full size mechanical keyboards?

M

Manaknight

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jun 6, 2005
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heya,

I posted looking for advice on keyboards a while back. It was time to make the switch from the g15 before it gave out on me. I finally settled on a switch and the like, and have started trying various keyboards. However now i'm having an issue of finding the "right" keyboard for me.

I have settled on cherry red switches as these things feel amazing, blacks could also probably do, but I just really love the feel of the reds for gaming and typing.

So far i've tried a rosewill mechanical, which was alright but felt a little cramped and I ended up being unable to do without the backlighting.

I've tried the razer black widow ultimate, which made me realize I don't like mx blues. On top of that i've constantly had issues with every razer product i've owned aside from the deathadder.

I'm currently typing from the corsair k90. It's the best so far, but the dealbreaker i'm finding is again the keyboard feels cramped and I find myself missing keys and in general having to put my hands in uncomfortable positions to type. It is the best of the 3 however.

the short of it is I'm trying to find a keyboard that will work, do not have any tech stores nearby to sample, so it a alot of return shipping and/or fighting with newegg over restocking, so I'd like hopefully settle on one soon.

Anyone have any suggestions to a full size well spaced keyboards (think the g15/g510/g19 general spacing) that are also backlit and would preferably have cherry reds or at worst blacks. There is the gigabyte one that i'm leaning to, i lose some macro keys but otherwise it looks to be large enough to suit me. It just seems like all the ones i look at are really compact, and its rather uncomfortable.

any help would be greatly appreciated, i don't think i can go back to rubber domes.
 
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "cramped" but I'll assume it refers to key spacing, in which case I'm sorry to say that it's mostly standardized. Most Cherry MX boards probably seem different than what you're use to because of keycap design, you won't find much wider keys; and hoping for backlighting as well is going to be impossible if not very hard to find something different, unless you want to mod keys or settle for lighter colored caps that will let light bleed through.

Light-colored keycaps with rounded edges using Cherry Co. or Signature Plastics profile might make the board seem less cramped and let enough light bleed through, but I'm just guessing here.

As far as quality-built full-sized backlight mechanical boards go, the only thing I can really recommend for sure are the Ducky Shine and CMStorm Trigger, most others haven't been decently reviewed over time by enough reputable sources.
 
thanks for the reply. I probably worded it wrong and yeah the key spacing, I am missing quite a bit. I invited the gf over (she used an old school IBM mechanical for years) and said the same thing, that she keeps missing keys. I'm gonna see if i can get used to it or not, if not i may look into modding keys, since that interested me for a while anyway.

I was actually going to try to storm trigger except, and this is nitpicky, my computer setup is all green/blue aesthetics. Which if it does the job i guess it can't be helped, but i was hoping to run into a blue/green backlit one.

thanks for the assist, obviously if anyone else has comments or suggestions i'm welcome to hear them. But at least that clears up why i'm having so much difficulty finding something to match what i'm looking for.
 
DirtyB said:
Deck makes some backlit full size mechanical boards

http://www.deckkeyboards.com/
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Bah! I always forget about Deck. Good quality boards, but limited to only black and clear switches (not a problem if you're good with a soldering iron though :D). The awesome part about the Deck keyboards are the keycaps IMO; they're something odd, like double-shot ABS core with a PBT shell, or negative dye-sublimated PBT, I can't remember which with all the rumors that popped up a while ago. Most durable backlight keycaps though, but the font's kinda ugly.
 
yeah I found those too when i was poking around.
I have it bookmarked,

next lineup for testing is the cm trigger, the monoprice one, the Mionix Zibal 60, and one of my friends shot me an instant message that they have a blackwidow ultimate stealth i can borrow to try.

if those don't do me then i'm gonna move out of the east return stuff and into the niche market ones. Deck will probably be the first one.

i cleaned my g15 and have been going back and forth between the k90 and the g15... it sucks, because i love the key space feel of the g15...but it's REALLY hard to go back to rubber domes after typing on the mechanical kb's.
 
lol her dad stole it from her before she moved, shes on a g15v2 at the moment, letting me be the guinea pig before we both make the jump back :D
 
You may want to check my thread on the new Rosewill 9100 keyboard here. I find some good and sort of average things about it and most keyboards. I have yet to find one that is what I would call excellent. Also, I know what you are saying about smaller keys and camp space. It's mentioned in my thread about that board too, but the CM Trigger Pro is not spaced that much different or the key size. Personally, I would love something more like you are talking about. My hands are just average, but I do have long, slender fingers (sort of like a piano player). The hand span feels a bit tight like I can't spread it out when I type. But the bad thing is, I find this to be the case with most other mechanical keyboards too.

