Unlike Mr Suit, the Angle on the other hand has an elegant touch of a teeny triangle moonstone embedded on its top case. Although honestly, if they put some other stuff like coated aluminum or tinted ceramic, I’d still like it. It isn’t over the top and makes the user facing aesthetic stand out that little bit more. The coating is also that of the signature Matrix Lab’s and the Starry Black that I have is absolutely gorgeous.

The outer weight of the Angle is also different, being positioned unconventionally in the lower half of the case. Both weights are decent but I think the Mr Suit is doing a tiny bit too much while the Angle tries to be too different. It’s like one is trying to outdo the other you know?

With regards to typing feel and acoustics, there are differences between the two too. Internally, the implementation of the gasket mount between the two is different. I very much prefer Mr Suit’s because it’s simpler to install than the Angle which needs you to align and stick gaskets. But the Angle’s leaf spring mounting gives it a much bouncier typing experience. It’s up to one’s typing preference.

Here comes the bad news.

After completing the build process of the Angle, the board is noticably pingy. Some keys when typed on hard enough, like the Backspace, will emit a pinging sound. Now ping is bad. Nonetheless, there are mods to get rid of this ping, like the foam they provided. However, in my eyes, mods should only be used to tune the acoustics to your liking.

Do you like less reverb? Try tape mod. Do you want a deeper sound? Try another switch. There’s a difference between a mod to tune sound and a mod that is absolutely necessary and forced on you. For instance, the Keychron needing force break mod to remove ping is bad. But that keyboard is way less than half the price of this Angle, fully built too. The Angle needing foam to remove ping is objectively bad. And adding foam gives it a foamy sound signature, which may not be what you are looking for. And this brings me to the other use of mods, which unfortunately, are needed to mask any flaws that the board has.

The keyboard sounds very muted and thin in its “stock” state, where no foams were used, no tape mods, no nothing. I first tried Alpacas on the Angle and although the pitch of the switch was retained, the amplitude was lacking in the alphas compared to the periphery. I then tried Everglide Peacocks, which were long pole linears with full PBT housings and stem. Long poles have a quicker bottom out so typically more force goes into the downstroke making it louder and the dense PBT housing will surely amplify that - or so I thought. The keyboard still sounded muted. It was only after I added in the plate foams like the designers recommend, does it sound fuller. 

The conclusion that I came to was that these flex cuts horribly attenuate the vibrations from each keystroke. So in the regions where there are no flex cuts, the attenuation is less significant. My opinion is that not every keyboard needs flex cuts. Even worse, the Angle came with a thinner PCB, which further attenuates the acoustics. If there’s a definite need to fill up the whole board with foam just to make it sound decent, the amount of flex is going to be reduced anyway, so why not just stick with normal plates or at least a normal thickness PCB?

The combat these, I used an easy fix that cost me a couple of cents or pennies. And that is to get rid of all the flex cuts using a ton of tape. No foams are needed so no foamy signature sounds, no ping, and I find that most importantly, the keyboard was much louder and livelier than before.

All in all, I think the design of the Angle is great but the acoustics left me feeling a little empty. I thought that it should have sounded great, like how it looks. Mods are definitely recommended but I wished I didn’t need any.