So I took that chance and got the Mchose Ace 68 Air on Takealot. Got the white one. I had my doubts about that price... So, I received the keyboard and it turned out to be the real deal. That said, I heard some people did not get what they had ordered.
The good:
- It is the legitimate keyboard (and updated).
- It has an incredible polling rate and responsiveness.
- For what I paid I think it is the best priced HE.
The bad:
- It did not ship with either the Kailh Magnetic God Switch (?) or the Mount Tai Magnetic Switch. Uhm, yeah... The switches aren't as advertised.
I have that strange idea that its price 'reduction' could be due to the switch change. This keyboard does have two revisions, and there is now also version 2 (newly released).
The original version has the Esports edition, and there is the Ultra Esports edition. I would assume that this is the Esports edition, but I am unsure whether this is true Kailh Magnetic God Switches unless it is custom (or a clone). It is a red HE.
There is a table comparing the two editions on the product page:
MCHOSE Ace 68 Air features magnetic switches with 0.1ms latency, 0.005mm RT accuracy, 8K polling, 128K scan rate, hot-swappable keys, full macro functions, and north-facing RGB in a compact 68% layout.
www.mchose.store
As can be seen, all the promotion covers the Ultra Esports edition. Is it a dealbreaker? The price was low, and eh, it is good.
I tested this keyboard against my Ace 68 GT, and remarkably the Air has better latency, and I did run the GT at 8K. I haven't tested the responsiveness since you need to play an actual game. Then there is the Turbo, and it schits on both the GT and Air when it comes to my real world testing. Just know that both the GT and Turbo are considerbly more expensive than the Air. The only reason to get the GT is to have a HE that comes close to a mechanical in typing, but the Super also does that well.
Currently I am typing this on the Air, and haven't experienced any miss triggers when typing. The keyboard came with the latest update and I know people complained about miss triggering on the spacebar.
All in all. For me this was a sub-R1000 magnetic that behaves the same as any HE in the R1500-R2000 price range. It is also very stable, and stability is an issue with budget HE keyboards. The switches are a non-issue in my opinion, except that the Mount Tai switches are in its own league compared to this. I have typed on an ATK mid-range HE keyboard, and this one beats that hands down. My worst experience with an HE was a Redragon Fizz, and that was terrible.
I see they are already back to being listed above R1000 on Takealot, and the white version is sold out. You can get the Ultra Esports edition at Wootware which has Mount Tai switches, and I think it is priced around R1500 which is not bad. It is also black.
To be honest, I was expecting to be disappointed. I and Takealot don't have the best relationship when it comes to strange deals.
Anyhow, won't be needing a new keyboard until the year 2035.