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Drop's Sense75 is its most premium board yet
The E-White model of the new Sense75 features a special electrophoretic coating.
After more than a week of teases, Drop finally took the wraps off its new Sense75 keyboard, a 75% model featuring a gasket-mounted plate and a unique underlighting system.
Drop calls the new item an "enthusiast-level" board and seems to be positioning it a step or so beyond its existing offerings, like the 65% Drop ALT and the tenkeyless Drop CTRL in terms of construction, features, and price.
Also: Drop debuts 2 Lord of the Rings-themed keyboards
In addition to the aforementioned decision to go with a gasket-mount construction, which provide a slightly softer typing feel to reduce fatigue and improve acoustics, Drop also included several new features not seen in any of its in-house boards before.
Among these are a programmable knob, underside RGB LEDs with a diffuser designed to provide "a natural glow," improved "quiet" stabilizers, and "south-facing" switches.
The 75% layout skips a few more keys than tenkeyless boards, but takes up significantly less desk space.
Those last two features are likely intended to answer some gripes mechanical keyboard modders have leveled against Drop's existing offerings, including Drop's less-than-stellar default key stabilizers and the fact that most of its older offerings use "north-facing" switches, creating compatibility issues with some keycap sets.
Also: Mechanical keyboards: A comprehensive guide
Other features touted for the Sense75 include customizable, per-key RGB lighting for all keys and underglow lights; compatibility with QMK and VIA firmware for easy customization of keymapping and lighting; and improved hot-swap sockets so that the board should continue to operate perfectly -- even after numerous switch replacements.
Drop has moved the RGB lighting that previously circled its boards to the bottom to provide an underglow effect.
The Sense75 will, like most Drop boards, come in two variants:
- The prebuilt model will include the keyboard frame, Drop's Holy Panda X switches, its Phantom stabilizers, and its DCX keycaps. It will retail for $349 for the Nightfall (black) model or $399 for the Polar ("e-white") model.
- The bare-bones version will require users to provide their own switches and caps. This will drop the price to $249 for the Nightfall version and to $299 for the Polar version.
Drop describes the Polar version as being covered in an "electrophoretic coating process that is commonly used in fine jewelry to create a stunning and clean look that is preferable for collectors."
Preorders for the prebuilt version are open as of today, Aug. 30, with an expected shipping window of early November. The first 500 buyers of the prebuilt Sense75 board will receive a bonus MT3 keycap set, a limited-edition "launch novelty keycap," and a carrying case.
The bare-bones version is expected to be available at a later date.
We'll be sure to share with readers how Drop's Sense75 stacks up -- against both the company's existing offerings and competing products like Glorious' GMMK Pro -- when we go hands-on with one later this year.