Brown or Black? Gaming and Essays.

[Zore]

Hi everyone. I have been reading these forums for a while but this is my first post.

I have never had a mechanical keyboard but I am starting to realize that I "need" one. I have tried a cherry blue and I thought it felt awesome. Thing is that I do a lot of gaming (too much really :/) and I kind of want something to keep me alert there. At the same time thought I do a lot of typing for essays and stuff for my Master's.

I have been looking at the Steelseries 6GV2 (black). My question, however, is how bad are these to write on? I mean, compare to a regular crappy keyboard, not a cherry blue, cuz obviously that's not quite fair. I am considering getting a brown one instead, but ideally I'd like a black one for gaming unless it's just dreadful to write 10,000 word essays on.

I don't have the knowledge of a place where I can test this, so i thought I'd ask you guys.

Best,
Zore

[keyboardlover]

Hey Zore, welcome to GeekHack...

I haven't used Cherry black but seeing as they are very heavy and non-tactile, I would expect typing long papers to be quite painful. I reccomend you go for the browns or (my personal favorite) Topre.

[a_fluffy_kitten]

Since you have already tried the blues and like them, ask yourself if gaming on them would really be such a bad thing.  I have no complaints at all playing games like TF2 on a Filco with blues - but I'm also not anywhere near a pro gamer.

[Daniel Beaver]

Typing on blacks is, in a word, dreadful. I could understand their place on a pure gaming rig. But if you ever plan on doing significant typing, they are an awful choice.

If your mind is set on getting blacks, you might consider just holding on to whatever rubber dome board you are using right now. You can always use your old board for the 10,000 word essays. Blacks are in fact worse to type on than most rubber-dome keyboards.

I have never felt cherry browns, but I am sure a lot of people are going to suggest them as a good choice for dual-use. Cherry blues are fine for gaming as well. I have been putting in a few good hours of gaming on my Filco with blues, and find no real faults with them. They have a strange hysteresis effect which I don't care for, but claims of their inadequacy for gaming are grossly exaggerated.

[Ekaros]

Browns aren't bad, might get some time to get used to. Still I don't too get the real issue with blues, can't double tap? You have to pretty much release normal ruberdomes too...

[ricercar]

Welcome to GeekHack.

I write professionally, and I love Cherry blacks for daily driving. Both my main machines have a Cherry black board at least half the time. Complaints about 'needing to press too hard' or 'hurts to bottom out' are just from finger-weenies and girly-men who have never worked with a true manly keyboard. Yeah, my fingers hurt after two weeks with my first Cherry black daily driver, but they stopped hurting within another week. Now I can pick up coins that have been super-glued to the pavement.

The Cherry 11900 is a fantastic and inexpensive introduction to Cherry blacks; they often go on eBay for under $20 USD. Search for "11900 keyboard " on eBay and you'll sometimes come up with new in box for under $40 USD. There's someone on Geekhack NOW with eight of these 11900s for sale.

[Daniel Beaver]

Complaints about 'needing to press too hard' or 'hurts to bottom out' are just from finger-weenies and girly-men who have never worked with a true manly keyboard.

Hush, you! Blue cherries are faaabulouus!!! Blacks totally mess up my manicure!





Or you could get some of those mythical cherry reds.

[d2v]

Welcome to GeekHack.

I write professionally, and I love Cherry blacks for daily driving. Both my main machines have a Cherry black board at least half the time. Complaints about 'needing to press too hard' or 'hurts to bottom out' are just from finger-weenies and girly-men who have never worked with a true manly keyboard. Yeah, my fingers hurt after two weeks with my first Cherry black daily driver, but they stopped hurting within another week. Now I can pick up coins that have been super-glued to the pavement.

The Cherry 11900 is a fantastic and inexpensive introduction to Cherry blacks; they often go on eBay for under $20 USD. Search for "11900 keyboard " on eBay and you'll sometimes come up with new in box for under $40 USD. There's someone on Geekhack NOW with eight of these 11900s for sale.

