This is a board that’s been pretty hyped as of late, especially from a sweet video
from Wildcat.
And I’ve been getting a few comments asking about it, so here it is, the Monstargear Ninja87
Alu XO V2.
So, this is an in stock keyboard, so you can just buy this off the website, and get it
a couple days later from South Korea.
Which is unusual in the custom mechanical keyboard world, as majority of custom mechs
are run through group buys.
So in this really nice box we get a keyswitch puller.
A wire keycap puller.
This brush, which you can clean your board with.
A couple of rubber feet, and an ID sticker.
A USB type C cable, again, stop folding these things, please.
Interestingly, and amazing actually, a little tube of Super Lube, which kind of tells me
they know what they’re doing.
And finally the board which is very well protected.
Straight out of the box and you really feel that weight.
But before we get into it, let’s chuck on the rubber feet to protect that super shiny
weight on the bottom.
But as we can see, there’s no designated spots or indentations for these feet.
And just check out how shiny this thing is.
Alright, let’s take it apart.
There’s a couple of Phillips head screws on the bottom, and these are nice chunky M3
screws.
Now we can see how it’s put together, but more importantly the mounting method.
On their website, they mention that it’s a sandwich mount, meaning that the plate is
sandwiched between the top and bottom aluminium pieces, and isn’t screwed to anything.
Then we have the PCB which would be held in by the keyswitches, so not fixed to anything.
They also have a piece of thin foam.
Not the thickest stuff, but it should help in some way, potentially with the feel and
sound.
And then to remove weight, there’s just a couple of Phillips head screws.
And just to clear, I’m only taking this apart to have a closer look at everything,
all you would need to do is to chuck on some keyswitches and keycaps to make it work.
Ok, here’s the top aluminium piece.
Nice and solid of course.
And these holes are for those long screws that come through the bottom of the base.
Finish is pretty nice on the inside as well, not that it particularly matters, but yeh.
Here’s the super shiny plate.
We don’t see too many PVD brass plates, because they’re just a tad harder to work
with and are more expensive, so it’s a pleasant surprise, because it did turn out good on
mine.
Also, the stabs are already installed.
Unfortunately they are plate mount stabs, which we’ll have a closer look at later.
Another big feature of this board is the PCB which has Kailh hotswap sockets.
It has the alignment holes for 5 pin keyswitches which is good for stability, and has SMD RGB
LEDs for backlighting.
There’s also these smaller LEDs on the left and right edges for that sideglow.
Here’s the PVD brass weight, which is a 7mm thick bar that goes from end to end.
Again, PVD brass, but no warp, perfectly straight, so yeh, awesome.
And it weighs 420 grams.
For reference an Anne Pro or Ducky One 2 Mini is 600-700grams, so yeh, definitely adds heft.
The base is made from aluminium.
There’s a lot of these support pillars all over the bottom, which is interesting, and
is apparently there because it’s a hotswap board.
They don’t go against the bottom of the PCB, rather the PCB has holes for these, more
for alignment.
So it shouldn’t affect much I think.
The bottom piece also positions everything.
These protrusions position the plate, for when you sandwich the pieces together.
And then there’s another protrusion on the top and bottom that positions the top alu
piece.
A sandwich mount design should provide a more even and consistent sort of feel and sound,
as the forces are more evenly distributed around the plate, rather than in various spots
under the plate.
Although it can potentially feel a little stiff because of that.
Interestingly, the foam seems to be thick enough that it has a spongy effect on the
plate which is good to see.
Alright, so one of the weak points that I noticed, and everyone else that are into mechs
probably noticed as well, are these stabilisers.
These are plate mount stabs, so you don’t have much choice for aftermarket options,
and yeh, they just tend to be not great.
But I can understand why they used them, just so it’s more of a ready to go and super
consumer friendly product.
But they’re terrible, and they know this, so they gave us Super Lube.
I usually just dip my wires in, but you can’t do that with this.
So first I tried to just apply it on the ends of the wire, straight from the tube, which
isn’t optimal.
You can also try and brush it on.
But still, I prefer a thicker layer of lube.
So I straight up just squeezed lube into the hole that the wire goes into.
And with all of that, this is how they sound.
Pretty bad.
Really bad actually.
I also did end up brushing lube thinly up on the inside of the housings.
But still they’re terrible.
Also, I’m not so sure on the lube.
Personally, I use this dielectric grease which is much thicker.
This stuff is pretty thin in my opinion.
Super Lube is often recommended, and I’ve used it in the past, however the brand Super
Lube has different types, with this one in particular being a synthetic grease.
But I don’t think it matters too much, as the main issue is that stabs just move around
way too much in the plate, and this is a very common issue for retail mechs, most of which
use plate mount.
Luckily this is an easy fix, we just have to tighten the hole.
You can use whatever, but I had fabric bandaids, so I used them.
After fixing up the stabs, it’s time to put in the keyswitches.
Having a hotswap PCB, all we gotta do is push the keyswitches in.
Make sure that the pins are straight when you put them in, and you’ll be right.
As it’s using the Kailh hotswap sockets, it is compatible with pretty much any MX style
keyswitch, so that includes, Cherry MX, Gateron, Kailh, Outemu, Durock, whatever.
But for this particular build, we have Red Backs courtesy of my friends at DailyClack,
a great Australian mech store.
And these are a 67g linear switch, manufactured by Durock.
