Introduction

Is your current keyboard a little too not-split-in-half for your tastes? Do you crave the feel of low-profile cherry switches? Are you the kind of person who dreams of being able to pull out a keyboard from a sack, stretch your arms out into a broad V-shape, recline backward in your chair, and send that email you forgot about to your Gram-grams wishing her a happy birthday? Well, Mistel may have the solution for your incredibly specific needs, my good sir/madam.

Box Contents

Aside from the keyboard itself, the product includes a micro to micro USB cable (for connecting the two halves), a mini USB type B cable to connect to PC, a Mistel branded key-puller, the user manual, two extra orange keycaps for ESC and Enter, and one spare ML switch. It also comes with a series of screws and a metal brace which, when attached to the back of the keyboard, serves to join the two halves together. Unfortunately, attaching and removing this piece requires an allen wrench (included in the box) and some slight time fiddling with screws, so it's not something you want to be doing back and forth on a whim.

Specifications

• Current Price: $159.99

• Key Switch: Cherry Low Profile (ML1A)

• Switch Type: Tactile, Silent

• Switch Lifespan: 20M presses

• Actuation Force: 45g

• Actuation Point: 1.5mm (3mm total travel distance)

• Key caps: ABS
  Construction: CNC-milled aluminum

• Macro Support: Yes

• Polling Rate: 1000Hz (1ms)

• Media Keys: Second layer

• Onboard Memory: Yes

• Dimensions: 325mm (L) x 106mm (W) x 16mm (H)

• Weight: 920g

The MD650L Barocco is a keyboard someone cracked into two working pieces, with what's advertised as a 65% form factor in terms of its key layout. The two halves are connected to each other via two microUSB type B ports along the top of the keyboard with two miniUSB-B ports, also located on the top edge of each half, being used to connect the keyboard to the computer itself.

This particular keyboard uses Cherry ML1A mechanical switches, a lower-profile, tactile, silent, mechanical switch, with 3mm of total travel distance instead of the typical 4mm of most mechanical switches. As a result, the keycaps used here are proprietary; full width, but slightly shorter to accommodate the travel distance. Because of this, finding replacement parts for this keyboard could be somewhat tedious, as the Cherry ML switches aren't really available for consumer purchase anywhere that I've been able to see yet, and the key caps can only come from Mistel themselves.

As far as the specifications of the switches themselves, they're tactile, not linear. This means that one doesn't need to smash the switch completely to the floor to register a key press, registering at roughly 1/2 total travel. The Cherry ML switches are apparently enjoyed by a small niche, as the benefits of a lower-profile, tactile mechanical switch are that it takes less force (45cN) and travel distance for activation, theoretically making them more responsive in gaming situations. While these keys are indeed both softer and slightly more shallow (3/4 typical travel distance), I continually find myself accidentally missing key presses when using them, even multiple times in typing this very sentence. The cause of this, as far as I can tell, is because the point of resistance comes about a full half millimeter before actuation distance. Out of the full 3mm, that's 1/6 of the key's travel in a deadzone where there is no physical feedback as to whether the key has been activated or not.

(Imaged sourced from deskthority.net)

As such, I find myself feeling the "click" of that hump just before 1mm, and passing over into the next key thinking internally that I've activated the first, where I haven't. That the keys themselves feel a little gritty going down also makes that hump feel much more subtle than it looks on the graph. It gives a bit more pushback throughout the key's distance than I feel comfortable with, and it promoted a stiffer typing experience in my fingers when using it, which became tiring. I've seen a large number of people advocating using lube on these switches, and though I was not previously aware that "key lube" was a thing, I can absolutely see where they're coming from on this just on feeling alone.

As said before, the shallow travel makes for theoretically relatively quick activation for gaming purposes, but I have to imagine that this keyboard and its 65% layout isn't marketing itself towards the gaming market. It would make sense that, if one were doing any gaming on a keyboard, they'd want as many keys to activate in-game macros as possible, which makes the missing keys a detriment, and that portability wouldn't be much of a boon at all.

