Topre RealForce 104UW Keyboard Review

Early Verdict

Not your average keyboard, the Realforce 104UW has a particular design and feature set that you’ll either love or hate.

Pros

  • +

    Smooth, rounded, tactile keyfeel and deep typing sound

  • +

    Ergonomic weighting

  • +

    Strong build quality

Cons

  • -

    Highly divisive--love it or hate it

  • -

    Lack of extra features

  • -

    Extremely expensive for what it is

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Introduction & Specifications

Topre, a contraction of its former company name “Tokyo Press Kogyo,” is a Japanese engineering company that has been making plastics and metal components since 1935. However, it also makes electronics, and the company has made a name for itself in the keyboard community for the Topre capacitive switch. These are famously used in the Happy Hacking Keyboard (HHKB) and Realforce lines of keyboards, the latter of which we’re looking at today.

Specifications

*During this review, Topre stopped responding to our requests for information.


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Thomas Ran is an Associate Contributing Writer covering keyboards and mechanical switches.