Which Mechanical Keyboard?

R

richtea

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Hi Everyone,

I've used a normal keyboard my whole life and considering I spend a lot of hours at the computer, I thought it would be good to invest in a very good keyboard. I have always owned mac keyboards which I have found to be quite good when compared to other normall ones.

I'm looking for keyboard which makes typing a joy to do and that is also roughly silent. What would you guys recommend?
 
Zangmonkey said:
design a custom one to your own liking at wasdkeyboards.com
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If you want stylish, there's really no better option than this. You can make it as stylish as you want with all the color/engraving/etching choices they offer.
 
ThinJ said:
If you want stylish, there's really no better option than this. You can make it as stylish as you want with all the color/engraving/etching choices they offer.
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He said stylish, not tacky.

j/k :), sorry I couldn't resist.
 
Bought my 1st Filco 104 a couple months ago with browns and have another (tenkeyless now) on the way from Amazon/KeyboardCo.
 
Corsair has two mechanical keyboards listed on their site ( I don't know if they are out yet), they look pretty nice! Once is more FPS style the other is MMO with macro keys, they use Cherry-MX
 
I just started my foray into mechanical keyboards, and I'm in a similar boat to you. I've had a mx blues keyboard for about 6 months now, and I am outgrowing it (Has 2KRO).

If you're really going to look at the keyboards for a while before purchasing, I suggest treading lightly over at www.geekhack.org and checking out their wiki/forums. They're all a group of keyboard enthusiasts covering everything from ancient IBM Model M's to the newest Filco White Ninja keyboards.

Personally, I'm torn between a Das Silent Ultimate, a Filco Ninja Tactile and a WASD Keyboard with custom keycaps.
I really can't find a price-style ratio that I like :(

However, if you've never typed on a new keyboard before, I'd suggest going with blues. I know they're going to be loud, but if you learn to touch-type you can significantly quiet the keyboard down and make it sound a lot quieter. They are also considered the best typing switches in the current crop of well-priced keyboards. Browns are quieter and nice to type on, but you really have to know that you want them first. See if you have a local shop or a few local friends who have keyboards that you can test out. It will make a world of difference when you finally chose your keyboard!

Overall - have fun. This is a great investment! I've gone from 80 wpm to 130 wpm very quickly using my mech, and I would never go back.
 
Drakan290 said:
Overall - have fun. This is a great investment! I've gone from 80 wpm to 130 wpm very quickly using my mech, and I would never go back.
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Wow! I'm about 90 wpm on a standard keyboard, I can't wait to get a mechanical one. I was thinking about getting one of the rosewill cherry mx blacks.
 
Drakan290 said:
I just started my foray into mechanical keyboards, and I'm in a similar boat to you. I've had a mx blues keyboard for about 6 months now, and I am outgrowing it (Has 2KRO).

If you're really going to look at the keyboards for a while before purchasing, I suggest treading lightly over at www.geekhack.org and checking out their wiki/forums. They're all a group of keyboard enthusiasts covering everything from ancient IBM Model M's to the newest Filco White Ninja keyboards.

Personally, I'm torn between a Das Silent Ultimate, a Filco Ninja Tactile and a WASD Keyboard with custom keycaps.
I really can't find a price-style ratio that I like :(

However, if you've never typed on a new keyboard before, I'd suggest going with blues. I know they're going to be loud, but if you learn to touch-type you can significantly quiet the keyboard down and make it sound a lot quieter. They are also considered the best typing switches in the current crop of well-priced keyboards. Browns are quieter and nice to type on, but you really have to know that you want them first. See if you have a local shop or a few local friends who have keyboards that you can test out. It will make a world of difference when you finally chose your keyboard!

Overall - have fun. This is a great investment! I've gone from 80 wpm to 130 wpm very quickly using my mech, and I would never go back.
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These are the two keyboard I am choosing from!
 
