Closer Examination

The Das Keyboard Prime 13 comes in a plastic wrap inside the packaging, and removing it, we get our first good look at the keyboard. It looks and feels very similar to the Das Keyboard 4 Professional as a result of the aluminum top and curved bottom panels that meet it, thus leaving no sharp edges around. This is a completely black full-size 104-key ANSI layout keyboard, but Das Keyboard also offers a 105-key ISO layout at this time with NO and DE support coming later.

As with most keyboards, there are three notification LEDs above the numpad cluster, and secondary legends have been inscribed on the numpad keys to denote their functionality when the Num lock is off - arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert, and Delete. Given these are available as discrete functions immediately to the left of the numpad cluster, I imagine most will simply leave Num lock on. The secondary legends here are placed vertically below the primary ones, which can be a hindrance to uniform backlighting in cases where the LED is located above the switch.

The legends' font is clean and professional-looking; there is nothing here to really stop you from using this in your office. The positioning of the legends in the top center goes well with where the LED is below; however, the secondary legends are either below, at the top, or on the front of the keycaps, so we will have to see how the backlighting holds up.


There are two rubber pads on the bottom when we take a look at the back, but none at the top, including the feet. With bare plastic moving on a hard desk, expect to see some scratches sooner than later. The pads in the bottom did help prevent the keyboard from moving around for me, so they did the job. No "footbar" here, with Das Keyboard going with the more traditional and practical feet. As with other Das Keyboards, there is a similar metal badge with a serial number here.

The keyboard's cable is non-detachable and terminates in two gold-plated male USB Type-A connectors. Marked, you know which is to help power the keyboard and which is an EXT (external pass-through) connector. The latter leads to the USB pass-through port in the top-right corner you can use to power a mouse, for example. Both connectors will work off USB 1.1 even, but go with at least USB 2.0 unless you are using an OEM PC from a decade ago (in which case you should be upgrading that instead of buying this keyboard anyway).


As with the vast majority of Cherry MX compatible keycaps available today, these also have an OEM profile. The sculpting of the rows and their staggered arrangement should be familiar to most who have used a mechanical keyboard already, and this profile will not be a big hurdle to cross if this is to be your first one.

The keycap puller works fairly well, although it did scratch some of the keycaps I removed for this demo, so please be aware of that and use it carefully. The keycaps on the Das Keyboard Prime 13 are made out of ABS plastic with a wall thickness of 1.07 mm on average. These are not the same as the thicker ABS keycaps used on the non-backlit Das Keyboard 4 Professional, but still feel better than a lot of stock keycaps I have used. Backlighting is okay, with the primary and front legends illuminated well, but the secondary legends below the primary ones not as much. In practice, there is not enough of a decrease to be noticeable. The legends themselves are laser etched, so expect some wear with usage. On the plus side, a standard bottom row size and spacing means this keyboard is compatible with nearly all Cherry MX replacement keycap sets.


The larger keycaps are using Cherry stabilizers, which aids in their removal and installation, and aside from a subjective mushy feeling when pressing down on them (space bar, in particular), I tend to prefer these over costar stabilizers, or similar options. There is only one switch option here, and we see Cherry MX Brown switches used, which is probably the way to go for this keyboard if you had to go with one. There is a white LED above each switch, and the switches themselves use the opaque housing as well.