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Anyone here own a fancy keyboard?

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Clear switches are basically stiffer browns.

Basically, but fair enough. Sadly they are also seemingly the most rare switch by far and never seem to be available on widely produced boards.

I would love to have one of these, http://codekeyboards.com/ , with clears. Sadly it's too rich for my blood, and after the initial manufacturing run I don't think they have ever gotten enough to do another run of clears.

Though according to the site there it seems like they might be doing a new run soon, man it sucks being poor.  :violin:

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Conspicuous consumption is the point.

I think making the single object I probably use the most in my day-to-day life as pleasant to use as I can is not really a waste.

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When I built my desktop, I picked up the cheapest keyboard they had at Walmart, a Logitech K120. Very straightforward, no frills. Used it for a long time. Never really had any problems, but then I started reading /r/mechanicalkeyboards, and it got me thinking. I love typing. I love hitting keys with my fingers. The idea of a more durable and satisfying keyboard was very, very attractive. But it was hard to justify spending $80+ on the keyboards people recommended. Finally, there was a sale on QuickFire Pros, aka the gateway drug to mechanical keyboards. Cherry MX Brown switches. $50. So I pulled the trigger. It came in the mail. I used it for a couple days. And... I much prefer my K120. No hard feelings to the mech crowd, but I guess I just like my rubber domes. They feel better to me, and I make fewer mistakes with them. My K120 is going on two years now without a single problem.

 

Related: the idea of getting a keyboard without a numpad, or without arrow keys, terrifies me in ways I can't describe.

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Yeah, I opted for a full-size keyboard. I think rubber domes are just fine and freely admit this was an absolutely frivolous purchase, but it's really pleasant to me to just type on this thing. There's something about the way the keys bottom out to me that just feels better than the soft thud on a membrane board. I don't buy into this keyboard making me a better typist, but I do expect I'll enjoy typing more.

 

Also, there's something about the sounds the keystrokes make that is just music to my ears. I know it's dumb as hell, but I'm buying into it, damn it.

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Yeah, mine has red switches and I found I began to make many more mistakes. Not great when I bought it to make typing my thesis a bit more comfortable.

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I think the key rollover problem doesn't get enough attention. Especially with WASD activity rollover is a big issue.

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When I built my desktop, I picked up the cheapest keyboard they had at Walmart, a Logitech K120. Very straightforward, no frills. Used it for a long time. Never really had any problems, but then I started reading /r/mechanicalkeyboards, and it got me thinking. I love typing. I love hitting keys with my fingers. The idea of a more durable and satisfying keyboard was very, very attractive. But it was hard to justify spending $80+ on the keyboards people recommended. Finally, there was a sale on QuickFire Pros, aka the gateway drug to mechanical keyboards. Cherry MX Brown switches. $50. So I pulled the trigger. It came in the mail. I used it for a couple days. And... I much prefer my K120. No hard feelings to the mech crowd, but I guess I just like my rubber domes. They feel better to me, and I make fewer mistakes with them. My K120 is going on two years now without a single problem.

 

Related: the idea of getting a keyboard without a numpad, or without arrow keys, terrifies me in ways I can't describe.

 

Yeah, this is why I wanted to emphasise the importance of trying keyboards out before buying them. It's very easy to look at these fancy marketing pages of elite keyboards (Which actually are just plain old black keyboards but they look so amazing in the photos, right?) and buy into it providing an exquisite typing experience that'll transform the way you work. After all, who can put a price on something you use every day?

 

Well, I can. I sit on my chair every day but I'm not going to go out and buy a £5000 amaze-o-paedic. I use my monitor every day but I think I'll skip the £1000 HDMI cable. The 'you use it a lot so spend extraordinary amounts on it' notion is foolish. What really matters is the gains it'll bring to you, and in my experience this doesn't necessarily correlate with price when it comes to keyboards. If you're someone who simply prefers a softer, shallower typing feel then a mechanical keyboard isn't really what you want. But the sad thing is that a lot of people discard the idea of comfort and don't even try the thing out before throwing £100+ at it. I've done it myself and been deeply disappointed.