You aren't going to see an insane increase in your typing skills when switching from one keyboard to another. Its a huge difference in feel and gaming though.


tenkeyless filco brown is the way to go for most people. filco + browns is the way to go.
 
my only experience with mech keyboards is my 6Gv2 - the cherry mx blacks are great, but not that ideal for long typing sessions IMO.

My first choice for a browns keyboard, would be a Leopold tenkeyless
 
I can't post it in the For Sale forum yet 'cause I don't have 50 posts, but I'm selling a bunch of Ducky keyboards. I've been using one a few days now and am blown away. PM me if you're interested!
 
I have a silent das and I have to say, I wish the keys had more resistance. I'll be looking into the blues sometime.

Craig
 
dr4gon said:
Wow! I'm about 90 wpm on a standard keyboard, I can't wait to get a mechanical one. I was thinking about getting one of the rosewill cherry mx blacks.
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If your typing speed is that fast then typing must be important to you. Why go with black switches?
 
If you type 90WPM on a standard keyboard, get a mechanical keyboard with MX brown's, believe me your WPM's will jump. On a standard keyboard I could do 110 easy, on a FIlco, I'm getting 130-140WPM.
 
RickyJ said:
If your typing speed is that fast then typing must be important to you. Why go with black switches?
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blazarcher said:
If you type 90WPM on a standard keyboard, get a mechanical keyboard with MX brown's, believe me your WPM's will jump. On a standard keyboard I could do 110 easy, on a FIlco, I'm getting 130-140WPM.
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I definitely need to do more research on this then. Typing's really not that important to me. I just picked it up from playing a lot of fps games back in the day. Gaming is more of a priority and I had just heard black's were the best for FPSes and I didn't (and still don't) think that I needed the tactile response that the brown's provided.

I guess it's a tossup between the Das Silent and Rosewill Black then.
 
If you're going to go Linear switches I think the Red switches are generally more well liked than the Black ones. Those are harder to come by though. The only easy way I know of to get them right now is a Leopold from Elitekeyboards.

I actually have a Tenkeyless with the red switches coming tomorrow. I was going to wait for the CM Storm Quickfire board to come out, but they've changed it up and said those won't be available till December or January, so I just said to heck with it and ordered a Leopold. I've wanted to try out the red switches for ages.
 
i have a das ultimate (blues) and a kbc poker (reds). I like the reds more. They are the lazy person's key mechanism, super easy to press, super fast to type on. Have had the das for about 5 months, the kbc for about 1.
 
How do the tactile keys affect FPS games? Does it ever get annoying? I see Newegg has a 20% off + free shipping coupon on all their Rosewill keyboards How does the quality compare to say the Das keyboards?
 
The Rosewill RK-9000 boards are made by the same OEM that makes the Das and Filco boards, so despite the house-brand name they're actually primo boards.

Occasionally I find the tactile hump of the brown switches annoying in games where I have to hold down keys, feels like it adds friction. So I swapped some switches with another board I have to see what reds would feel like while gaming.....and instantly I wanted reds.
 
RickyJ said:
The Rosewill RK-9000 boards are made by the same OEM that makes the Das and Filco boards, so despite the house-brand name they're actually primo boards.

Occasionally I find the tactile hump of the brown switches annoying in games where I have to hold down keys, feels like it adds friction. So I swapped some switches with another board I have to see what reds would feel like while gaming.....and instantly I wanted reds.
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Elitekeyboards has Leopold boards with red switches in stock. My tenkeyless with them came today.

I've only got a few hours on it, but so far I still prefer the brown switches for typing. I haven't done enough gaming yet to say for sure, but I feel like the red switches will be pretty great for that. I may actually get silly and go as far as switching back and forth depending on what I sit down at my PC to do.
 
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dr4gon said:
How do the tactile keys affect FPS games? Does it ever get annoying? I see Newegg has a 20% off + free shipping coupon on all their Rosewill keyboards How does the quality compare to say the Das keyboards?
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I used a das with blues for bfbc2 for the longest time. I play with headphones on.

