I put them together and decoupage art on the back using vintage mangas/comics, msg me. I have a sailor moon one I'm thinking about listing and a pokemon one I'm working on now. I usually sell them for around $125. Edit: nvm just saw Amazon only. You could get a really basic one and get a cute Keycap set to go with it
For your budget you should check out the neo75 or neo98 depending on your preferred layout. Akko and keychron are both great in their own ways, but keychron is not what it used to be, and is generally overpriced for the quality. Akko is generally a bit better priced with decent quality, but there are still much better boards out there. The neo boards run about $150 barebones so you'd have 100 left over to choose switches, keycaps, and stabilizers(optional, the neo series come with them, but I'll explain later)
The new neo75 and 98 boards blow akko and keychron out of the water. I have a neo 98 that i use at work and I'm astounded at the level of quality you can get now for $150. I got the taupe grey which looks awesome.
I will say that if you do get a neo board, spend an extra$10-15 dollars and get some good stabilizers for it. The stabilizers that come with the board aren't great, though they are on par with what you would get with a keychron or akko board. I've been loving the typeplus x yikb stabilizers. They're amazing. There's nothing worse than having a beautiful keyboard that sounds amazing, except for the rattling enter or space bar.
If you can drop the function row, Machina Overture65 V2 (prebuilt) while it's still in GB. Keychron and Akko don't have great QC because they use cheap factories and mass produce, while companies that make primarily custom boards have a better QC checking system and use better materials + design. Another option would be the QK Evo80 for prebuilt or Hex80 for hall effect.
Most wireless boards are fire hazards unless they employ a small scale battery (which is primarily used by the ZMK system). I've seen a lot of OEM keychron and akko boards have case warping, plate inconsistencies, and just bad tolerances on even their $200 aluminum boards. They're also just designed pretty terribly from an acoustic standpoint because they rely on foam to mask hollowness, instead of allowing for one to choose the config.
Also, some akko boards are OEMs also used by ajazz, attack shark, and aula, all of which have cases of shady firmware that either bricks the board or contains malware. Not an issue with keychron but keychron firmware is just buggy in its own way (crashes, random connectivity drops).
IMO the best OEM board is the Shortcut Bridge75 because it actually uses a decent factory, but tldr I'd pay the premium for a Machina or QK prebuilt (and it's within your budget).
https://youtu.be/7hHq6jCyVX0?si=lOGWcbT43ytrvvwJ
https://youtu.be/cG6N0I5WuSo?si=52J13CXrT2e424q6
I'll say mice is fairly recent. Like within the last 4 years if you were an enthusiast and willing to order straight from china, but it's been readily accessible (ie amazon in the usa) for about two.
I'm deep into both sides, but it's just nuts what the cheap chinese stuff has.
$50 chinese mech keyboards offer things that you had to break apart and customize on factory boards 4+ years ago.
like nowadays, look at Womier, akko, aulo, and yunzi for the cheaper stuff.
then for high end there's matrix, angry miao, and owllab.
then for HE, there's like half of the cheap companies I recommended.
I remember when keychron came out. they WERE a cheap chinese keyboard company until you got your board. IIRC they didn't release their first nice aluminum board UNTIL 2023 lol.
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Wooting
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Elite gaming performance, deep customization, but divisive typing feel.
--Aura