And I lubed them with Christo MCG 111, and used TX films, also from Daily Clack.
And here it is.
Stunning board.
It has a real presence on the desk, and I think a tenkeyless board just naturally does
that in my opinion.
It’s bigger than a lot of customs tend to be.
You just get to see more of the keyboard, more metal, which is definitely the case here
with pretty thick 8mm bezels.
From the front and top down view it’s a pretty blocky design with a chamfer along
the top edge.
Very clean, simple, and traditional look.
But then it gets a little more interesting, the top piece is larger than the bottom, so
the parting line has like a lip.
And then of course we have these sides.
A bunch going on here.
The brass weight can be seen, which is pretty unique.
But the main attraction is the RGB lighting, with quite a large cutout, but as we can see,
it is a solid side, so completely closed.
And the lighting kind of lights up the whole cutout as well, making the side look more
glowy.
I like it, it’s busy and angular, but still pretty clean, and gives the keyboard its character.
It can get pretty bright, spilling onto the desk.
Personally I like it at about half brightness, and I’m cool RGB, but you can have singular
colours, like white, if you want something a bit more clean.
On the rear we have our USB type C port, however it’s in this weird off centre spot, obviously
so it doesn’t interfere with a keyswitch.
But just a weird looking spot.
Either the pick a side, or have it centred in my opinion.
The brass weight spans the bottom, kind of like the RAMA WORKS U80.
Mad fingerprint magnet, and adding something shiny as an accent looks cool, but otherwise,
the finish is pretty sweet, no scratches or dents.
And that goes for the anodised aluminium as well.
Overall, clean and even.
This does have RGB backlighting if you’re into that.
You’ll need keyswitches with some sort of transparency to be able to see it.
And if you’re gonna get a board like this, you’re probably not gonna use backlit keycaps.
But even so, it’s pretty strong because of the PVD finish on the brass plate.
And all of this can be customised with the downloadable software.
And this is the other potential downside of the board.
It does not support QMK, which most customs do.
It’s a pretty standard suite, so we can create different profiles, and can customise
each key to do all of these things.
And that includes macros, which we can record in the macro section, with delays and such.
And everything is applied instantly.
Personally, this is all fine for me, as I never really go deep into customising keys.
Especially with a TKL board, and all of these keys available.
Now let’s get to the typing experience.
Being a Durock linear switch, I thought the Red Backs would be really smooth, especially
based on my experience with the Alpaca switches.
In stock form, they were pretty scratchy.
This is straight out of the packet, no wearing in.Like quite a bit more than the Alpacas,
which had Nylon bottom housings and POM stems.
Instead, these have polycarbonate housings.
Anyway, I lubed and filmed them, and here’s how they sound.
Wonderful typing experience.
The switches still have a touch of scratch, but when you’re actually using it and typing
out fast, they’re fine and feel smooth overall.
They also have a nice weight with the 67g springs.
Obviously the keyswitch determines a lot of the feel and sound, but the feel of the board
is very consistent allround as expected, with its sandwich mount design.
But it doesn’t feel overly stiff or anything, even though there’s like no flex to it.
I actually like the bottom out.
It has a pretty nice thocky feel, not too harsh, not too hard.
And the sound is fantastic.
Again, thocky sounding, and a deepish sound.
Even without my mat, I couldn’t hear much table sound at all, very low reverb, and the
board just seems to take it all in which is awesome.
But it’s not quiet or anything, it’s just that it sounds all contained.
And the stabs.
Way better than before, but still not amazing.
Touch of rattle, but also not the smoothest.
And that’s the Monstargear Alu XO V2 mechanical keyboard.
Let’s get straight to it, this comes in at 300USD.
While that is a lot of money, and yes, it’s an expensive keyboard.
This is actually relatively cheap in the custom or high end mech world, especially for TKL
boards.
This is a sandwich mount aluminium TKL, with PVD brass plate and weight, which is sizable.
Finish on all of the parts is good.
It has Kailh hotswap sockets, RGB backlighting and sideglow.
Comes with proper packaging, a bunch of extras, including Super Lube.
And a big plus is that it’s an in stock product.
No group buy, no preorder, no waiting.
Although it’ll probably sell out soon.
The only negatives I have are the stabilisers.
They’re not great, even with the included lube.
But they can be fixed as I showed.
It’s a tough one.
It’s like a ready to go sort of board, rather than like a full DIY sort of thing, so I can
understand why they used these cheap plate mount stabs.
But it’s a high end product, and for real, rattly stabs can bring down a whole board.
Doesn’t matter how good everything else is.
And it doesn’t support QMK which may be an issue for some.
Legit, if they just fix up the stab situation with the potential V3, while keeping it at
this sort of price, it really would be an absolute banger of a board.
We just don’t see this sort of thing often at this sort of price.
You’d expect something like this to be maybe in the 400 dollar range, and not even be in
stock, so in my opinion, it’s pretty impressive, just based on all the pieces you get.
At the time of this video, the V1 is also still available at a much lower price of 180USD.
But it’s a tray mount board.
This probably won’t be available for much longer too, as it is a limited product.
But I’m really looking forward to the V3 of this board, especially if they make the
right changes.
So if you’re looking for a high end TKL, and you want it right now, then you honestly
really can’t get much better than this.
Big thanks to Monstargear for sending this baord out.
And to DailyClack for providing the keyswitches and films.
All links in the description.