I'm not going to mechanical keyboard conferences, lubing my key switches and I had no idea what a sound dampening o-ring was until I read the parent comment.
I haven't gotten super into keyboards because I haven't been negatively effected enough for me to go down that rabbit hole of finding something top tier that covers everything I want to do in a better way with 0 compromises. For example, typing into a terminal with 50ms of input delay is a horrendous experience so that lead me down a path of researching, finding and writing about monitors and terminals with extremely low latency which I think is safe to say is enthusiast level.
The same goes for audio equipment. I have a 3,000+ post comparing a few headphones, going as far as analyzing frequency ranges to help find the most neutral headphones so I can hear back my voice accurately while recording courses.
And for mice, back in the day when I played games more seriously I would put custom teflon pads on the bottom of the mouse to make it glide more smoothly and consistently.
But with keyboards. I am satisfied with a fairly low noise, tactile feeling keyboard that doesn't skip or double press keys so I can chug along at ~80 WPM as a non-home row typist. I'm sure there's better, but the pain just isn't there to go deeper down the hole.
I'm not even getting into mechanical/non-mechanical, ergonomic (in all the flavors) and typical staggered layout. That little keytravel leads to either 1) over-bottoming out, which over time is bad for your joints or 2) tons of missed keypresses.
Also even better than those o-rings (which reduce keytravel) there are switches with built in dampeners in the sliders (one expensive example https://zealpc.net/products/zilents but really https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0490/7329/products/Zilent_... you can see the little sliver of white at the top and bottom of the slider thats a little 'rubber' bumper that dampens the bottom-out and snap back ('top-out') sound.)
I didn't really fall down the hole until about 10 years into my career when I had my first brush with RSI, but that landed me into a Kinesis Advantage which took awhile to get up to speed on, but now I don't see myself going back for longer sessions.
And have seen it in a lot of fields and I've actually been culpable of it:
* competitive sailing: I've done quite a bit of dinghy sailing and regattas in my youth (Optimist, Laser, 420), I was always a bit frustrated because as I was not very good, I never had the best boat allocated. But in truth, as long as your dinghy is somewhat water tight and your set of sails are not blowing-up when a strong wind occurs, you are set, at least for a regional and even national level (one of my trainers actually won a national championship on a garbage dinghy that was laying around abandon in a parking lot).
* music (guitar): I've spent countless hours on forums arguing about guitars, amps, effect pedals and things like that. Today I own a Fender Telecaster (Made in Japan, not a US one), a Les Paul Classic, two tubes amps (one I've built, the other I've repaired). All that is far in excess of my actual skills. And I've seen far worst than me, I've literally guitarists barely able to play (like not being able to play 4 cords in rhythm) with 5000$ guitars and 3000$ amps.
* photography, I've seen people with 5000/6000$ (and more) worth of hardware (like Canon 7D or 5D + 2.8 80-200 IS USM + a few other lenses) not being able to frame correctly a picture. And personally, I'm far from good but I do own a second hand 5D (mark I) and a 17-40 L, and the best set of picture I've ever taken was with an old analog AE-1 with a 1.8 50mm lens that cost me 80 bucks during concert.
* mechanical keyboard: I do own a few mechanical keyboards despite the fact I'm barely able to type without looking at my keys (and I've tried to learn several times to type correctly without success using klavaro), and having a very slow word per minutes. I spend more time reading and thinking than typing so in the end, it doesn't matter that much.
Clearly, I'm not the worst at it, but I'm definitely culpable. That being said, having a nice and expensive rig do provide for more pleasure in a lot of cases (ex: between a 150$ and 1500$ you do feel a difference, the touch is not the same, the wood vibration are not same, etc), and it's completely OK to allow yourself these small pleasures.
However, acknowledging these small pleasures as such is important, a cheap guitar is fine, a cheap camera is fine, a cheap keyboard is fine, etc, no need to be pedantic about it. In the end, it rarely matters that much.
