Originally, i got the fully assembled K10 Pro keyboard, which also comes with OSA profile keycaps, just not transparent, and i absolutely LOVE those keycaps - partly due to the design or color scheme, but also because of the OSA profile.
Later, i decided i need keycaps that do not stand in the way of the LED light underneath. So, something transparent, but clearly transparent looks ugly to me, or pudding keycaps, but those come only in the generic boring OEM profile and i didn't like that at all.
So i eventually decided to give these a try, because of their OSA profile, even though i would otherwise prefer some pudding keycaps.
I was not sure about the color - on some pictures it looks way too brown, on others a bit more black, still with a significant brown tint.
Similarly, i didn't think i would like the yellow legends, but after thinking about what other color i would want them to be, i couldn't come up with any - white? nah, that would be horrible, etc.
Good news is, ALL OF IT LOOKS BETTER IN REALITY than on any of the pictures, but it depends on the ambient lighting.
- if the room is lit up using some yellow-ish lightbulb, the keycaps will look more brown than black.
- if lit up using some white/blue-ish light, like from a fluorescent lamp, or white LED light, it looks almost black if not completely black.
- if relying on sunlight, it usually looks black, but can have some brown tint which amount depends on the intensity/color of the sunlight.
Overall, i was very pleasantly surprised.
I think it looks quite good, way better than i expected.
Obviously, the keycaps are shiny and smooth, so your oily fingers will leave some smudges on them from time to time (depending on how much of a ...slob you are :)
Of course, this also depends on the lighting - depending on how the light is reflected, any possible "oily smudges" may be more or less visible.
But in general, i found that not to be a problem, so i think if you don't have a problem with sweaty hands or something like that, it will be fine, unless you are purposefully looking for any smudges.
About the transparency and LED light.
I would like more if the keycaps surface would be much more frosted on the inside, or maybe thicker, or more milky on the inside.
It isn't crystal clear, which is good (for me), but it is of course VERY far from the nice diffusion of the pudding keycaps i originally planned on using.
The light does get diffused a bit, making it slightly softer, but not nearly as much as i would like, and the keycap doesn't look exactly "filled" with the light as i would like to.
The material of the switches plays a big role.
Ideally, you want the whole switch to be milky/semi-transparent or clear (ie. the upper and bottom housing, and the stem too).
If even just the stem isn't transparent, it will block the LED light enough so the northern half of the key will be significantly darker (if having a board with south-facing LED, or vice versa with north facing).
The annoyng thing is, there aren't many crystal clear or semi-transparent switches in the flavor you might want (for example, if you want linear AND silent switches, good luck finding any that have all these parts clear or semi-transparent - especially the stem, i haven't found a clear silent stem anywhere yet) - but that is not the fault of these keycaps of course.
The keycaps have a slight plastic-pingy sound to them, especially apparent with the spacebar or any wider keys like ANSI backspace or shift.
This is probably mostly due to the used material, but may be also a bit due to the keycaps having less thickness than the PBT keycaps i had there before - but i did not measure the difference, so i could be wrong about that, i just eyeballed it and it seems these keycaps are slightly thinner.
I don't care about this, because the silent switches i am using get rid of most of the sound anyway.
If you are considering these keycaps, but weren't yet exactly sure, i would say you very likely won't regret getting them.
Regardless of the few things i am not exactly happy about, i do LOVE the looks of these keycaps on my black K10 Pro.
