As someone working in an academic institution, I found myself recommending the Das Keyboard 4 Professional to some of my colleagues; at ~$130, it is a very good buy if you are looking for a high quality keyboard with dedicated media buttons and three years of warranty. However, this is but a small subset of the customer base looking to get their first mechanical keyboard, and at $165-170, things are a lot different.

The keyboard was introduced in 2014, and the market has changed a lot since, with a lot of options at varying price points to choose from. Some sub-$100 keyboards come with metal plates and dedicated media buttons, and others in the same price range come with metal plates and better keycaps. However, they do not have a metal top panel as well, or do everything better. So the real competition comes from the other professional keyboard brands - Leopold, Filco, Ducky, or Topre. I will even throw Cooler Master in here. Prices here are all over the place with some costing less and others costing a lot more than the Das Keyboard 4 Professional. However, there is no denying that if you are willing to give up some of the things, you can get a keyboard with 95% of the same features at ~75-80% of the cost.

But if you are not willing to make any changes from the feature set the Das Keyboard 4 Professional offers then, well, your choice is simple - purchase it. You get a keyboard with an overbuilt exterior and interior and excellent multimedia functionality, and good customer support backing it as I found out going through as a regular customer to see how the company handles things. I just do not feel the product holds the same place in the market as it did in 2014, and it needs an update to keep up - backlighting would help, but more so would be the use of PBT keycaps and doubleshot legends if you do not want to pursue backlighting. Sure, there are other SKUs from Das Keyboard for more budget-oriented customers, but the flagship series needs an update to remain so. As it is now, I do recommend those with the option to get the 20% student discount to strongly consider it, but others should weigh all their options carefully.