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FOLLOWUP] Varmilo VA108M Mac White LED Dye Sub PBT mechanical keyboard - Great news!
#1
FOLLOWUP] Varmilo VA108M Mac White LED Dye Sub PBT mechanical keyboard - Great news!

Hi everyone,

A second followup to my posts about the Varmilo VA108M Mac White LED Dye Sub PBT mechanical keyboard.

The original post:
First followup:

Great news! The key sequence issues I described in my previous posts are now resolved.

Apparently, the Varmilo VA108M Mac has a Windows mode and a Mac mode. You toggle between them by pressing the “fn” key and a letter for 3 seconds. I discovered this in a thread to a post about mechanical keyboards on wirecutter.com.

For Mac mode, you press “fn+a” for 3 seconds and for Windows mode, you press “fn+w” for 3 seconds.

I had to try the mode swap as soon as I got to my office today.

After I first pressed fn+a for 3 seconds to activate the keyboard's Mac mode, key sequences using command and option were a little wonky. Command-a for select all didn't work properly. Neither did the other commands for selecting text. I hadn’t even gotten around to trying the boot commands. Then I remembered I used Apple’s Keyboard preferences to swap the command and option key functions.

I swapped them back to default and and all of the sequences started working properly. After that, I rebooted the computer and confirmed keyboard boot commands worked properly.

To say having the keyboard based selection sequences working properly makes me happy is an understatement. The keyboard felt crippled without them. At least I was able to work-around the boot commands. Not the selection commands. Nothing I tried worked and not having the keyboard based selection commands annoyed me to no end!

Why, why, why, doesn’t Varmilo provide this critical piece of information in the box for the VA108M? All that is necessary is a slip of paper noting you need to put the keyboard into Macintosh mode by pressing “fn+a” for three seconds. It is noted in the PDF manual available on Varmilo’s web site. One sentence in the entire manual. Very easy to miss. fn+w for three seconds returns the keyboard to Windows mode.

Admittedly, it never occurred to me to look for a manual and/or special commands to swap modes. It's a keyboard and a Mac version of it at that. It should just work out of the box. Should being the operative word.

I plan to drop a note to mechanicalkeyboards.com and let them know about the command to put the VA108M into Mac mode. Hopefully, they’ll notate it on the site.

I’m also working under the assumption that fn+a will put other Varmilo keyboards advertised as the Mac version into Mac mode. Wirecutter.com needs to try it and update their review.

All that said, I can now give the Varmilo VA108M Mac White LED Dye Sub PBT mechanical keyboard a _HUGE_ thumbs up! It’s friggin’ awesome! Definitely my keyboard of choice and believe you me, it was incredibly difficult to find a viable alternative to the Matias Tactile Pro.

Robert
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#2
Great detective work, and thanks for sharing the info here.
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#3
Mike,

Appreciated but you give me too much credit! Someone else reported on the command necessary to change the mode. I'm just relaying it to everyone else since it solved what was a _very_ annoying issue with the Varmilo. Gotta say, the keyboard is amazing. Love that you can customize its feel to your taste. The Cherry MX Blue switches work well for me. Can't say my coworkers like them due to the noise but even they admit the quality of the keyboard shines. Even with the noisy clickety-clack key switches!

Robert
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#4
Sure, but you had to FIND that info.

I'm so used to laptop keyboards now that I might not like a beefy keyboard, but it's good to know there are options about.
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#5
Robert M wrote:
... the keyboard is amazing. Love that you can customize its feel to your taste. The Cherry MX Blue switches work well for me. ...

Robert

How do you customize it, do you need to know what kind of switches you want when you order or can you change your mind and swap them later, and how much does it cost?

it appears this sells for $150ish, I have guys at work that spend $300 on keyboards, I stopped following that Slack channel since it was very addictive and I won't want another expensive addiction.
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#6
Space,

I bought it from mechanicalkeyboards.com, one of the better sources for high quality mechanical keyboards.



The cool thing about a keyboard that uses Cherry MX switches is customizability. You order the keyboard with X type of switch. However, that doesn't mean you can't customize it. Many people add rubber domes or swap out switches to better customize and individualize the experience.

I'm happy with the Cherry MX Blue switches. They work well for me. Mechanicalkeyboards.com offers good info about the different types of switches available on the keyboards they sell. Each switch has different properties.

For some, the model I have is an entry level keyboard.-lol!

Robert
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