I do most of my typing on cherry blacks, and I find them much better than blues for typing. Typing without bottoming out is best done on these switches.

[Kairxa]

Blues: fun to type
Blacks: somehow unique to type
Browns: kinda boring to type

That's for me, though. And I don't find any problem while gaming in blues. So if you like them, just buy blues then.

[keyboardlover]

And if you're not already completely confused, wait till someone suggests Alps or buckling spring!

[SirClickAlot]

And if you're not already completely confused, wait till someone suggests Alps or buckling spring!

Or the Topre Realforce 55g weighted......;-)

[Findecanor]

I have been using a Cherry Brown keyboard at work for the past week. To type on, that is.
I found it to be quite awful, because of the lack of tactile response. There is some tactility in the switch, but I find it not to be noticeable when typing at normal speed.

I would advice that you get a Cherry Blue keyboard. If you want a gaming keyboard, then you could look at Razer BlackWidow which has Cherry Blues and macro keys, but it does not have true N-key rollover.

[nathanscribe]

I have an old Cherry blacks keyboard that I've ben using for about 3 years, and was a massive improvement over the freebie rubber-dome doormats I was used to - but a few weeks ago I picked up an IBM Model M and now also have a Unicomp Spave-saver, both buckling-spring.

Compared to the black cherry, they're more to my taste for typing.  I like the feedback.  I haven't gone back to it yet for extended periods so I can't comment much more than initial impressions, but for extended typing duties I'd personally go for something with definite feedback.

The Unicomp is slightly heavier on the fingers than the IBM, but I've read conflicting reports on this issue, so I suspect it's down to the age/wear on the springs (my IBM is a '93).

[002]

Topre all the way.
You might be a bit underwhelmed by them if you're coming from a rubber dome board, but you will learn to appreciate them .
Now...about your budget...

[Scarzy]

Now...about your budget...

Indeed.

Welcome to GH,

What kind of games would you be playing?

[itlnstln]

Quick synopsis of "what should I get" threads:

Blacks, browns, blues, BS, MX11800, Filco, Das, eBay, Model F, Tenkeyless, Terminal, Topre, HHKB, Games, Typing, Girlfriend, Wife, Baby, Chick on the Side, Japan, Maids, LEGOs.

[Zore]

God I am so damn lost now. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into but now I'm so confused

I am playing a lot of Starcraft 2, fairly competitively so the "double tap" risk with blue is kind of a turn off. I remember typing on a "Das Keyboard" tho and loved it... but I dunno how good it'd be for this. Of course the ideal thing is to
"just get two keyboards"... but I can't afford it. Can barely afford one to begin with. Ugh, now I'm far behind square one

I will try to look into this further tho.

Edit: That said, thanks a lot for all the responses I do appreciate it.

Regarding my budget, I was intending to get a Steelseries 6GV2 for like... ehm, $80 or something like that. (Live in Sweden so the price is approx). That's kind of pushing it already tho, but I dunno...

[Daniel Beaver]

Almost any of these keyboards will be better than your run-of-the mill rubber dome board.

Totally forgot about buckling springs, too. Everyone loves buckling springs. Actually, an IBM Model M would be a great choice if you are looking for something inexpensive. They are, in fact, great gaming keyboards.

You can probably get a Unicomp Space Saver with a Swedish layout.

[Kairxa]

Double tapping in blues is fun!

[keyboardlover]

Or the Topre Realforce 55g weighted......;-)

Ahh yes, my personal favorite

[Jalal]

having a rubber dome + blacks is always a good choice. blacks won't help you in sc2 though (rubber dome is absolutels enough), but they're kinda fun imo and are useful in many game genres, for example japanese shooter (aero fighter etc) which require fine movements, and also in fps or the like.

browns might be too boring, but still you could try the I-rocks kr-6230, it uses them, then return it if you don't like it. it also has a big crtl key which a (tiny) bit useful for sc2 to bind groups, but you really shouldn't base you choice on that.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

I think the red cherrys are good. Thats what some people say :X

[chet0]

Hi, I recently got into Mechanical Keyboards as well, I have a 87U 55g and Filco Otaku with Blues, I also owned the Gigabyte K8000 (black cherries, no longer in production). I'm also an avid gamer, favourite game atm is SC2, around 120apm... :-)

For SC2, it's a toss up between the Topre and Filco, neither keyboard has slowed me down... and I think you'll be quite happy with the Filco and Blues, it's a very enjoyable experience playing RTS games with.

