finally got my hands on the full sized Ti2...matte black keys?
 

I own a polar and have been thinking of trading it in for a full sized TI2 but when I tried one today at Sam Ash I found the black keys had an unpleasant matte finish.

they're slightly grainy to the touch and not smooth like the white keys.

is this how they are or was this just a quark of the demo unit?

That is the same Fatar keyboard I had in my Kawai K5000s. I loved the matte finish keys. The idea was to make it similar to the sharps on a real piano keyboard. It was the first thing I noticed different between that and the TI2 Polar which I bought. I wanted the smaller keyboard, so I went with the Polar. That keybed is the best synth keyboard ever made, IMHO.

-dj