I've tested hundreds of keyboards and the 20-year-old classic Das Keyboard has held up better than any – how do modern ones compare?

Mechanical keyboards have been around for a time – even before they went mainstream some 15 years ago – and nowadays you can find thousands of models from hundreds of manufacturers with a dizzying array of switch types, sizes and gaming features to choose from. Das Keyboard were one of the first companies to bring mechanicals to a wider audience, especially in their native America, and today we’re looking at a nearly 20-year-old artefact of that time to see what’s changed in the intervening decades.

The Das Keyboard 2 launched in 2006 as the brand’s first mechanical keyboard, following on from the famously blank membrane Das Keyboard that got mainstream media attention as a keyboard for “uber geeks” a year earlier (and even prompted some users to take power tools or bottles of spray-paint to their keyboards to get a similar look). Das initially adapted existing keyboards in their signature all-blank style – and more accessible models with key legends – so the model I’ve got on my desk today is actually a a rebadged Cherry G80-3000. This unit dates from 2006, based on a date code on the label underneath. It’s a Czech-made model too, produced in a factory established in 1992 in order to take advantage of lower labour costs than in Germany. The factory was also responsible for some rebadged models, like this DK2.

For all intents and purposes, the Das Keyboard 2 looks surprisingly modern, with a standard full-size ANSI US layout, complete with a nav cluster, arrow keys, function row and number pad as we see on contemporary full-size keyboards. The only thing that dates it slightly is the chunky plastic bezel and a plain Das Keyboard wordmark. The Das Keyboard 2 is actually lighter than you’d expect compared to modern mechanicals and even some vintage models, suggesting this unit is a revised G80-3000 that cut some corners in comparison to the originals from the late 1980s. The original DK2 came with fully blank POM keycaps, although my sample seems to have lasered legends, complete with this keyboard’s signature deep-dish F and J keycaps.

As someone who has used several of these G80-3000s over the years, coming to use the DK2 was like coming home. The keyboard I used a lot as an early teenager was a G80-3000 with MX Blues (amazingly, still available on Amazon), and it felt virtually identical to this DK2 – the MX Blue key switches inside are crunchy and loud, with a pleasant weight and lovely tactility that makes it easy to get up to speed. If I didn’t have to send this keyboard back to the Das archives, I’d weld it to my desk – I’d forgotten how much I loved older MX Blues! Its full-size layout is convenient, as is its plug-and-play USB connectivity – not something to be taken for granted given how prevalent PS/2 keyboards were in this era.