The aluminum case framing the keyboard is a dense bugger, and is available in 4 different colors: black, grey, pink, and white, though the one I'm reviewing in particular is their black variety. It's weighty and solid, with all pieces fitting snugly together, and gives a strong sense of durability. It really ought to be able to handle some jostling, as the keyboard is meant to be able to be packed away and taken around. Nothing on it feels especially delicate, and a key popping off a switch is replaced easily in a fraction of a second, not that I've had that happen at any point while toting this slim cookie between my home and workplace.

As far as looks go, nothing about it screams any kind of chic or flair. The plain off-white keys accented with the gray trimmings are, to me, most reminiscent of the old-school IBM keyboards. It's honestly not an aesthetic I think makes for the nicest look in any modern setup. It comes with two orange keys to replace the enter and escape keys, which barely end up improving the look, but the whole thing ends up looking so "90s industrial" in its color palette. The other three colors don't do much to improve the overall look of things either, and though I'm usually a sucker for an obscenely garish neon pink, it doesn't particularly work well with these muted, pale, keys.

The keyboard's split is roughly down the center, just to the right of the 6, T, G, and B keys, cutting the space bar in half. Since I typically end up hitting the space bar with my thumb roughly in the center, I thought it would take a while to get used to not placing my thumb right in the crevice, but that aspect was surprisingly easy to adjust to. In fact, the only things that mess me up are when the keyboard halves are separated, as I've realized I hit the B key with my right fingers, not my left. Having the B split to the opposite side is something I've still not adjusted to after roughly a week of use. Additionally, since I "feel out" the locations of the keys as much relative to their distance to my hands as I do the distance of my hands from each other, splitting the keyboard and trying to type feels awkward. It was never something I actively tried to do more than a few times out of novelty, and keeping them pressed together was much more convenient in basically every situation.

What I am thankful for, however, are the extra keys added which take it from a 60% layout to 65% (well, technically 68%, but Mistel likes to advertise it with a nice round number matching the model number progression: 600 -> 650.) Missing from the board are function keys, ` and ~, Volume up/down/mute, print screen, scroll lock, home, insert, and end keys. The functionality of these keys is instead replicated on the default macro layer like so:

Despite the missing keys, this board has quite a good bit more on it than previous models in the Barocco line, adding in the Delete, Page Up/Down, and arrow keys along the right side, hence the "65%" profile. The arrow keys are a decent boon, but while I never use the page up/down keys, I constantly use the home and end buttons, so I'd have much preferred those keys on the default layer instead.

"Default layer"? Yes, this keyboard allows for 3 customizable layers in addition to the default one, accessed using unalterable macros, and indicated by the color of an LED on the bottom right of the board. These layers are programmed by pressing FN+(right)CTRL to activate the remapping mode (indicated by a blue LED), pressing the location for the macro twice (so that the LED begins flashing blue), then pressing the desired combination of keys. The macro is stored by pressing the PN key when finished, and the remapping mode is exited by pressing FN+(right)CTRL again (deactivating the blue LED.) It's a very simple process, despite how it may have sounded, and it works very well.

In the way of customization, there are 4 dip switches on the back of the board which affect certain things when turned on.

• 1 ON: Capslock and FN keys change position
• 2 ON: Capslock and right CTRL switch
• 3 ON: Windows and Alt keys change position
• 3 ON: Left space bar becomes another FN key

The Barocco also supports switching keyboard layouts between the default QWERTY, Colemak, and Dvorak, by pressing the FN+" macro.

Conclusions

This keyboard does everything it wanted to and said it would. The keyboard can be split in half, the low profile and modular design makes it fairly portable, it has full-width, 3/4 height keys on Cherry ML switches, support for 3 layers of macros, and no drivers so it has immediate functionality right out of the box. It's very durable, solidly-constructed, and easy to program. For myself, though, I really did feel the absence of those missing keys. I also realized I'm not exactly a fan of these switches, wishing the travel was smoother and that the activation point was much closer to the tactile "click" of the keys, and I basically had no use for the split-design of the keyboard. If you're somebody who loves these switches, adores/needs to bring their primary keyboard with them when traveling, and who has infrequent use for the missing keys, then I suppose this keyboard is for you, though at the daunting retail price of $160, how strongly can I really recommend this product? In conclusion, this keyboard is exactly what it appears to be, and if these features happen to be the oddly-shaped keys to your heart, and you're willing to spend a pretty premium for it, then this gets a decent recommendation from me.