Well I’m new to this hobbie, I purchased my first mechanical keyboard about 2 and a half years ago, I now own 4 pre build keebs two of which I’ve desolder the switches and replaced them with different ones, now in regards of keycaps I’m not using the stock keycaps on any of them, I mainly purchase PBT keycaps from Amazon, nothing too fancy some are laser edged and others are dye sublimated, but I didn’t own double shot ones, until now, to be honest I still can justify putting over $100 USD into one set of keycaps therefore GMK sets are out of the question, and so Tai-Hao is the logic step forward, I was a bit hesitant to buying ABS keycaps since I was under the impression that PBT was better, I also wanted to try a different profile then OEM and Cherry, I decided on the NK_ x Tai-Hao BOW Cubic Keycaps, and I have to say that I liked them a lot, of the 4 walls, both sides are thicker than the top an bottom, may be it is to cut costs, I like the sound they produce on my 60% keyboard with Outemu Brown.

I like the font and thickness of the legends, the numpad portion is a bit weird because the numbers are so much thicker than the rest of the keycaps but I think it is ok, if you look at them from the inside you can see the they are double shot since there is white and black potions of plastic, as far as I can see from pictures of GMK double shot keycaps this ones have less plastic for the legend part and the main keycap portion is a bit slimmer, again i guess those are the areas where money is saved in order to have sub $50USD keycap sets, this collaboration with NovelKeys has 126 keycaps that give a good amount of layout options, since I have regular ANSI and 75% layouts this is a plus for me because I can fill any of them with this set, there are also a bunch of 2u keycaps for the bottom row which a have no use for, yet (wink), also you might have to use one or two keycaps with the correct row but incorrect legend, for example there is no 1.25u Fn keycap, therefore in my 60% bottom row I have to the right of the space bar, Alt-Win-Ctrl-Menu, instead of Alt-Win-Ctrl-Fn, there is a 1u Fn but no 1.25u this is a bit weird indeed, but since I don’t have to stare at my keyboard to type this is not a real issue but I have to point it out if you have to have the correct legend on all your keys you should make sure first this set or any keycap set for that matter contains all the legends you need in the propper row, for me as I said it works on all my keebs with a few modifications.

Now let me mention a few thoughts on the cubic profile, this keycaps are very square compared to SA and OEM, they are not as tall as SA but they are taller then OEM and Cherry, so if you don’t like tall profile keycaps maybe this set isn’t for you, I happen to like it, the edges of the top of the keycaps are very straight, not sharp in the sense of a blade of course, but they are sharp, I kind of like that because it makes you want to press the keys on the center every time, they have a bit of texture it feels nice on my finger tips, on the back of the keycaps you can see very well an injection point that bothers me a bit.

Well I guess that is it for this mini review of the NK_ x Tai-Hao BOW Cubic Keycaps, I will be looking forward for the white on black version to make a dope combination, the community needs more sets like this one, it was an awesome job Mike and Tai-Hao! Thanks!

Finally I’ll leave a comparison of the profiles mention before, from left to right SA, Cubic, OEM and Cherry.





(UPDATE: Typing Sounds at the bottom)