This is my first mechanical keyboard and I primarily use it as a replacement keyboard for my Thinkpad T480 which I use as part of my workstation. I also have a Thinkpad X230 which will be my primary comparison as the X230 has a phenomenal stock keyboard. It has great space and feedback. I find errors have probably gone down. Good clickity clackity. I have the silent red switches, and it's still louder than my X230, but whatever. I'm not bringing it to the library. Price is decent. I understand this is budget, but this is my max budget for a keyboard. Also, number pad is one of those things that you know if you need it, and if you do, it's invaluable.

Negatives:
No variable leg lengths. Just legs down and legs up. I find it could be taller often, but what are you gonna do.
Also, shipping time took months. I understand supply is short, but I probably wouldn't order this in the future if I'd understand that the delivery date could be 8 months out. I'm glad I did and just forgot about it, but I wouldn't have done it informed.

Love this keyboard. I spec'd mine with the Cherry MX Blacks and while they are a bit heavy, this keyboard is very high quality. There's blue LEDs for each LOCK button which is helpful and bright yet not distracting. A very classic looking keyboard yet looks amazing.

Very very nice keyboard, never had a keyboard with a layout like this but I've really grown attached to it. Feels amazing to type on and the color is scheme is perfect.

Would recommend

This keyboard is awesome. That is all. No wait! Brown switches. Soooo good!

96 keyboard layout is surprisingly few compared to other keyboard layout so it is great to see Leopold in this space.

The Leopold FC980M is one of the best built 96% keyboards in the market today. It%u2019s a no none sense keyboard that is simple but well built. No RGB, no fancy Bluetooth. The typing feels solid and the feel of the keys high quality.

Recently Leopold MX boards upgraded its keycaps and now has some of the nicest on the market. From what I gather online, some folks even buy Leopold boards just to harvest the keycaps. Pretty nuts but Considering the crazy high prices of some high end keycap sets, I can see why. You don't see double shot PBT caps at this level of quality everyday, let alone on a 120 usd prebuilt board.

Best mechanical keyboard you can buy at this price point, bar none

Very happy with my Leopold FC980M. The condensed numpad design is very unique and great for quick numpad entries. Really solid design and build. One great feature not mentioned in overview is a DIP switch on the back for making some common key mapping swaps (CAPS to CTRL, etc) plus extra caps to fit the remappings.I swap CTRL and CAPS LOCK so that is perfect. I went with the silent reds and am very satisfied (i like the feel of mechanical keys but can't handle loud clickity clacks). I'd say my WPM are slightly slower since switching from a low-profile mac keyboard but i'm sure i'll get used to it.

Great product. Sturdy build, quality caps, and nice switches (clears).

So I wanted to see what all the fuss was about with mechanical keyboards so I jumped in.
This is my first one and I must say, from when I first started typing it's been a pleasure.

The colour layout reminds my of my old Amiga 500 which is always a good thing.
Solid / no fuss board. Yes, they are on the pricey side, but you pay for quality I guess.

Recommended.
Richie

Very happy with this keyboard. It arrived earlier that expected and the build quality had held up to the what other reviews have stated. I was happily surprised that when switching the caps lock and control keys using the dip switches that the caps lock led recognized this. One very minor gripe is that my muscle memory is not yet used to the delete key being above the num lock key. Perhaps in future iterations they will include another dip switch for this. I purchased my keyboard with the silent red switches, as I work in an office, and didn't want to annoy my coworkers when hammering off an email and they are indeed quite a bit more quiet that my old membrane keyboard.