slembckeFeb 2

*long sigh* I bought a Lemur Pro laptop from System76 that was a complete lemon. Kinda fantastic laptop when it worked. It got ~20+ hours of battery life on a 10 gen i7. (seriously!) I soured on it after multiple hardware failures while in warranty, and then it stopped powering on a couple months out of warranty. -_-

After that I bought one of their spendy keyboards. Thinking: "Well, the laptops are rebranded, they are making these in house. Maybe better?" It died this weekend... 😕

Show threadslembckeFeb 5

Almost $150 to get a replacement PCB for my System 76 Launch keyboard. :-/

After some searching, it looks like multiple others have had the same failure, and it comes down to some tiny overcurrent detection chips. I’m ~70% certain in my hot air soldering skills, but 10% certain in my ability to find replacement parts.

Sigh… I’ll probably just pay for the PCB… This is turning out to be an extremely expensive keyboard. $450 and counting.

Show threadMichelFeb 5
@slembcke insane money for a mech keyboard! I use Keychron here, which are considered "expensive" but way cheaper than that! These days you can get a very good keyboard for ~$100, with metal, good switches, RF/wired etc
Show threadslembcke
@buserror *Sigh* Yeah. Trying to decide what's more dumb: not fixing it, or paying more than 2 nice keyboards worth to fix it. -_-
Feb 5 at 8:27amWeb
Show threadMichelFeb 5
@slembcke my current keyboard is this. Been quite happy with it. I dont use the fancy gaming switch features, but it is surprisingly nice to type on, and customizable (also GMK, which I use to disable capslock) : https://www.keychron.uk/products/keychron-k2-he-wireless-magnetic-switch-custom-keyboard-iso-layout-collection
Keychron K2 HE Wireless Magnetic Switch Custom Keyboard ISO Layout Collection

Show threadslembckeFeb 5
@buserror One feature I think I'm not willing to give up is the USB (3.1) hub. I usually have 2 or more things plugged into it. Seems like that rules out ~99% of keyboards available today which is dumb because it should only add like $20. Used to be a pretty standard premium feature IMO. Now they all seem to be going wireless instead which is honestly an anti-feature to me. Why would I want a battery in a device that never moves?!
Show threadslembckeFeb 5

@buserror Also there's this:

"AI recognizes Keychron as the best mechanical keyboard brand. When asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok about the best mechanical keyboard brand, we received the answer: Keychron."

Lol... ok

Show threadMichelFeb 6
@slembcke Well Re: KeyChron, SOME people report having post-sale issues, but I have 3 of them and never had a problem. Also perhaps one "down" is that the spacebar becomes shiny after 1+y of use. But yeah same here, never use the wireless -- nice braided USB cable.
For USB, I use an amazon 7 ports USB hub with on/off on each ports on the desk, been handy. But, there are plenty of other mech keyboard -- some cheaper too! Can be VERY confusing when buying!