 

And it doesn't make you a better or worse typist using certain keyboard mechanisms, because I've been consistently hitting 120 WPM for the past 10 years on keyboards ranging from £5 to £150. The key mechanism makes no difference to typing performance once you get used to it. The real divisor is how comfortable the typing feels to you, and for me that doesn't come from using loud, mechanical keyboards. I honestly see some of these ultra-expensive keyboards as a complete scam, appealing to people's emotions in a very successful way to get them to buy keyboards that should really be valued at a fraction of the actual cost.

 

 

I think the key rollover problem doesn't get enough attention. Especially with WASD activity rollover is a big issue.

 

It's definitely a primary consideration if you're a PC gamer. I found Team Fortress 2 borderline unplayable on one keyboard because it wouldn't let me move around diagonally while crouching at the same time. Any 'gamer' keyboard caters for this, fortunately.

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Yeah, this is why I wanted to emphasise the importance of trying keyboards out before buying them. It's very easy to look at these fancy marketing pages of elite keyboards (Which actually are just plain old black keyboards but they look so amazing in the photos, right?) and buy into it providing an exquisite typing experience that'll transform the way you work. After all, who can put a price on something you use every day?

 

I know you're saying this with sarcasm, but there is a kernel of truth to it. I admit that I'm no expert of personal finance and I bought my expensive keyboard sight unseen because it's a device I use on a regular basis. That said, it's been nothing but a vast improvement over all membrane keyboards I've used in the past that felt good in the stores but didn't hold up over time. That's not to say that my experience will be universal - in fact, it just points more to the whole experience being a coin flip unless you do have a one-in-a-million chance to trial-run a keyboard in normal usage scenarios. 

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Having no numpad allows me to position my keyboard further to the right (closer to my mouse), and I have a more ergonomic work and gaming environment. Maybe that is just me though. A colleague of mine has the happy hacker keyboard and it is very nice. 

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I honestly see some of these ultra-expensive keyboards as a complete scam, appealing to people's emotions in a very successful way to get them to buy keyboards that should really be valued at a fraction of the actual cost.

That's any luxury product, some people will feel good about a more expensive thing simply because how the price changes how they perceive it. I don't know if it's fair to call them a complete scam though. Personally I like having something that feels sturdy and well built, and you don't get a metal frame and decent keycaps with your $15 rubber dome keyboard. I can type fine on those, but they feel like plastic junk. 'Complete scam' to me is Apple charging $100 for a laptop power cable.

 

Also, I looked for a plain black keyboard for quite a long time. Most keyboards aren't plain, they have a ton of pointless buttons.

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That's any luxury product, some people will feel good about a more expensive thing simply because how the price changes how they perceive it. I don't know if it's fair to call them a complete scam though. Personally I like having something that feels sturdy and well built, and you don't get a metal frame and decent keycaps with your $15 rubber dome keyboard. I can type fine on those, but they feel like plastic junk. 'Complete scam' to me is Apple charging $100 for a laptop power cable.

 

Also, I looked for a plain black keyboard for quite a long time. Most keyboards aren't plain, they have a ton of pointless buttons.

 

Some of them are complete scams though, which is what he said. The Razer mechanical keyboards are very expensive, yet still made of plastic. Same deal with many of the "gamer" mechanical keyboards. 

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http://codekeyboards.com/

 

(it's quite expensive though)

 

I wish companies that make these expensive artisanal keyboards would at least offer mac keycaps. Even if they just offered them in a plastic bag for $5 so you could swap them yourself.

