Unfortunately, quality doesn’t come cheap. The new features and design changes make an already superb keyboard even better. The fourth iteration of the Das Keyboard is definitely the company’s best one yet. While we can’t conclude on the longevity of the PCB and the soldering material, there are no immediately noticeable shortcuts when it comes to manufacturing. To set you at ease, we tore the board open for a closer inspection: the joints received good coverage with appropriate amount of solder, no excessive leads were sticking out, and there was good separation between the joints. Some went as far as accusing the Das Keyboard 4 series of being inferior in quality compared to previous generations. Rumors stirred that the Das Keyboard 4 series suffers from poor quality control after Metadot started using Cherry MX Clones in some of its keyboards, namely the Das Keyboard 4C. Maybe you can use it to beat your typos into submission.

We like different, but the footbar is slippery and annoying to have lying around. Metadot apparently “got tired of those itty bitty plastic keyboard feet” and decided to use a magnetically-attached footbar instead. You won’t find elevator feet on the keyboard’s backside. The lack thereof further shifts the purpose of the board towards the typing crowd rather than gaming. In some genres, such as MMOs, a set of macros can come in very handy. Most users can probably get by without fancy backlight, but the lack of macros can be a potential deal breaker for some. Having no backlight means that the keyboard doesn’t need an additional USB plug for extra power (this will eventually become a non-issue with the gradual adoption of USB Type-C connector and the USB Power Delivery V2.0 specification)-great news for users who wants to maximize the number of ports available to them. Typically, keyboards with both USB pass-throughs and backlighting need two USB ports to function: one for the backlight and the other for the pass-throughs.

We would’ve liked to see backlighting for the night owls in dark caves, but in the case of the Das, the absence of backlight can actually be a bonus. Metadot allocated them to the front so devices that are plugged in won’t bump into your hand. Pointing towards the front are two USB 3.0 pass-throughs. A set of playback controls and an emergency sleep button sits to its left they’re only slightly raised against the chassis as to not draw away from the flush, sleek look. On a keyboard with nothing but straight edges, the round silhouette of the volume knob is also especially eye-catching.

The addition of a volume knob turns the tedious chore of sound management into something that’s actually enjoyable.

Das keyboard 4 vs model s