【IC】S-one -65% Alice by Sicklestudio

Recently, many studios have released some high-quality and affordable products.
However, few studios have introduced a cost-effective product with an Alice layout. I believe this is the moment when our value shines through.

Next, I will introduce our long-awaited first product — S-one.

All along, we have hoped to break through ourselves, so we have many ideas that we want to realize through this Alice. Looking good and being easy to use is the direction we pursue. However, when confirming the layout, we found that we underestimated the diversity of the Alice keyboards. Despite Alice being a relatively niche layout, there are still at least dozens of variants, and the various layouts dazzled us.

At first, we wanted to use the layout of the Spring because we felt that this layout is very symmetrical and comfortable in appearance. However, placing the right shift to the right of the arrow keys would increase the learning curve. This led to intense internal debates, and ultimately, we decided to use the left shift and sink the arrow keys a bit. Although this might slightly increase the cost, we believe that this makes the appearance most coordinated and, at the same time, more user-friendly.

Of course, there are some other changes as well, without going into too much detail. You can see from the pictures that the overall direction of the modifications is for aesthetics and ease of use.

After establishing the layout, we started to focus on the design of the appearance. A simple and compact appearance is the design direction. Therefore, on the front and sides, we emphasize a more coordinated frame proportion to present the keyboard in its authentic beauty. Doing so is not to save costs but to better reflect the surface treatment of the keyboard. We use a 150-grit zircon sand treatment on the surface of the aluminum alloy, followed by anodizing. The surface of the keyboard, after this treatment, is very delicate and smooth.

On the back of the keyboard body, a weight is placed in the middle for decoration, and there are two versions to choose from: anodized and stainless steel.

Anodized


Stainless steel

LOGO

In terms of structure, we have decided to use the widely accepted and relatively stable one - “Gasket”. The kit comes with two types of gasket silicone strips and silicone beans, and players can choose according to their preference.
For more efficient disassembly and assembly, the upper and lower covers of S One will use a ball catch to achieve quick-disassembly.
To ensure the independence of the two main key areas of Alice, we have used a separate PCB

gasket silicone strips and silicone beans

Ball catch parts

separate PCB

E-coating white


Ano-grey


Ano-red


Ano-purple