PS: cheap mechanical keyboards are actually kind of horrible, I've a 30/40$ one with MX browns copies, the thing is really annoying with key presses resulting in two or three letters being typed, shift+char not always working properly or sometimes a key press resulting in nothing.
2) the mechanical keyboards is only one item, a gaming rig or a good laptop could cost you 1 or 2 thousands dollars if not more. It's just that mechanical keyboards is where I see far more behavior in the line "these plebs who don't know better". And in term of relative cost, first time I heard 150$ for a keyboard, I was a bit puzzled, in my mind, a keyboard cost between 5 and 15$, so at least 10 times less.
Since then there has been a relentless 30+ year focus on cost cutting, and the elaborate engineering and expensive production that went into 1970s keyboards is no longer economically viable.
> see far more behavior in the line "these plebs who don't know better".
Personally I find that typing on a nice keyboard (which might be something picked up for $15 on ebay) makes a significant difference in typing speed, accuracy, and comfort.
Everyone I have ever met who was excited about keyboards (from casual users of split ergonomic keyboards or old keyboards salvaged from their own obsolete 80s computers up through hard-core DIYers with dozens of hand-soldered prototypes and hard-core collectors with hundreds of keyboards filling up their houses) was enthusiastic and friendly, excited to share their ideas and experiences.
People who spend their whole career typing and don’t know that they could find a better experience are missing out, and might enjoy trying some alternatives.
YMMV.
If you want to spend some time deciding, we should go over what kind of keyswitch and what kind of layout you want. This [1] is a pretty good overview of the different kinds of layouts (60%, tenkeyless, fullsize) and linear vs tactile switches. You can listen to sound tests for any switch on youtube to get a better idea for how quiet it'll be. I personally use a Poker 2 with brown switches for 90% programming/10% CS:GO, and I love it.
[1] https://kotaku.com/how-to-pick-the-right-mechanical-keyboard...
Size aside do the tenkeyless have any other advantage?
If you want to cheaply try out mechanical keyboarding, I'd recommend the brand Redragon on Amazon. They've got a few options and they're in the $25-$50 range. I've had my K552 for almost two years now and I don't have any complaints. I program and game on it daily.
And now 6+ hours and hundreds of comments later I went through the comments and I still haven't seen anyone post a single mechanical keyboard that matches my requirements at any price point. It's just dozens of posts about needing to be a keyboard surgeon and assembling a selection of carefully picked pieces without any end to end guides.
For the most part I just want to plug it in, have it feel good and write code.
Your $150 recommendation from below almost fits the bill but it looks like a super condensed keyboard with a non-standard layout that's missing a bunch of extra keys, and I can't find any concrete proof of what it sounds like on video. It also has a lower average star review than the Amazon Basics keyboard (but I wouldn't put much weight into that).
http://www.realforce.co.jp/en/products/R2SA-US4-IV/index.htm...
But ignoring price, what improvements will I see vs my existing keyboard? At a non-competitive level, the human level is likely dictating how many WPM I can type. At 80 WPM, upgrading to this keyboard won't turn me into a 120 WPM typist. Maybe I'll gain a few WPM but that's not the bottleneck for delivering code on time.
Also how is your recommended keyboard different than a run of a mill $50 mechanical keyboard that I've tried in the past?
You said:
> 6+ hours and hundreds of comments later I went through the comments and I still haven't seen anyone post a single mechanical keyboard that matches my requirements at any price point.
I was just offering one keyboard which does as far as I can tell satisfy all of your requirements. (The previous $250 version of this keyboard is about the same as this $350 one; the differences aren’t IMO worth the difference in price. You could probably find a used one for $150, if not less.)
Here are some of the features that make the Topre board nicer than your Amazon board:
- The actuation point is about halfway through the stroke instead of at the very bottom, meaning you don’t need to mash the key all the way down to get it to reliably actuate. Once you get used to this you can type with much lighter and springier finger movements, and (a) dramatically reduce the amount of shock on your finger joints, reducing both fatigue and long-term damage, while (b) improving your typing speed.