Pose back what you find or like, Good luck
 
I think quiet a few are looking for a modern keyboard with the same feel as the keyboards of old. The only keyboards I have found, in production, which have the same feel are the unicomp keyboards and keytronics designer lifetime series.

Most users will eventually adapt, but if someone has to have the same feel and does not want to adapt the above mentioned are the only two I know of that will fit the bill. Keytronics is not mechanical, but it is a long lasting design which is rather pleasant to type on. Basically think topre realforce.
 
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My Ducky Shine 2 just came in today and it's amazing. I got the mx brown switches and blue leds. The only down side is it doesn't have macros keys or dedicated media keys like Gigabyte Osmium. On the other side, you can turn which keys you want to be backlit and switch between light profiles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5FqH_EpTLs
 
TechJeff said:
You may want to check my thread on the new Rosewill 9100 keyboard here. I find some good and sort of average things about it and most keyboards. I have yet to find one that is what I would call excellent. Also, I know what you are saying about smaller keys and camp space. It's mentioned in my thread about that board too, but the CM Trigger Pro is not spaced that much different or the key size. Personally, I would love something more like you are talking about. My hands are just average, but I do have long, slender fingers (sort of like a piano player). The hand span feels a bit tight like I can't spread it out when I type. But the bad thing is, I find this to be the case with most other mechanical keyboards too.

Pose back what you find or like, Good luck
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I'm glad i'm not crazy. I read a lot of threads about people making the change and having no issue. I thought the k90 would be the end all since so many of the logitech g series camp moved to it, I adore the way the reds typed, but the key space was making my hands cramp bad enough that i had to switch back to my g15 (which i cleaned and lubed to help some).

I'm actually pretty surprised logitech hasn't jumped on board with a mechanical G, seems i'm not the only person looking for this layout preferably without going the mod route.

I'll try to keep this updated with my findings as i go forward, got the Blackwidow Stealth before work today, but haven't had time to try it, the offset F keys make me rage a little, but i'm gonna see how the keys feel. I may still give the cm trigger a shot, but kinda dismayed at the news.

Ponder said:
I think quiet a few are looking for a modern keyboard with the same feel as the keyboards of old. The only keyboards I have found, in production, which have the same feel are the unicomp keyboards and keytronics designer lifetime series.

Most users will eventually adapt, but if someone has to have the same feel and does not want to adapt the above mentioned are the only two I know of that will fit the bill. Keytronics is not mechanical, but it is a long lasting design which is rather pleasant to type on. Basically think topre realforce.
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gonna check these out, though if i stay dome i may just get deeper into modding the g15's or try to find a really cheap g19. Really shooting for mechanical though just over the typing feel if nothing else. still, would really like to get the space/feel of my dome gaming keyboards back, but with the benefit of switches

FaRKle0079 said:
The new Ducky Shine 2 keyboards are out. Every cherry switch you could want and different combinations of backlighting as well (I just bought a Cherry Brown w/ white backlight keyboard). Right now TigerImports.net and MechanicalKeyboards.com have them in stock.
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gonna check these out as soon as i post.
on the upside, media keys and such aren't THAT big of a deal to me, just a nice bonus, once i find a board, i have mod plans to turn the LCD on my dead g15 into a clip on/standalone unit so i don't lose that function.
 
The CMStorm Trigger is manufactured by Costar and has no real issues, the Quickfire Pro is manufactured by iOne and thus has QC issues. Coolermaster stated that they'll never use iOne boards again after the Quickfire Pro, so the Trigger is fine to check out.

I've got a Shine 2 in reds on the way and can give you a general quality description when it gets here if you want. From what I've heard so far a few are comparing them to Flico, but that's still to be really confirmed.
 
Skull_Angel said:
The CMStorm Trigger is manufactured by Costar and has no real issues, the Quickfire Pro is manufactured by iOne and thus has QC issues. Coolermaster stated that they'll never use iOne boards again after the Quickfire Pro, so the Trigger is fine to check out.

