On this episode of Reviews Nobody Asked For, we have the Orange 80 from Fox, who’s also
responsible for stuff like the Time80.
This board is from 2017, which for context also featured stuff like the Moon, Tina, Exent,
and the KBD75.
This was right around the time when I started getting interested in keyboards.
The design of the Orange is distinct.
The gigantic forehead combined with the rounded bezels and corners is closely reminiscent
of the first generation of Realforce keyboards.
The fillet around the top bezel is repeated on the bottom side, which when combined with
the absence of incline creates a really cool shadow under certain lighting conditions.
These fillets aren’t deep enough to reach the edges of the case, so the mating portion
is flat.
I can’t find pictures anymore but the original design incorporated a pronounced seam here,
but I think I like it without.
The USB port cutout isn’t the best, but I do appreciate the top and bottom symmetry
from the seam.
With the cable I’m using, I see the shielding peek out a little bit.
This badge on the upper left corner is honestly a bit of an eyesore.
On mine, the chosen color isn’t a great match, so maybe more tasteful combinations
are okay, but I would have preferred nothing there.
On the bottom is the 9-piece accent of the board’s namesake, though some interpret
it as a pizza.
This is one of my favorite accent designs in any board and I wish I had a couple different
colors to play with.
The layout is a regular TKL with a somewhat unusual twist.
Affectionately and derisively called Chyna blocker, the bottom row has two 0.625u blockers
that make the 1.25u and 6.25u combination symmetrical.
The color on this guy is Micro Arc Oxidation, or MAO.
From my memory, this was one of the first boards to offer it.
It was often advertised as a white, but it’s clearly not, especially when compared to something
that’s actually white, like E-white.
It’s a very light gray.
I don’t think it looks bad, but most people made color combinations on the assumption
that it would be pure white, so the combos that exist out there are not that great.
For example, this blue on the Orange or this black on my E6-V2,
Colors aside, I enjoy the design of the board.
It’s really nothing like anything else I own.
It’s not very often that in a hobby dominated by manly men that cold hard rectangles explore
the softer designs.
I don’t think my colors do it much justice though.
I would really like to get a citrus theme going with maybe orange on the outside and
red on the accents.
Even though my configuration has no brass parts, the board feels fairly dense.
Besides, since the accents are small pieces, I don’t think brass would make a large difference
anyway.
With the rounded edges, it’s just a joy to pick up and handle.
Due to the depth, you probably won’t be able to do it one handed, but the lack of
angle makes picking it up by the arrow cluster extra easy.
You can take the board apart with 8 screws on the bottom.
I bought this second hand, so I don’t know for sure if these are original, but the screws
are countersunk while the holes are counterbore.
Not really sure what that’s about.
The fit between the top and bottom pieces are super tight on mine.
I believe MAO adds some amount of thickness so this might not be an issue for anodized
finishes.
First taking a look at the cases, the bottom is largely straightforward as a flat tray
except for the support for the accents.
Each one of the pieces you see outside is separate.
They could have gone with a single piece that connected from the inside, but this allows
for multiple colors which I think is neat.
The top is a little more complicated.
Unlike some other TKLs, the large bezel means a fairly weighty piece.
The plate is top mounted at 8 points, with seemingly no real thought given to their location.
The screws here are once again countersunk for a flat surface.
Two long screws connect the badge to the top, and for the first time on this board uses
countersunk screws for countersunk holes.
Moving on to the PCB, the age is unmistakable.
The Bootmapperclient-enabled PCB sports an Atmega32a and has one of these long appendages
to get through the tall forehead.
My board has a shorting issue where it’ll register multiple keystrokes.
I resolved it by putting pieces of paper underneath the PCB.
When checked for continuity, the MAO surface is actually nonconductive, but I’m guessing
the coating is so weak that some of the switch pins are piercing through it.
So the obvious conclusion here is that there is almost no space underneath the PCB on this
board, which could have implications for flexible plates.
With all that out of the way, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the MAO finish.
I didn’t buy this new so you can’t blame everything on me, but it’s such a fragile
surface.
It’s entirely unsuitable for something that gets handled as often as a keyboard.
Throughout the board inside and out, there are countless blemishes, marks, and scratches.
The surface also has a fabric-like feel to it, and surprisingly, it’ll also get kind
of “wet” from oily stuff like lube.
You can see the spot left by whatever I dropped on the top.
At a TKL size, the board is pretty wide, and I think I’d end up with a lot of marks on
the right side from my mouse bumping into it.
This color is also pretty hard to match keysets with.
I think you’d probably want something desaturated, but most pastel sets end up turning out too
bright.
So those are some of the reasons why this kind of finish fell out of favor pretty quickly
after it was introduced.
The supermatte texture is cool but I don’t think it’s worth all the hassle.
Even for its age, the board’s construction doesn’t seem all that outdated.
If anything, the tight-fitting connection between the top and bottom pieces are an improvement
over boards with no alignment pins whatsoever.
But elsewhere, it’s a good demonstration of some of the areas that we made some progress
in.
My newer boards all have tighter USB ports, some have more thought put into plate mounting
locations, and very surprisingly, my newest board doesn’t disconnect momentarily from
static shock.
The Orange80’s typing experience is on the stiff side.
Of course top mount aluminum plates will be stiff, but I suspect that the switch pins
making contact with the bottom case contributes more to it, just like it did for my Noxary
T60.
I was hoping I could say this is sort of the standard mount and plate for a TKL that’s
survived the test of time, but this clearance issue means that this isn’t a representative
sample of a top mount aluminum plate TKL.
It’ll still be a while for me before I’ll get to try one of those.
While stiff feels aren’t unusual, the sound here certainly is.
This is one of the hollowest sounding metal keyboards I’ve ever used.
The expected sound from a dense aluminum keyboard would be muted, but this one just sounds like
a plastic case.
As mentioned before, there’s not really any room under the pcb, so sound dampening
is out of the question.
You’re going to have this sound and there’s nothing you can do about it.
There are some pretty old customs out there that are highly desirable.
Clearly, this is not one of them.
Seeing as how this probably won’t be run ever again, this video is really not very
useful as a review, but as a look into what customs were like when the hobby was a bit
more sleepy.
In some ways, we definitely have it better.
Firstly there are a lot more options, so even if you weren’t able to get into a group
buy, there’s probably going to be something else that catches your eye.
We also have greater collective knowledge about what matters in a keyboard.
Creative and attractive designs are still key, but there’s some more attention to
detail with stuff like mount locations, plate materials, and things like daughterboards.
But in other ways, the Orange80 is a testament to how keyboard innovation happens gradually.
Even though new boards have advantages over this, they’re not so fundamentally different.
A common thing I see is that when a new board comes out, it’ll try one new thing.
The round two of Time80 tried a plate split across the middle, The Thermal tried a leaf
spring, and the E6.5 tried putting a rubber band around the PCB.
Some of these work, some of these don’t, and with every new thing, we collectively
get just a little better at keyboards.
If you were to ask an outsider to try this versus an 8X MKII, they probably won’t notice
much, but to an enthusiast it’ll be a big difference in both feel, sound, and quality
of life features.
But what I want you to take away from this is that the shiny new keyboard that you couldn’t
get into is probably not groundbreaking.
It’s likely a small iteration on the body of existing knowledge.
So just to remind you all of the bigger picture, if you’re unironically getting mad because
you couldn’t get an Iron165, a No.2, or a Jane, take two steps back and take my word
for it when I say most keyboards are the same.