Keyboards...

[Koko56]

Hi everyone.

I've been around a few shops a couple of days ago and have tried out quite a few KBs, granted - for a short amount of time. There were keyboards ranging from about £20 all the to about £120. And they all felt pretty similar and none of them felt outstanding so to say.

In school we had Dell keyboards which are now I think discontinued and they were pretty good actually, I think I would prefer those Dell keyboards to the majority of the ones I tried.

After that I'm sort of thinking, is the function of a keyboard as a keyboard important or what? I see that it's not very clever and probably a bit of a short-sighted question, but why was not there any significant difference between the majority of the keyboards that I tried?

 

[sirmonkey1985]

just industry standards.. keyboards havent really changed over the years.. and the ones that have tried to change them ended up failing because people dont like change.. ive actually found the cheap $4.99 keyboards to be the best.. this is coming from some one that owns a 60 dollar razer lycosa keyboard that is an utter piece of junk and it will soon be replaced by a 5 dollar keyboard from Fry's..

even though dell discontinued the keyboard its most likely still produced under a generic name brand from another company..

 

[Koko56]

just industry standards.. keyboards havent really changed over the years.. and the ones that have tried to change them ended up failing because people dont like change.. ive actually found the cheap $4.99 keyboards to be the best.. this is coming from some one that owns a 60 dollar razer lycosa keyboard that is an utter piece of junk and it will soon be replaced by a 5 dollar keyboard from Fry's..

even though dell discontinued the keyboard its most likely still produced under a generic name brand from another company..

I see... though that is really.. .kind of... well... - not inspiring I suppose. Though I wonder why people would not prefer better feeling KBs if they came along?

Yeah - I tried the Lycosa and the keys were quite wobbly - and since it is pretty low-profile it does not add up to be a good thing. I also tried a £5-£10 keybarod and that was a tiny tiny bit different, but still - quite a bit cheapre and stuff. (EDIT: the £5-£10 KB compared to most other ones I tried, not the Lycosa)
I also think that the Dell KB I was talking about is the L100.

My pic:

and a link to Google pics.

 

[skriefal]

The keyboards that you'll find in local shops are manufactured with the primary goal of being built as cheaply as possible, with a secondary goal of looks/bling. Usability and key feel has long since ceased to be a priority for most shoppers, and also thus for most manufacturers. Even the moderately expensive gaming keyboards -- Razer, Saitek, Logitech G15, etc -- are of similar quality to the cheapie keyboards. They merely add more (mostly) useless bling. They all use cheap rubber domes underneath the keys, with a cheap membrane sitting underneath the domes.

If you are looking for a decent keyboard then consider a keyboard with mechanical keyswitches. These are often referred to as "clicky" keyboards -- but this is somewhat of a misnomer, as not all of them actually produce a clicking sound when keys are depressed. The Filco keyboards are a good choice, and are available in the UK from the Keyboard Company:

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_details.asp?PRODUCT=623
http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_details.asp?PRODUCT=624

Or perhaps the Cherry G80-3000:

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_details.asp?PRODUCT=510

Or you can look for used mechanical keyboards on eBay. The Dell AT102W is a good starting point, and can often be found quite cheaply (or the AT101W US version can, anyway). Or any of a variety of older but still very nice keyboards -- IBM Model M, Northgate Omnikey, etc.

Another option is a Happy Hacking Keyboard. These use rubber domes, but of higher quality than those used in common keyboards. And they replace the cheap membrane switches with capacitive switches. This means that you don't need to "bottom out" every keypress to get the key to register -- allowing for more comfortable typing, less "push back" due to the rear of the keycap not needing to hit the backing plate of the keyboard with each keypress, etc. They're very expensive, however... about $250 in the US.

 

[Koko56]

Yeah - I'm aware of the "clicky" keyboards - but they are pretty expenisve and as far as gaming goes the MS CC200 is not bad - however I am not using it right now, and probably full stop as it just fucked up my typing. I could not really ever get used to it - going from a laptop to the CC2000 - did not work out for me. Now if there was a keybaord with the same feel as the CC2000, but was not curved - that would be alright too.

But yeah - it is pretty surprising that many keybaords are very similar. The G15s and such though - surprising and kind of makes me wonder as to why get one, yea hthere some gamign things, but other than that.

 

[StarChyld]

Well from my experience, the saitek eclipse keyboards are really solid.

I have an Eclipse2, and I am still using my original eclipse on my system at work and its probably about 4 years old now. i have taken mine apart, they are really easy to clean in the event that you spill your drink on it...(bawls is really sticky...)

the only thing I have noticed with they keyboars after 4 years of use is the LED backlight isnt as bright as it once was, and the silver paint on the keys is starting to wear on the commonly used keys.

heres a review that one of my buddies did on the saitek gamers keyboard. build on the 2 is virtually the same.
http://winnipeggamers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6196#82501

hope that helps!

 

[Vittra]

Yeah - I'm aware of the "clicky" keyboards - but they are pretty expenisve and as far as gaming goes the MS CC200 is not bad - however I am not using it right now, and probably full stop as it just fucked up my typing. I could not really ever get used to it - going from a laptop to the CC2000 - did not work out for me. Now if there was a keybaord with the same feel as the CC2000, but was not curved - that would be alright too.

But yeah - it is pretty surprising that many keybaords are very similar. The G15s and such though - surprising and kind of makes me wonder as to why get one, yea hthere some gamign things, but other than that.

From what I've seen, although people coming from Mechanical Keyboards overall do not like the G15 (Rev 1 and 2), they seem to note them among the best that membrane dome keyboards have to offer. Usually they are just fancy bells and whistles, but figured i'd point this specific keyboard out as you mentioned it yourself.