Unveiled earlier this month at Tokyo Games Show, Gundam is collaborating with keyboard maker Topre to release the Realforce x Mobile Suit Gundam series of boards, utilising the iconic Topre switches.
Unlike Cherry-style switches which use metal contact leaves for key sensing, or hall effect switches which use magnets, Topre switches are capacitive rubber domes. That means they too are capable of n-key rollover, and don’t use a membrane sensing pad, so you can keep the tactility profile of a rubber dome without the mushiness when bottoming out.
Two of the keyboards are based on the Zeta Gundam and the RX-93 v Gundam.
Images: Realforce
While the other two keyboards are based on two of Char Aznable’s suits, including the one he used as Quattro Bajeena.
Images: Realforce
These new Gundam keyboards are built off the Realforce GX1 keyboards, which are themselves a gaming-oriented redesign of Topre’s original, no-nonsense Realforce boards.
The Mobile Suit Gundam collab features four Realforce GX1 TKLs based on the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam from the titular anime, as well as Amuro Ray’s RX-93 v Gundam, and two of Char Aznable’s suits, the MSN-04 Sazabi and the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki from when he went under the alias Quattro Bajeena.
The boards come with the 45g versions of the Topre switches, and the keycaps are dye-sublimated PBT. They also come with a 91-key Japanese layout and an 87-key English layout.
Pricing and Availability
Despite the keyboards supposedly coming with an English layout, there’s no news of them heading outside of Japan, for now. Registrations start in late December, at least according to Realforce’s Japanese website.
As for the price, we don’t have the exact figure yet, though US prices for the normal GX1 go for about US$300 on mechanicalkeyboards.com.