- Having taller keycaps on the further-away rows of keys compared to the home row makes them easier to reach by extending the distal joints of the fingers instead of moving the hand. It is in my opinion inexcusable for keyboards not intended for laptops to be flat across the top. Additionally, the keycaps have a curved top shape which helps the fingers find them.
- The switches have what many people find to be a more pleasant tactile response (this is subjective, and I prefer other keyboards, but those do not satisfy your other criteria). I would expect the 45g Topre keys to need less force than the Amazon board, but I haven’t ever seen measurements of that one. (Some people prefer heavier switches; Topre also makes a 55g version. Some people prefer very light switches; Topre also makes a 30g version.)
- In particular they have a nice bit of bounce on the upstroke which will help your finger to release the key just by relaxing the flexors instead of needing to fire your finger extensors. This will (a) reduce fatigue, and (b) improve speed and accuracy.
- The Topre keyboard is likely more uniform from key to key. Most <$20 rubber dome boards have poor quality control. (I have not tried the Amazon one.) It should also retain its key feel better over time.
- I would expect the Topre “silent” board to be quieter than the Amazon board, but I haven’t spent much time with either one, so you’d have to test that yourself. Personally I like much louder keyboards.
- The Topre keyboard is much more robust; the switches use capacitive sensing to tell when the spring has been depressed, instead of relying on an electrical contact, so they should not wear out even after tens of millions of keypresses.
- The Topre keyboard has larger rubber pads on the bottom, probably made from a nicer material. It should slip less than the Amazon board (being heavier also helps with this). It also has nice sturdy feet if you want to adjust the tilt.
- The switches are very stable and smooth, with tighter tolerances. The keyboard is much more rigid and solid feeling. Overall it feels like a well engineered product instead of a flimsy toy. Many people find joy in using well made long lasting tools, but YMMV.
- The keycaps are made of a sturdier type of plastic, and use dye sublimation printing. The letters will never wear off, and even the surface texture should remain through decades of serious typing.
- The electrical components inside the keyboard are more expensive and less likely to fail. You’d have to test latency, etc. for yourself, I haven’t extensively evaluated either of these keyboards.
- The keyboard supports full n-key rollover (this is unlikely to matter for routine typing).
> how is your recommended keyboard different than a run of a mill $50 mechanical keyboard
The switches feel substantially different. The keycaps are made from a different type of plastic. The case is sturdier. The switching mechanism is more reliable.
But keyboard preferences are subjective. Personally I like many $50 keyboards better than this $350 one. I was just looking to satisfy your criteria.
When it comes to the life span of the keyboard, how easy are they to clean?
With this Amazon one, I seriously spend about 30 seconds every 2 weeks wiping it down with a small towel and it's as good as new in terms of cleanliness.
I'm not a neat freak but I do know that build up of whatever can definitely play a role in how the keyboard feels over time and full size keys tend to collect a lot more debris over time.
Also if you don't mind, what would be 2-3 recommendations in the $50 range where quietness and overall "this feels great to type on" are the biggest goals?
If a keyboard sits on a very dusty garage shelf for 20 years with no cover, sometimes dust works its way inside the switches; cleaning that out is a lot more complicated, requiring desoldering and disassembling all of the switches. Don’t do this to your keyboard, and watch out for the condition of decades-old used keyboards.
* * *
Personally I like very loud clicky keyboards, like the IBM model F or anything with clicky Alps SKCM or SKCP switches (from the 1980s–early 90s).
If you can find one in good condition and don’t mind an adapter, I quite like the Apple Extended Keyboard II from ~1990 which is reasonably quiet (likely louder than the Amazon board; if you want to further reduce the sound you could open up the case and fill the empty spaces inside with some kind of padding – I know people who have successfully damped sound with sheets of drawer liner or felt).
Tactile Cherry MX switches (or any of the many MX clones) with added o-rings or other padding are reasonably quiet. I’m not really the person to ask though. Again, filling empty spaces inside the case can do a lot to damp the sound.
1. https://zealpc.net/products/zilents
2. https://kbdfans.com/products/pre-orderaliaz-silent-switch-ta...
(unaffiliated with either of these stores)