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it's WASD Keyboards, make your own keycaps:

Text: http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/printed-keycap-singles/custom-text-cherry-mx-keycaps.html

Graphi: http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/printed-keycap-singles/custom-art-cherry-mx-keycaps.html

 

 

edit: these WASD keyboards custom keycaps should work for any Cherry MX based keyboard

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After reading about people who love their mechanical keyboard for a while I found a brand new Digital Equipment Corporation keyboard at Goodwill.  I really like it, but can't find the specifics of what's inside.  It feels great, is pretty clicky, and the model is from 1998.  Pretty good for four bucks.  :tup:

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If you pull off one of the keycaps, it should be pretty easy to decipher what kind of switches it's using. For instance, while almost all of the Cherry switches look identical from a top-down perspective, they're color-coded for easy identification.

 

I took the board to work today to try it with Photoshop. I like this thing and that small twinge of remorse as I was swiping my VISA card as washed away. I definitely wouldn't argue that everyone needs a mechanical keyboard, but I think that it will suit my purposes wonderfully.

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Can someone explain the cult of Ducky? It seems like there are comparable products at significantly lower prices--is it a build quality thing of is it just cool to own some obscure manufacturer's HID? They definitely look like nice, well-designed keyboards that aren't front-loaded with a bunch of gimmickry but man, that price.

 

 

I played around on some browns at Fry's last weekend while shopping for a webcam. It certainly is a subtler response than the blues, but I find that I tend to bottom out the keys so feeling the actuation isn't modifying my typing technique whatsoever. I would be interested to try blacks out, but buying a small switch board or hammering out a couple sentences in an electronics store doesn't translate to actually using the thing. For instance, the blue board I'm typing on at the moment was absolutely loathsome to use with Photoshop; it made keyboard shorts feel...wrong. I know that's not very eloquent, but it's about as well as I can describe it.

In my case it was just the one that fit my preferences (Cherry MX Brown switches with decently textured keycaps and a standard layout without any shiny/glossy plastic) when I was looking for one a few years back...there are a lot more options now (and the Ducky I bought would probably cost more now).  elite keyboards or whatever had stopped carrying Filcos but they didn't have the Leopold keyboards in, Corsair wasn't making a keyboard with brown switches in it yet.  Shortly after I bought it everyone started making mechanical keyboards with every switch imaginable it seems...so my timing sucked.  Were I to buy today I'd probably go with a Cooler Master or a Corsair keyboard at a signicantly lower cost than what I paid (I think I paid around 120 bucks)...or with a WASD keyboard if I wanted something a little more custom.

 

I will say that the combination of PBT plastic keycaps for the letters and ABS on the space bar makes for an interesting cacophony of noise when the keys bottom out against the metal backboard as I type.

 

Edit: I would add that I spend stupid money on stuff sometimes...so the keyboard didn't really bother me...I just bought a 1TB SSD and paid a little under 50 bucks for a used CD...so I'm not exactly a model of sane spending on anything (I also just ordered a 128GB micro SD card):

 

31t5qybm.jpg

 

2nd Edit:  I also have a FANCY JOYSTICK!!!

 

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And a different kind of fancy joystick as well:

9NxldfGm.jpg

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Well, I can. I sit on my chair every day but I'm not going to go out and buy a £5000 amaze-o-paedic

As someone who worked in the business furniture industry for almost 4 years, I can tell you that good ergonomics are no joke. The difference between a $999 list price ergonomically correct desk chair and a $200 Typo-Fasto mechanical keyboard is that one of them actually has a set of guidelines and standards to which they must adhere. I'm not saying you SHOULD spend a thousand dollars on a chair, but rather there are construction and quality standards that make that grand justifiable in a quantifiable sense to spend (or that companies can get away with charging $1000 for it, depending on your cynicism).

 

With keyboards it seems to all come down to feel one way or another, and there's nothing that seems to actually justify the >$100 price points to me.

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I think that if you were to buy a keyboard today, you'd still end up spending close to that much to get a board with brown switches. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Corsair only offers the K70 in browns, and it retails for $130 (and seems to be unavailable nearly everywhere). The Cooler Master boards are well-built and tend to not feature a bunch of useless features, but the ergonomics of boards are questionable at best and I think you're spending at least $100 to get a full-size device. I personally cannot live without the tenkey and don't really like the consolidated weirdness of the Quickfire TK.

