bastrah

I ordered a custom set a good time ago (months before the existence of this community) and the experience was comparable to yours.
I choose white mbk pbt and the laser engraving was really sharp and looks very good! Shipping was quite fast for me (8 days or something to Germany) but back then VAT was no accounted for during ordering (which I was informed of, no suprises there). So I had to pay VAT after receiving the package. Don’t know how it’s currently being handled though. Simon was also really responsive, so all in all a quite good customer experience.

The Cheapino gets quite some love recently :D Saw a couple posts in the last weeks, really cool! I too built a Cheapino for myself and a friend who wanted to try out these ominous “ergo mech keyboards” 😁

Nice case! Basic but functional, pretty good for a first

Wow, really cool :D I’m wondering why you went with a straight line for the thumb keys instead of going for a curve (which so see with a lot of ergo keyboards). Is there any general benefit or is it just more comfortable for your hands?

That’s a really interesting case design too! Cool to see that you’re taking into account that one might bring it into the office or so and needs a “travel” case as well.

That’s a really cool and funny solution :D

Galaxy Watch 4. I don’t like Samsung but I wanted WearOS 3 so yeah…

Leo from beekeeb offers pre-build split keyboards like this one: https://shop.beekeeb.com/product/pre-soldered-wireless-dao-choc-ble-keyboard/ and it’s within your 350$ range.
It should check all your boxes except a dongle and rgb. Regarding the travel case: He even offers a soft travel pouch in the store.
RGB on a wireless split keyboard needs a pretty big battery to have more battery life than a day or too, so it’s difficult to find both rgb and wireless in a pre built one without raising the costs. Also some LEDs draw constant power without even being on which also adds to this issue.