I've got a Shine 2 in reds on the way and can give you a general quality description when it gets here if you want. From what I've heard so far a few are comparing them to Flico, but that's still to be really confirmed.
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epic, please do, I almost pulled the trigger on the shine II with green backlight and reds. I'd like to get some first hand xp on it.
 
schizrade said:
Those Vortex are sexy as hell...
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They are... I hear the backlight versions have problems with the LEDs lasting, but the keyboards themselves seem solid. I'd like to get one of those Keycool mini84 though, I just like the layout more than the POKER, PURE and RACE.
 
Manaknight said:
gonna check these out, though if i stay dome i may just get deeper into modding the g15's or try to find a really cheap g19. Really shooting for mechanical though just over the typing feel if nothing else. still, would really like to get the space/feel of my dome gaming keyboards back, but with the benefit of switches
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The keytronic does not feel like a dome keyboard but much closer to a black alps/mech switch. It even sounds about the same as a brown, but has a really nice slightly curved shape and like the realforce, different keys require different amounts of force. It was at one point considered the keyboard to have if you could not find a buckling switch keyboard. It is great at reducing typing fatigue. The negatives are it is difficult or next to impossible to remove the keys without breaking some...also does not handle water/liquids well. It only comes with a ps/2 connector. Not as good as newer keyboards when it comes to ghosting, but works reasonably well for most. They sell for about 30 dollars normally and have a similar old fashion key shape. This makes them easy keyboards to switch to for those who need a certain feel.

I am not against mechanical keyboards, I just thought it a good option for those looking for a classic feel. It is also a great backup keyboard. Basically some just require the exact feel/spacing/keyshape they are accustom to...I think mainly the newer keyboards ignore the slightly curved shape that older keyboards had which reduced fatigue and made certain keys easier to reach. All modern keyboards seem very linear. I also notice a slightly different key shape which might cause problems for some on modern keyboards.

Just trying to help reduce costs as most modern mechanical keyboards seem to have the same basic design and it becomes costly quickly. Not only in dollars spent, but in time wasted being unproductive.
 
as an update:

Tried the Black widow ultimate. Feels better than the k90 so far, not sure if I am going to let myself get suckered by Razer's support, but from a feel factor this is probably the best so far, enough so that i'm going to pick up the stealth if i can't find anything else, though i hate the lack of media controls and the like and the odd placement of the f1 key.
 
Manaknight said:
as an update:

Tried the Black widow ultimate. Feels better than the k90 so far, not sure if I am going to let myself get suckered by Razer's support, but from a feel factor this is probably the best so far, enough so that i'm going to pick up the stealth if i can't find anything else, though i hate the lack of media controls and the like and the odd placement of the f1 key.
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You may want to look at my posts in the mechanical keyboard thread that is really long. There I had some posts comparing the K90 to the CM Storm Trigger. I sent the K90 back within days, I knew it wouldn't work for me once I tried it. It's the "floating key" design and key spacing that caused me real problems.

Right now I'm trying to decide if I am going to keep the new Rosewill 9100. It's a good board from what I said about the backlighting and quality, but there is something about the key spacing and feel that makes my hands cramp after using it a few minutes. Going to try it with a wrist rest and see what happens. Otherwise, I can't deal with carpel tunnel any more than I have and need something that won't hurt my hands first and foremost.

Will post back more findings later. Also will update my Rosewill thread so keep an eye on that too.
 
TechJeff said:
You may want to look at my posts in the mechanical keyboard thread that is really long. There I had some posts comparing the K90 to the CM Storm Trigger. I sent the K90 back within days, I knew it wouldn't work for me once I tried it. It's the "floating key" design and key spacing that caused me real problems.

Right now I'm trying to decide if I am going to keep the new Rosewill 9100. It's a good board from what I said about the backlighting and quality, but there is something about the key spacing and feel that makes my hands cramp after using it a few minutes. Going to try it with a wrist rest and see what happens. Otherwise, I can't deal with carpel tunnel any more than I have and need something that won't hurt my hands first and foremost.

