Introduction

So I recently purchased a new mechanical keyboard, The last keyboard I had, was a Razer Blackwidow which ended its days in a pool of freshly made tea from Teavana, RIP.

So i had to find an alternative as the Blackwidow was not very reliable in my opinion, sometimes it just plain stopped working, no lights, no buttons no nothing, everything just went black, then after unplugging and plugging it in a few times it might work again, that’s not good enough for me and the lights on it was also annoying.

What I did like about the Blackwidow was it’s very clicky keys and satisfying feel when you clicked a key, this is the reason I love mechanical keyboards and somehow they also make me type a lot faster.

Enter the DAS Keyboard 4 Professional Clicky, the newest model from DAS Keyboard, who is a brand of mechanical keyboards owned by Metadot.

I found out about this keyboard through various forums, review sites and “top 10 mechanical keyboards”-lists roaming on the internet, I did some more research on it and fell in love with the simplicity, media keys and the fact that the whole top of it was made of aluminum, The price was also just right.

Since no retailers in Norway had gotten a hold of them yet I had to look to my dear neighbor Sweden to supply me with my clicky goodness, I searched around on some stores and found a site called DatorDax, It’s price were acceptable and they had the Scandinavian layout available.(It has ØÆÅ and a little different layout of the “<> ;:” keys, see the picture below.)

The design

The das keyboard 4 professional’s design is beautiful, the matte black aluminum top-plate, the black sturdy plastic below the keys and the keys themselves, everything just feels like a really solid premium product, the layout of the keys are perfect and nothing is compacted, like various other keyboards out there.

It does not have any fancy macro keys or flashing lights like mechanical keyboards that brand themselves as “gamer keyboards”, I’ve noticed that even if i play games with such a keyboard, the likelihood of me ever actually using one of the macro-keys are very small, so they just take up extra room on my otherwise already cluttered desk(I cleaned the desk before i snapped the pics… ;D ).

The media controls on the das keyboard 4 is perfectly placed, I just love it, there are no bullshit “Hold FN and these 5 buttons to do this”, on this keyboard it’s just “press this key”, there is also a fantastic volume wheel that lets you adjust… well the volume, it has a nice rubberized area on the side that makes turning it extra easy, although i find myself just swirling it from the top instead of the side, still, it’s the little things.

USB Cable and Hub

The keyboard has a USB hub with 2 inputs on the back, I am not sure if these will give you enough power to charge your phone effectively, but it’s good enough to plugin a mouse, a USB desk lamp or something like that.

The USB cable coming from the keyboard is sort of tick, due to the USB hub, although it’s not braided like the Razer Blackwidow, this is not really a problem and adds to the style of the product(simple, clean, beautiful).

Price

I bought mine from DatorDax in Sweden for around 220 USD + stupid UPS shipping and import ( Norwegian import tax of 25% can go fuck itself! e_e), and think the price was fairly good for the value that this keyboard has to me, its damn good-looking and a joy to type on, great keyboard, great price.

You US people will probably be able to get it for way less, since Metadot is located in Austin, TX and doesn’t have to ship halfway across the globe for it to get to you, which in turn adds import tax and whatever markup the importer puts on top of that.

How does the Das Keyboard 4 Professional sound?

Like this!

That’s the blue CherryMX’s right there.