EU or Canadian alternative to Unicomp PC keyboards
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I’m less interested in Unicomp/IBM’s novel buckling spring technology (as cool as it is) and more that they’re built well, are corded and not wireless, offer replacement parts on their website, and have a mail-in repair service.
Unicomp’s Model M keyboard was my first choice for a long-lasting keyboard, but now I want to lessen my dependence on American-made companies (especially since Unicomp is based in Kentucky) and wanted to see if any alternatives existed. I’ve heard good things about Cherry, but I don’t fully understand their business model or how to order their products.
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I’m less interested in Unicomp/IBM’s novel buckling spring technology (as cool as it is) and more that they’re built well, are corded and not wireless, offer replacement parts on their website, and have a mail-in repair service.
Unicomp’s Model M keyboard was my first choice for a long-lasting keyboard, but now I want to lessen my dependence on American-made companies (especially since Unicomp is based in Kentucky) and wanted to see if any alternatives existed. I’ve heard good things about Cherry, but I don’t fully understand their business model or how to order their products.
I think that Cherry just sold off their German production facilities or something. I vaguely recall posting something along those lines when it came up in the news. Cheaper Chinese competitors kind of killed them off.
searches
https://blackout-news.de/en/news/end-of-cherry-production-in-germany/
End of Cherry production in Germany
December 6, 2025
Cherry, the internationally renowned peripherals manufacturer from Auerbach in the Upper Palatinate region of Germany, is ceasing its German production after 60 years. Cherry became particularly famous for its iconic keyboards, which are expected to continue being manufactured in the Far East. Production in Germany, however, is no longer profitable, according to management.
Even though six decades of purely German production is a long time, Cherry is now, historically speaking, returning to its roots. These roots lay in the USA for the later German icon, as its Anglo-Saxon name suggests. Walter Cherry founded the company in 1953 in Highland Park, Illinois, and established the German production line in 1963. With the peripherals produced here, the company achieved a spectacular international breakthrough in 1983. That year, it launched the MX Switches, which have since defined the global standard for mechanical keyboards.
However, a Cherry patent expired in 2014, protecting the company’s MX design. Since then, Chinese companies have flooded the market with equivalent but cheaper alternatives. Manufacturers like Kailh, Gateron, and Outemu now offer switches with innovative technologies such as the Hall effect, some of which even come pre-lubricated. The Hall effect is a magnetic actuation mechanism for variable actuation points. Far Eastern manufacturers have now mastered this technology better than Cherry.
Completely relocating production to China will undoubtedly reduce costs and perhaps even bring Chinese expertise into the company. Industry leaders like Razer and Logitech took this path years ago.
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I think that Cherry just sold off their German production facilities or something. I vaguely recall posting something along those lines when it came up in the news. Cheaper Chinese competitors kind of killed them off.
searches
https://blackout-news.de/en/news/end-of-cherry-production-in-germany/
End of Cherry production in Germany
December 6, 2025
Cherry, the internationally renowned peripherals manufacturer from Auerbach in the Upper Palatinate region of Germany, is ceasing its German production after 60 years. Cherry became particularly famous for its iconic keyboards, which are expected to continue being manufactured in the Far East. Production in Germany, however, is no longer profitable, according to management.
Even though six decades of purely German production is a long time, Cherry is now, historically speaking, returning to its roots. These roots lay in the USA for the later German icon, as its Anglo-Saxon name suggests. Walter Cherry founded the company in 1953 in Highland Park, Illinois, and established the German production line in 1963. With the peripherals produced here, the company achieved a spectacular international breakthrough in 1983. That year, it launched the MX Switches, which have since defined the global standard for mechanical keyboards.
However, a Cherry patent expired in 2014, protecting the company’s MX design. Since then, Chinese companies have flooded the market with equivalent but cheaper alternatives. Manufacturers like Kailh, Gateron, and Outemu now offer switches with innovative technologies such as the Hall effect, some of which even come pre-lubricated. The Hall effect is a magnetic actuation mechanism for variable actuation points. Far Eastern manufacturers have now mastered this technology better than Cherry.
Completely relocating production to China will undoubtedly reduce costs and perhaps even bring Chinese expertise into the company. Industry leaders like Razer and Logitech took this path years ago.
I thought that Matias was western. Looking them up, it looks like they’re in Canada. It looks like they sell both keyboards and keyswitches, though I’m not certain that they manufacture everything locally or whether they brand it and have manufacturing done in China or somewhere like that.
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I’m less interested in Unicomp/IBM’s novel buckling spring technology (as cool as it is) and more that they’re built well, are corded and not wireless, offer replacement parts on their website, and have a mail-in repair service.
