that’s for the sides and bottom, but it does just that as well.
So it peeks through on the left and right sides.
Just a simple clean line, 2mm thick.
Again, not the most contrasting colours here.
But just imagine like a black case, the yellow would be absolutely peaking.
And that brings us to the bottom.
Very eye catching in the renders because of how deep it looks.
This massive indent in the case looks super striking, and very sharp looking.
The edges are chamfered though.
The weight, much like the plate plays a role in accentuating its surroundings, and really
gives it that depth.
So we have the iNETT logo on the left.
And the Square.X logo on the right.
So much character.
And while there’s a lot going on, it doesn’t look chaotic to me.
It has clean lines, and comes together really nicely.
So much praise right now, but I’m digging the aesthetic.
Oh and they said the manu forgot to put holes for the rubber feet, and I didn’t get any,
so I just put some on myself, because poly scratches quite easily.
And RGB and stuff.
But.. let’s just leave that off, looks much better without lights.
My underglow LEDs were stuffed too, so I’ll pass that on.
You can make your own conclusions.
Okay, I went with the classic HHKB layout, but with stepped caps lock.
So split backspace, right shift, 7U spacebar, and symmetrical bottom row.
Unfortunately I personally can’t live without the control key, especially since I’m a
caps lock user, so I can’t move it there.
But whatever, it’s cool, and again, is avail in standard 60%, AND WKL.
They also have a hotswap PCB in this layout.
Alright so the typing experience.
We have the Gateron N1s, and let’s just have a quick listen.
The switches are lubed, but as you should have heard, they’re pretty scratchy.
But at the same time, still have that lubed feel, so slightly dampened.
A little surprising actually, because usually if you lube a Gat, they’ll be nice and smooth.
And I did try and lube a few switches myself with 205g0, even went real heavy on one, but
it had the same result.
And you can kinda tell just holding them that the housings feel quite different, even when
clipping them together, so yeh, interesting.
As alluded to before, it does have a pretty hard bottom out.
The plate is almost like an integrated plate design, but then it is a sandwich mount, so
again, it gives that sort of feeling.
They did test with gaskets, but said they didn’t have much of an effect.
And yeh that makes sense, again, ridgid plate, but also the sides are properly sandwiched,
so there’s not much room for any movement in the first place.That’s not to say that
it’s bad though.
Preference is a big thing.
There’s no real right or wrong, just general consensus, but it is good to have different
options, instead of everyone trying to give the same experience.
And it looks like the Square 80 and 65 are quite similar.
There’s quite a difference in feel between having this thick mat underneath, and just
having it on the table, of course, as expected.
I feel a lot of the table with this board.
Like when you’re typing, you kind of feel that vibration and it’s hard to explain,
but you feel the energy going through the board, and that translates in sound as well.
Compared to other boards which are much more self contained.
But that may be just due to it being poly.
So I don’t super enjoy the experience without a mat.
It feels like that little bit of dampening is nice to me personally, and it just tightens
the feel a little bit, but still feels great.
However, it would be really nice to try other switches to see how it goes, because they’re
not the most satisfying in the first place.
And that’s the Square.X 60 from iNETT.
I adore how this thing looks.
It’s not for everyone.
It’s very striking, but for me, it’s clean and it works.
I’m just appreciative because it’s different.
Clearly the plate carries a lot of its character.
I like that it gives more opportunity to have accenting colours, and it’ll be really interesting
to see how people match these up with different caps.
But more importantly it completely determines the feel of the board.
I really really did enjoy this though.
They’ve done a few protos, and they seem to be pretty happy with it.
So the groupbuy shouldn’t be too far away.
I’ll chuck all the necessary links in the description.
And let me know what you think :)