I remember over 20y ago, a filco was the best mechanical keyboard money could buy.
I bought one a couple of years ago, to my surprise it was nearly identical. A bit cheaper material. Still over a 100 USD.
The difference is one can by an Aula for less than half the price, with better 3 Bluetooth settings + 2.4 dongle, blacklit, better sound coming out of the keys, less loud and annoying.
A great company that made the mistake to stay stagnant.
The botique keyboard space exploded during that time, especially towards the latter half of the 10's and through the pandemic years. There were countless one-off group buys across the price spectrum all offering more interesting products, and in the last 5 years or so there's been a number of vendors offering enthusiast-level features in mass production boards (e.g. Keychron).
It's definitely not a market where one can stand still.
I bought a ~60€ Redragon linear switches keyboard for my office desk to replace the company-provided shitty Logitech, not expecting much, and was very surprised by the quality. So competition is definitely tough.
I still have 4 of these, even one of their bluetooth ones. They all work, except a 15 year old one whose USB cable got frayed and fell apart. (I bought a USB-C port to see if I could fix it, yet another incomplete project)
I agree with op who said that they aren't getting better but calling it stagnant is more than I would say. The build quality was quite high and they clearly focused on that, and the price reflected that. I own another mechanical keyboard that I bought from Amazon during the pandemic and I already started getting ghost tapping (I only used it for dev work so I was more than a little annoyed to see it).
Not saying it is perfect though. They clearly were a Windows-first shop and that never changed. I've never managed to get the 変換 key and the other Kanji keys working in Linux or on Mac, much to my annoyance.
Often behavior like ghost-tapping, double-inputs, etc aren't actually an issue with the board, but rather with the switches. A lot of newer boards come with hotswappable switches which makes it easy to fix this without soldering.
Problems with the circuit board or the firmware it runs are certainly possible of course, but what I've seen most of are switch issues.
Pretty much this. I used a majestouch for ages. A good decade later I got a Ducky One 2 for work and the difference in quality and features is huge. I ended up replacing the Majestouch not too long after.
There's just no way they could have done something like, a split dual purple-gray-gold tri-tone double shot keycaps on lubed gasketed Cherry ultra low profile tactile in black nickel cold hammer forged milled blasted steel chassis with full QMK compatibility and quad nRF53 mesh wireless networking, full wide QCIF microdisplays and native GX16 coiled cable support. They're a Japanese PC peripherals company. Not a hype-revenue-cashflowmaxxing dream YouTuber multi joint venture. The whole keyboard industry is optimized for the latter, and I doubt it can support a real company not subsidized by hype sustainably over time anyway.
I got a bluetooth Majestouch sometime a decade or so ago and it's been a daily driver ever since. At the time, there weren't a lot of bluetooth mechanical keyboards out there. The bluetooth bit can be a little bit picky or slow when connecting. It's not as quick and reliable as a Logitech wireless keyboard with a proprietary protocol and dongle. However, the keyboard itself is like nothing Logitech makes. If you know, you know.
I'd absolutely buy another one of these right now if it were showing even the slightest signs of wear, but it's not. Bulletproof. The only keyboard I still use that's older is a Model M.
Filco really put quality first. It's a shame to see them go.
Sad to hear this, one of my first mechanical keyboards was a Filco TKL. At one point in time, it was my go-to "safe recommendation" for a keyboard. Since that point in time, the Majestouch keyboards only received incremental improvements, whereas the likes of Keychron completely overtook them on almost all criteria.
A shame, my first mechanical keyboard was a Filco Majestouch tenkeyless with cherry blue switches, I've used it as a daily driver since 2011 (I just checked when I bought it) and only replaced it a few months ago because some of the keys didn't register properly.
I still have it, I should open it up and clean it again, probably just a dirty contact or something. Solid piece of gear.
currently using a NuPhy Field75 because it looks and sounds cool, lol. The linear magnetic switches are a neat feature but in practice I don't use any features that it theoretically supports.
I have a Leopold with MX brown keys. Bought in 2012. Last year the left ctrl (or maybe left alt? can't remember) started to sometimes not work. I took the back cover off and the soldering job was horrid everywhere. And on that key the solder was mostly non-existent. I touched it up and a few others. All good now.
I still have a Filco TKL keyboard with custom SA keycaps, this is my go-to keyboard, and I own many including a few Unicomp (too clacky), Topre (constant USB problems) and Keychron (why do I need a webapp to configure a keyboard)
One of my colleagues has a mechanical keyboard - possibly a Filco - that they use in preference to their crappy corporate-issued one, and i have come to loathe the machinegun sound. I get that they feel good to use, and the haptic and audible feedback combo is particularly effective. But for the love of $deity I just want the noise to stop.
FWIW, not all mechanicals are loud. The clicky audible feedback is a deliberate thing on some types of switch, and you can get others with less or even virtually no noise.
Years ago I ordered Ninja 2 from Japan and was sadly expecting to pay another 20% or so in customs fees, but the price was given in yen, and the customs probably couldn’t figure it out, so they released it to me for free. It’s still going strong.
Sad news. I'm sitting at a modified Filco keyboard with custom firmware right now. Its sound profile is not very pleasing by today's standards but it has been a reliable workhorse.
I bought one a couple of years ago, to my surprise it was nearly identical. A bit cheaper material. Still over a 100 USD.
The difference is one can by an Aula for less than half the price, with better 3 Bluetooth settings + 2.4 dongle, blacklit, better sound coming out of the keys, less loud and annoying.
A great company that made the mistake to stay stagnant.
It's definitely not a market where one can stand still.
Sometimes, a company like this is very few people who made something that they wanted and were happy to find others wanted it as well.
So you call it a mistake, but it may very well have been intentional.
As a customer I’d say that’s a feature, not a bug.
Wireless and backlighting are features I actively avoid.
I agree with op who said that they aren't getting better but calling it stagnant is more than I would say. The build quality was quite high and they clearly focused on that, and the price reflected that. I own another mechanical keyboard that I bought from Amazon during the pandemic and I already started getting ghost tapping (I only used it for dev work so I was more than a little annoyed to see it).
Not saying it is perfect though. They clearly were a Windows-first shop and that never changed. I've never managed to get the 変換 key and the other Kanji keys working in Linux or on Mac, much to my annoyance.
Problems with the circuit board or the firmware it runs are certainly possible of course, but what I've seen most of are switch issues.
Typed on my HHKB Lite 2
I'd absolutely buy another one of these right now if it were showing even the slightest signs of wear, but it's not. Bulletproof. The only keyboard I still use that's older is a Model M.
Filco really put quality first. It's a shame to see them go.
I still have it, I should open it up and clean it again, probably just a dirty contact or something. Solid piece of gear.
currently using a NuPhy Field75 because it looks and sounds cool, lol. The linear magnetic switches are a neat feature but in practice I don't use any features that it theoretically supports.
I have a Leopold with MX brown keys. Bought in 2012. Last year the left ctrl (or maybe left alt? can't remember) started to sometimes not work. I took the back cover off and the soldering job was horrid everywhere. And on that key the solder was mostly non-existent. I touched it up and a few others. All good now.