Unicomp’s Model M keyboard was my first choice for a long-lasting keyboard, but now I want to lessen my dependence on American-made companies (especially since Unicomp is based in Kentucky) and wanted to see if any alternatives existed. I’ve heard good things about Cherry, but I don’t fully understand their business model or how to order their products.
Personally, I’d suggest going with a cherry-mx compatible keyboard that offers a hot-swappable keyswitch mainboard. There are many, many manufacturers of various styles of MX style keyswitches, making replacing any switches that become faulty or die in the future quite easy to perform at home (no soldering). They also offer 76 models that are wired.
For brands, I’ve been impressed with Keychron keyboards. Most of their models are hot-swappable, and their build quality is quite good while remaining affordable. Another nice feature is that all of the customizable aspects like lighting settings and such are (or at least they were with my board from a few years ago) able to be changed just with key-combos on the keyboard without any additional software required, making it OS agnostic.
As for repairs, according to their FAQ, they will replace defective parts within the warranty period, and also offer a paid repair service outside of the warranty window.
For in warranty:
We will only replace the defective parts of the keyboard and not the whole keyboard, as its highly customisable and easy to be rebuilt.
For out of warranty:
We can offer paid service to replace the defective parts at your own cost (which includes the cost of parts, shipping fee and tax if applicable).
The only downside is that they do not, as far as I can tell, offer replacement parts for sale outside of keycaps or switches. So if something like a main processing chip on the board were to fail (unlikely), you would have to send it in for repairs.
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I thought that Matias was western. Looking them up, it looks like they’re in Canada. It looks like they sell both keyboards and keyswitches, though I’m not certain that they manufacture everything locally or whether they brand it and have manufacturing done in China or somewhere like that.
FYI, the Matias boards that use the Alps style switch are fantastic to type on, but unfortunately during my research when buying a good mechanical keyboard, I found that Matias switches do not have the durability of the older real Alps switches, with many developing hysteresis in some switches pretty quickly/frequently.
Those switches can be replaced with a soldering iron, but overall they don’t appear to be as reliable as MX style switches, nor do they offer the same ease of switch replacement as hot-swappable MX switch boards do.
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FYI, the Matias boards that use the Alps style switch are fantastic to type on, but unfortunately during my research when buying a good mechanical keyboard, I found that Matias switches do not have the durability of the older real Alps switches, with many developing hysteresis in some switches pretty quickly/frequently.
Those switches can be replaced with a soldering iron, but overall they don’t appear to be as reliable as MX style switches, nor do they offer the same ease of switch replacement as hot-swappable MX switch boards do.
Yeah, I’ve never used one myself — please don’t take it as an endorsement on that front. I was just trying to think of a Western keyboard company.
I also subscribe to !ErgoMechKeyboards@lemmy.world, and OP could try them.
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Yeah, I’ve never used one myself — please don’t take it as an endorsement on that front. I was just trying to think of a Western keyboard company.
I also subscribe to !ErgoMechKeyboards@lemmy.world, and OP could try them.
Somehow I missed the EU/Canadian requirement in OP’s title
️From a Chyrosran22 video on the Matias TactilePro, I was able to spy from the label on the back that they are now made in China, unfortunately.
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Somehow I missed the EU/Canadian requirement in OP’s title
️From a Chyrosran22 video on the Matias TactilePro, I was able to spy from the label on the back that they are now made in China, unfortunately.
Ah, good investigation. I looked on their website and couldn’t find anything (though that might have said something…companies that do domestic manufacturing tend to trumpet the fact).
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I’m less interested in Unicomp/IBM’s novel buckling spring technology (as cool as it is) and more that they’re built well, are corded and not wireless, offer replacement parts on their website, and have a mail-in repair service.
Unicomp’s Model M keyboard was my first choice for a long-lasting keyboard, but now I want to lessen my dependence on American-made companies (especially since Unicomp is based in Kentucky) and wanted to see if any alternatives existed. I’ve heard good things about Cherry, but I don’t fully understand their business model or how to order their products.
I got the “unicomp model M” from KeyboardCo circa 2019 and it was a huge piece of shit, least reliable thing I ever used, apart from the buckling spring switches which felt great it was just the cheapest piece of junk and it worked for like 2 months before breaking. Avoid them.
My longest lasting mechanical keyboard was the Vortex Cypher 65% with Cherry MX Clear switches. Lasted several years, not even an old school Ducky usually did.
Right now I’m using a Ducky One 3 Daybreak SF 65% with Cherry MX Blue switches and it’s holding along fine. I also bought a random keyboard on AliExpress for like $50 and was really shocked with the good quality. It was a Yunzii X71 68% with some mystery “Crystal switch”, I only got it because it looked neat, I didn’t even know it was mechanical.
