First things first, I will not be giving any awards to pre-retail prototypes even if they merit it. If this review would have been done back when we were still awarding a numerical score, there wouldn't have been one either. If Marsback wants to send me an actual retail sample down the line, I am happy to update this review to reflect the retail experience, or create a new article altogether if with a different keycap and switch combination at least, especially since I would be curious to see whether all the growing pains have been fixed. Marsback says they want to take feedback from the media and make changes before they fulfill orders from Kickstarter backers. However, they also say that the keyboards are already being prepared. So your guess is as good as mine on which changes are baked in, and which items are flexible enough to be changed over the course of the campaign as more feedback comes in.

As it currently stands, pricing is actually not as bad as I thought it would be if you want to back this on Kickstarter. This of course assumes that a few things will be fixed, especially on the software front, but the overall feature set is basically a checklist for a typical custom keyboard, down to the hand-lubed switches. The form factor is also the smallest without compromising on basic functionality in my opinion, and saves a good amount of space compared to a TKL or full-size keyboard. But space savings are really not a big selling point here, especially once you realize that the main contributor to the cost comes in the form of a high-profile, thick CNC-machined and hand-finished polycarbonate case. Bottom-mounted RGB LEDs and more polycarbonate in the form of the support plate all result in an impressive light show, but be aware that the Sakura edition keycaps are not the way to go if lighting is a big deal for you.

The good thing thus is that Marsback sells the M1 with two different keycap sets, one black ABS and the other a white PBT pudding-style. There are three switches, too, although all three are linear and only differ slightly in the force curve. Hot-swappable switch sockets are seen here too, although this is also where we see more shortcuts taken by the company to try and hit a price point. I encourage Marsback to switch from the plastic ring keycap puller to a metal wire puller and also throw in a switch puller. This is your first keyboard, and first impressions go a long way. Sure, celebrate the success of the Kickstarter campaign already having met the goal in less than a week as of the time of writing, but use that confidence to put more resources towards improving the final experience. I look forward to seeing how that comes along myself!

[Update] Marsback has since gotten back to me with some of the planned changes. These include bundling in a wire keycap puller instead of the plastic ring puller, adding a pretty decent switch puller, addressing QC issues with the keycaps, having more switch options for the retail release, and a July timeline for software bug fixes and UI improvements.