 

And I'll admit to being envious of the size of your SSD. I've got the 128GB 840 Evo and I love it, I just wish it had a little more room. I've been thinking about buying a second SSD and using it solely for games.

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After reading about people who love their mechanical keyboard for a while I found a brand new Digital Equipment Corporation keyboard at Goodwill.  I really like it, but can't find the specifics of what's inside.  It feels great, is pretty clicky, and the model is from 1998.  Pretty good for four bucks.  :tup:

That's how I picked up my Model M as well. Been with me for a decade now :)

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Well, I can. I sit on my chair every day but I'm not going to go out and buy a £5000 amaze-o-paedic. I use my monitor every day but I think I'll skip the £1000 HDMI cable.

Equating these two seems foolish to me btw. Sitting ergonomics are no joke.

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Oh, I appreciate the value of good ergonomics. Not that I've ever had the capital to buy a truly great chair, but if I did I would. I should have exaggerated the number further to £10,000 or more — the point I was making is that just because you use something a lot doesn't mean that you should venture far beyond the boundary of diminishing returns without a really good reason. The HDMI cable was a more obvious (and sadly real) example. But this is in a world where spending has to be balanced with sanity (and rent), which isn't necessarily a big concern for some lucky people.

 

At work I actually just get one of the solid visitor chairs because I find them more comfortable and conducive to good upright posture than the mediocre wheel chairs that pervade most businesses I've seen. ;(

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Oh, I appreciate the value of good ergonomics. Not that I've ever had the capital to buy a truly great chair, but if I did I would. I should have exaggerated the number further to £10,000 or more — the point I was making is that just because you use something a lot doesn't mean that you should venture far beyond the boundary of diminishing returns without a really good reason. The HDMI cable was a more obvious (and sadly real) example. But this is in a world where spending has to be balanced with sanity (and rent), which isn't necessarily a big concern for some lucky people.

 

At work I actually just get one of the solid visitor chairs because I find them more comfortable and conducive to good upright posture than the mediocre wheel chairs that pervade most businesses I've seen. ;(

I'm kind of picky about input for games...I keep a ruler on my desk and the first thing I do with any FPS game is adjust my sensitivity so that it takes about 4 inches to do a 360 degree turn with the mouse (and test it at various speeds to ensure there isn't any acceleration).  I have a variety of controllers for old games...SNES and Super Famicom controllers, NES controllers, arcade sticks, etc.  I like having what feels to me to be the right controller for the right game (which is more a preference thing, but I have specific preferences).  I used to really like my old Mitsumi rubber dome keyboard and I wanted a keyboard that felt at least as good and was consistent and that would feel that way for a long time...I tried a keyboard with MX Blues and didn't quite like it (too heavy, but close to what I wanted)...so I used a stack of nickles to get an approximate idea of the weight to actuate the keys on my old mitsumi...and figured that MX Browns were what I was looking for, so I eventually ended up with what I have now and it feels a little better than my old mitsumi and I really like the way it feels for gaming.  I found that the space bar was a little too sharp and that it hurt my thumb when skiing in Tribes Ascend, so I bought one from WASD keyboards and liked it better (as it didn't hurt my thumb) and then decided I wouldn't mind some more orange keys...so I bought some more and ended up with the orange and black color scheme on my keyboard that matched my US-style arcade stick.  I'm a bit OCD about these things though...I have specific preferences and since gaming is my main hobby its almost become a fun past-time to pursue my ideal gaming setup (based on my preferences).  I've actually tried quite a few keyboards and key-switches over time and I've found that I really like the MX Browns.  My mom actually tried my old MX Blue keyboard and really loved it so I gave it to her and she really likes it (she used to type on an old mechanical type writer so she liked the tactile noisy feel of it).

 

You don't even want to get me started on my preferences regarding monitors:

 

3IX5xAQl.jpg

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