Will post back more findings later. Also will update my Rosewill thread so keep an eye on that too.
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I actually read yours a few times since you had similar issues to mine with hands cramping.So far, while not perfect, the BWU has been the least cramped of what i tried. I don't know if i would feel right shelling out 140 bucks for razer quality to get the stealth, and the clacky of the blues in the standard would drive me crazy after a few days... However, spacing wise, it was closer than the k90 to what i'm comfortable with.

on the other hand i'm fortunate that i'm not stuck without a keyboard. This research is more in the inevitable event my g15 dies yet again. Though i cleaned it and lubed all the keys and it's very smooth and responsive, so at least i have time to find the mechanical of my dreams :D
 
TechJeff said:
Right now I'm trying to decide if I am going to keep the new Rosewill 9100. It's a good board from what I said about the backlighting and quality, but there is something about the key spacing and feel that makes my hands cramp after using it a few minutes. Going to try it with a wrist rest and see what happens. Otherwise, I can't deal with carpel tunnel any more than I have and need something that won't hurt my hands first and foremost.
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Not sure how close it is to the 9000, but the 9000 is steep linearly. This would likely cause quite a bit of stress, without a wrist rest, compared to older keyboard designs.
 
Ponder said:
Not sure how close it is to the 9000, but the 9000 is steep linearly. This would likely cause quite a bit of stress, without a wrist rest, compared to older keyboard designs.
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The 9100 looks a whole lot like the Ducky Shine II in the product photos. Everything from the key spacing to the size of the keys. In fact, the laser etching of the keys and most all key symbols are exactly the same. There are some differences between the media keys and a few others on them, but overall they look close.
 
Manaknight said:
I don't know if i would feel right shelling out 140 bucks for razer quality to get the stealth, and the clacky of the blues in the standard would drive me crazy after a few days...
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I've actually been very impressed with the build quality of my BWU, and it's the only Razer product I can say that about. It's even survived a few enraged fists.

The blues are loud, but I find it drives my wife crazy rather than driving me crazy, I love the sound of them. The browns on the stealth edition loses a lot of the tactile feel of the blues, but if you like reds then it probably won't be much of an issue.
 
Manaknight said:
heya,

I posted looking for advice on keyboards a while back. It was time to make the switch from the g15 before it gave out on me. I finally settled on a switch and the like, and have started trying various keyboards. However now i'm having an issue of finding the "right" keyboard for me.

I have settled on cherry red switches as these things feel amazing, blacks could also probably do, but I just really love the feel of the reds for gaming and typing.

So far i've tried a rosewill mechanical, which was alright but felt a little cramped and I ended up being unable to do without the backlighting.

I've tried the razer black widow ultimate, which made me realize I don't like mx blues. On top of that i've constantly had issues with every razer product i've owned aside from the deathadder.

I'm currently typing from the corsair k90. It's the best so far, but the dealbreaker i'm finding is again the keyboard feels cramped and I find myself missing keys and in general having to put my hands in uncomfortable positions to type. It is the best of the 3 however.

the short of it is I'm trying to find a keyboard that will work, do not have any tech stores nearby to sample, so it a alot of return shipping and/or fighting with newegg over restocking, so I'd like hopefully settle on one soon.

Anyone have any suggestions to a full size well spaced keyboards (think the g15/g510/g19 general spacing) that are also backlit and would preferably have cherry reds or at worst blacks. There is the gigabyte one that i'm leaning to, i lose some macro keys but otherwise it looks to be large enough to suit me. It just seems like all the ones i look at are really compact, and its rather uncomfortable.

any help would be greatly appreciated, i don't think i can go back to rubber domes.
Click to expand...

The problem with the K90 as far as missing keys is probably the macro keys on the left. Touch typists unconsciously seek the left edge and even when you try to compensate you are often off by a column or two. I had the same issue with an older keyboard with macro keys. I have a k60 as well as a Rosewill mechanical and have no issues with either.
 
Oddly enough the key spacing is actually the same. The keyboard is mainly smaller because of reduced outer edging. Modern keyboards also have minor reductions in the space between key sections. The noticed fatigue is based on the inclination of the keyboard. (combined with hand inclination changes due to narrow edged designs) I would guess that the fatigue would go away in about a month of usage.(excluding the fatigue caused by possible poor wrist positioning which should be corrected) I would suggest a good wrist wrest and making sure you have the keyboard at the lowest incline possible.

