over and over again we get the same old keyboard with the numpad on the
right-hand side and that's what we've been used to but now we have a lot of
smaller boards that cut it off since it's a chopped space and the same
question comes up why not just have it on the other side so today we have the
debut board from AE boards their ages so first of all this is a custom keyboard
design in Australia and I happen to be friends with them but as always I will
be honest in what I say even though I'm never really saving and this is a build
for someone so I wasn't just giving this to a review
before we start as always Chuck the rubber feet on first so that we don't
mess this thing up the case comes preassembled so that it's all safe
during shipping and this thing is a heavy boy but let's take it apart to
have a closer look and to build it
so we have three main pieces the top piece is a solid piece of aluminium so
no flex at all but it's the bottom piece that holds most of the way the anodized
finish on both of these pieces is super clean so don't mind the fingerprints and
streaks that's all me
and then the plate is made from 1.5 millimeter brass which is also nicely
finished it was slightly curved but as it is sandwiched between the two aloo
pieces it's no problem at all here's the PCB with the nice matte black solder
mask and some nice branding as well and here's the layout support which supports
wit backspace and right ship and understandably we do have some
customized ability for the numpad so you can switch it around to an actual
reversed orientation as many of us know group bys almost always have something
wrong with them and the one thing that did happen with this board was that
there was mistake with the bottom rows so the standard 6.25 year spacebar
doesn't work so it's only seven year for now which for most people buying a board
like this wouldn't matter at all anyway for the key switches we went with quell
box whites the guy that I'm building this for loves quickies and you can't
really go past kale box switches for those
and here it is all done and it is an absolute beauty overboard
this is the navy blue version and again the anno is smooth as blemish and streak
free how about some angles you can see that color difference between the top
and bottom hands with the bottom being slightly darker and the brass plate is
exposed from the sides a bit and all along the back adding a streak of color
and I think it works wonderfully with the navy blue as it is a classic color
combo and it's this grid enough that it doesn't interfere with the whole color
scheme that you choose to go with and that brings us to the key caps we're
only borrowing this set for the video but this is the super queen gmk nine
zero zero nine key set and we did put on the pinkish accent keys first but I felt
that the green ones worked much better personally everyone knows gmk for their
quality and these are 1.5 millimeter thick ABS caps and our double shot so
the legends are another piece of plastic and will never fade away being ABS
though they do shine over time but that has become kind of one with these back
to the design of the board we have sizable bezels at about 13 millimeters
so we have to show off that metal with all that surface area and it's often by
a sham third edge all the way around the side profile is much more showy again
without brass but also that curved line which gives it a bit more character and
on the bottom row we have the sweet branding in grey so if there is no extra
brass weight that we see on many customs although this is basically a full sized
and it does have a brass plate and it's already bulging at over three kilograms
we also saw before that we get this super sweet Rama cap with there a infill
logo and it's a great extra touch to the package as a whole
but yeah really it's all about this layout and it's basically like an 1,800
layer or like barely port FC 980 which takes out that middle cluster of nut
keys and squeezes in the arrow keys in between creating this compact form
factor which is similar to the size of a 10 keyless board but of course we have
the numpad switch to the left hand side the numpad is also reversed so we have
the plus and enter keys on the left hand edge
however being qmk configurable we can change the orientation of the numpad but
then these arrow keys will look a bit weird and this is really great to see
because from what we've seen from left-hand numpad boards they have kept
it the normal way around and this makes sense in so many different ways to have
the numpad on the left firstly in an ergonomic sense it allows us to bring
our mouse closer to the centre for better arm and shoulder positioning and
it gives us more space for our mouse and in this sense is kind of like a 60%
keyboard additionally if you do punch a heap of
numbers you'd be able to do number input while also using your mouse instead of
constantly moving to and fro of course it'll take time to get used to but I
think it would be quite beneficial for gaming it's a bit much for me if I do
game and it isn't rocket League then it's mainly first-person shooter games
so yeah if this area here that was a bit tough as expected like the hhk be first
and foremost we don't have the standard control key which you'd use for
crouching by default it's on the caps lock key and personally I just could
engage and if you were to remap it to this key and yet that was just
impossible to use the short shift which is often used for running was fine to
press but it does compress your hand a little bit because it is only a one
point two five U key because it is a left shift so overall in regards to use
gaming is a no-go for me but every one of course is different for casual use it
was absolutely fun and I did enjoy having more real estate for my mouse but
where it shines is that hernán pad again I'm not a huge number
puncher but I did love that two-hand operation with one on the numbers and
the other on the mouse given time the patience this really could become an
efficiency booster for a lot of people again we have their kale box whites in
this which are lightweight quickie switches for quickies I can't go past
the click bar action I just feel they're so much better than the classic quick
jacket design used in say the Cherry MX blues we get a sharper and crispy quick
but being lightweight we don't get much other bump it's a bit more difficult to
feel they're typing characteristics of the board with quick ease in comparison
says sale in ears I don't know what to say it's extremely solid and dense
there's no pin and it's great so overall I'm super impressed by the ages
especially since it is their first board that they've produced and bar the one
tiny issue with the six point two five year space bar I'd say that it was a
super smooth group by I love the build the quality and the finish and the whole
package and presentation but it's the layout that's the true hero here and
this may be the sort of layout that will work for many number people out there
and just having some variation in layouts is great to see