Review: Realforce RC1

I was exploring around in Yodobashi Camera, as one does, and the Realforce keyboards section caught my eye. This one in particular stood out, with its unusual (to me) layout.

Initial Thoughts

I'm a big fan of topre switches. If you're not familar with them, it's a good idea to find a demo model first. They're produced by the Topre Corporation in Japan, and people tend to love or hate 'em. They also tend to be fairly expensive.

I normally use blank keycaps, but I love the aesthetic of Hiragana characters alongside the roman alphabet in these pleasing gray tones.

Layout

So far, I've found it a bit difficult to adjust to the layout of this keyboard, at least on the right side. Since I frequently use the Super key to navigate with i3/sway/Niri, it's nice to not have to curl in my thumbs as much. However, overriding my mucle memory with the alternate placement of \, and the further distance of Enter, Backspace, and Right Shift is providing more difficult than I'd expected.

I felt I had to move my hand a bit far in order to hit Right Shift and Backspace, so I remapped the Yen key (which has | ¥ _ on it) to be another Backspace, and the Ro key (which has - \ ろ on it) to be another Right Shift. My goal was just to get productive on the keyboard, so I'll likely find other uses for the extra keys soon. I'm thinking the actual Right Shift key could become the Hangul key, used to toggle between the roman alphabet and Hangul glyphs on a Korean keyboard.

{
    # `keyd` layout
    realforceC1H = {
        ids = ["0853:031a"];
        settings = {
            main = {
                capslock = "layer(control)";
                leftcontrol = "capslock";
                muhenkan = "layer(meta)";
                henkan = "layer(meta)";
                katakanahiragana = "layer(alt)";
                leftalt = "layer(alt)";
                yen = "backspace";
                ro = "layer(shift)";
            };
        };
    };
}

Info

This is the 45g variant. The 30g variant felt very mushy.

I purchased this for JPY ¥35,860 (USD $243.20), at Yodobashi Camera Akiba in Akihabara, Tokyo, on 2025-10-03.