Even with them off, the clicking wasnt annoying. It was cool to have the tactile response because i knew exactly when i was oing to move, and didnt have to push the key down all the way.... but i did anyway.

I dunno, after a while you dont notice it in gaming, only really typing. And for that it was nice.


And a final note, you can get KBC poker boards off of Ebay. Qtan is the seller to go to, he posts on geekhack.
 
RickyJ said:
The Rosewill RK-9000 boards are made by the same OEM that makes the Das and Filco boards, so despite the house-brand name they're actually primo boards.

Occasionally I find the tactile hump of the brown switches annoying in games where I have to hold down keys, feels like it adds friction. So I swapped some switches with another board I have to see what reds would feel like while gaming.....and instantly I wanted reds.
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Well I ordered an RK-9000 with mx browns, can't wait! If that doesn't work for me, I'll probably try the Leopold with reds.
 
ThinJ said:
Elitekeyboards has Leopold boards with red switches in stock. My tenkeyless with them came today.

I've only got a few hours on it, but so far I still prefer the brown switches for typing. I haven't done enough gaming yet to say for sure, but I feel like the red switches will be pretty great for that. I may actually get silly and go as far as switching back and forth depending on what I sit down at my PC to do.
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Keyboards are like tools, different ones for different jobs. :cool:

I've been using a Leopold tenkeyless with browns for several months now, and have been quite impressed with the build quality. If I could justify getting another board right now I'd be all over another Leopold.
 
Yeah my MX Brown board actually is another Leopold Tenkeyless. So I now have two, both with a bunch of keycaps from WASD on them.

The only annoying thing about switching is it always resets the key repeat delay when I switch one. I have to re-open the windows keyboard settings and apply the settings again to get it back to normal. Which is a slight bummer, because I really do prefer typing on the brown switches a lot. I type faster and more accurately and I'm not sure I can get used to the reds for that.

The other bonus to the reds for gaming is that they're significantly quieter. When I play Starcraft 2 it no longer sounds like somebody just slapping the keyboard constantly for half an hour at a time.
 
Once you go mechanical, you never look back... :p

Have a Rosewill RK-9000 (Cherry Blues) I picked up on sale a couple weeks back from the Egg to give a mechanical board a try...

Just ordered a Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 with Cherry Browns off Amazon.
 
Lol, that addicting huh? I hope this doesn't become an expensive habit. I actually really like this old $20 Saitek Eclipse backlit that I got many years ago on black friday. It has horrible key jamming/ghosting though that's noticeable in some games. But it types so nicely and looks pretty cool. A shame about some of the laser etching fading away though.

My RK-9000 should be here tomorrow! Will put it through its typing paces and BF3/LoL this week. :)
 
Heh, I was using a Saitek Eclipse as well (original model). I just went and looked up my order history on the Egg - bought the sucker exactly 6 years ago to the day! It has served me well and although it still works, I've worn quite a few of the keycap finishes down to the point that its looking pretty bad, so it was definitely time for an upgrade.

Mechanicals are definitely quite a bit louder, but they sound and feel sooo much more satisfying to type on. You really don't know what you are missing until you give one a try. You'll like the Rosewill as it's pretty much made by the same base company that makes Filco. I plan on moving mine to the office and pissing off everyone around me with it once the Filco Majestouch-2 I ordered arrives. Will be interesting to compare the blue and brown switches to see which I like better. Clack clack CLACK! :D
 
I'd get a Filco with brown switches if you're looking for silent. I have a Filco tenkeyless with blues and love it, but browns will definitely be quieter.
 
So, I just got my RK-9000 today and it's pretty nice. Overall build is very solid. I'm still trying to get used to the slighly different size from the Saitek Eclipse. One thing that's bugging the hell out of me is the squeaky spacebar. It's stick and has a spring or something that's squeaking with every press. This doesn't bode to well for BF3 where I need to be able to jump a lot.

Any suggestions? I think I may just return it and look more at the Leopald or WASD semi-custom boards.
 
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