QUOTE(marq @ Aug 16 2012, 09:03 PM)
can you guys who own filcos/leopolds give some feedback or comparison about the keyboards? looking to get a standard 104 with red/black switch.
currently own a keycool 104 with brown switch. gonna give it to my brother

I owned a Filco(blue switch), a steelseries(black switch) and now I m using a Leopold(red switch).
the Filco has a overall premium keyboard feel to it,
steelseries overall build quality surpasses the others,
and the Leopold has the lowest price tag among these keyboards.
I sell off the steelseries and the filco, because I think the red switch suit me best,
but the Leopold's spacebar are starting to annoying me.
if you are not going to change the keycaps for your keyboard often and play with various keycaps,
Leopold is definitely your choice, if you are going to buy plenty of keycaps(like me)
and change them from time to time, then for Steelseries and Leopold you might need to think twice
especially the Steelseries, its BIGASS enter key are very difficult to find replacements...
For Leopold, its spacebar...
the hole positioned on the spacebar only fit for Leopold and Keycool keycaps.
most of the time it is not a problem,
since the spacebar are blank, and it's length are same with the standard spacebar,
so when you replace the whole keycaps set that is the same color,
and not changing the spacebar, the keycaps set still look OK...
But when you replace your whole keycaps set to an entire different color keysets,
then the spacebar that different color really look bad on it.