Basically the only two keyboards designed to reduce fatigue, that I know of in production, are unicomps and keytronics designer lifetime series. Older keyboards would place the keys on a curved surface. The extra outer edging(near the front) also helped promote proper wrist positioning. The easiest keyboard to see this on would be keytronics designer lifetime series(they have nice photos on newegg) as they allowed it to influence their outside edging. IBM M series keyboard also has this curved surface, but the outer edging looks linear.

I have looked for modern mechanical keyboards with these elements, but have yet to find one. The main problem seems to be that the market has shifted towards small keyboards. This changes the wrist angle(without a wrist rest). When you combine this with the linear shape of modern keyboards you end up with a slight positional change on keys(relative to your muscle memory) causing fatigue and occasional miss-hits.(assuming you are not accustom to this new design)

Of course now is the question what is a good wrist rest?

If I was designing rosewills keyboard I would reduce the rear thickness of the keyboard, reducing the angle of incline. I am not sure it is feasible to have narrow edging and keys placed on a curved surface. I was wondering if they could instead change the thickness of actual keys, making keys closer to the top slightly less thick(or lower keys slightly thicker) to mimic the old school keyboard feel. You would still have general wrist angle concerns, but it would be a step in the right direction. In the end reduced footprint keyboards are in this year. It might take awhile for people to recall why keyboards had the shape they had...
 
Ponder said:
I have looked for modern mechanical keyboards with these elements, but have yet to find one. The main problem seems to be that the market has shifted towards small keyboards. This changes the wrist angle(without a wrist rest). When you combine this with the linear shape of modern keyboards you end up with a slight positional change on keys(relative to your muscle memory) causing fatigue and occasional miss-hits.(assuming you are not accustom to this new design)

Of course now is the question what is a good wrist rest?

If I was designing rosewills keyboard I would reduce the rear thickness of the keyboard, reducing the angle of incline. I am not sure it is feasible to have narrow edging and keys placed on a curved surface. I was wondering if they could instead change the thickness of actual keys, making keys closer to the top slightly less thick(or lower keys slightly thicker) to mimic the old school keyboard feel. You would still have general wrist angle concerns, but it would be a step in the right direction. In the end reduced footprint keyboards are in this year. It might take awhile for people to recall why keyboards had the shape they had...
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The reason most modern mechanical keyboards are designed the way they are is mainly production simplicity. You won't find many that break-the-mold simply because it becomes too expensive since most are manufactured under another company. There are only so many ways you can get that curved keyboard surface and considering that most modern mechanical boards use individual switches connected to a PCB, the most cost effective way is with sculpted key caps; which are standard, but not very pronounced.

I couldn't tell you why a more pronounced curve wasn't in the original design, but there are several different profile standards for Cherry MX; there's the basic profile you find on almost all boards which is the tallest, there's Cherry Corp. which seem to be the shortest, and there's Signature Plastics which is somewhere between the two. If you really wanted you might be able to mix the three to find a more comfortable curve, but I'm not sure what the end result would look like :confused:

edit: My Ducky DK9008S2 white LED on red MX just came in and I have to say it's quite nice. LED brightness is no issue, brightest setting is almost blinding. Out of 10 I'd rate it at 8, mostly because of key cap quality and design; I'm more partial to (un)modified icons siting side-by-side from a design point on backlit boards, and while they are printed with higher quality (almost no spots where light bleeds through other than the legend) they do use the same standard painted ABS caps with the lettering etched out that other low cost boards do. The board it's self has that nice solid feel as others with an aluminum backplate do and there's very little wiggle from the switch caps (that's not to say that there's no key wiggle, it's unavoidable because of the MX stem design). Over all I'd say it was worth the cost and definitely one of the better quality backlit mechanical boards (considering I haven't had the chance to try out the CMStorm Trigger yet). If you have any questions I could answer without opening it up I'd be happy to try.
 
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Manaknight:

I read a tech article that said you may want to try turning OFF fast boot or quick boot in your BIOS settings for the USB keyboard you were having trouble with in your initial post. Wasn't sure if you tried that or not but wanted to pass along.

Also, I am updating my thread on the Rosewill 9100. This thing is near identical to the Ducky Shine II the best I can tell and don't think it would prove much different in terms of what I have found with the Rosewill 9100.
 
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