With the black, you aren't quite sure you've hit the key unless you bottom out, but you do get a better feel for it after a while.

For typing, I find the blues most enjoyable... the combinatin of clicks and response from the keyboard makes it a joy to type with. The topre is very close, cause it' feels so solid and sometimes you wanna hear yourself think
The blacks, they are alright, I prefer rubber domes to type on than blacks to be honest, they aren't that bad, but they're aren't great as well.

If I had to do it all over again knowing what I know now, I'd probably go with the blue first. cause of price. But I think I would like a topre still

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Almost any of these keyboards will be better than your run-of-the mill rubber dome board.

Totally forgot about buckling springs, too. Everyone loves buckling springs. Actually, an IBM Model M would be a great choice if you are looking for something inexpensive. They are, in fact, great gaming keyboards.

You can probably get a Unicomp Space Saver with a Swedish layout.

I second the recommendation of getting a Model M--how cheap you wait to get it depends on how interested or not you are, but even if you aren't immediately interested, I would still suggest not missing on the opportunity to get a Model M for <30 bucks with shipment and/or when you find one in factory condition. A better thing still is an IBM model F keyboard, though then you need an AT>PS/2 converter (sometimes resulting in two converters).

Sometimes you might be able to get it cheaper if it has a non-US layout, e.g. right now I'm using a UK layout keyboard with the US setting (except I've removed the keycaps anyway--you can't do that with an F, though, from what I know).

[Daniel Beaver]

Korean Starcraft players use the cheapest, crappiest keyboards and mice ever. Keyboards may affect your performance in some games, but not in Starcraft or Stacraft II.

If you have the desk space, and don't mind the lack of Windows keys, buy a Model M. Everybody likes Model Ms.

[Jalal]

i am pretty sure the fruit dealer aka cool uses a logitech g9/g9x , and he showed great unit control, okay the rest use logitech g1, standard korean mice and razer abyssuses, the cheapest gaming grades indeed.
Yes almost all use a cheap keyboard (qsenn dt-35), but i believe it feels better than many rubber domes.

Again about mice, i think the logitech mini optical users decrease in sc2, although its a great mouse and immediately fitted me, but with 400dpi on 1024x768 is not so good. It's IdrA's and Nada's current setup, still i doubt they wouldn't be better off with higher dpi, but i could be wrong too. And ofcourse training compensates for everything. (12-16h/day, don't think you could compete with them unless you train that much)

[Daniel Beaver]

What mice are Idra and Nada using? I know Razer mice are popular in the US scene, but I am not sure what they are using over in Korea. I could imagine that a high-precision mouse would be helpful. But I would maintain that RTS games in general do not benefit from a "good" keyboard. Fine-tuned WASD control on FPSs would be the only benefit I could imagine.

[Jalal]

Those two use the logitech mini optical. in korea they use those mice i have listed, i have only thought about what they used on the GSL while writing it down.

Yes i also think a better keyboard will not really help, but you want it to feel good atleast, not mushy (logitech standard) or too stiff (microsoft standard) -> so a cherry g83-6105 for example . There is also something special about the DT-35, but we shouldn't bother because its not worth its shipping cost.

[MyNameIsDan]

as a recent convert to filco browns, as a math and compsci major that likes to game a lot, I can tell you that browns feel VERY light and its easy to make a typo on it, yet it is quite effortless to type on it, altho I tend to bottom out a lot.

From the impressions I got from what people on this forum say about cherry browns, I think they exaggerate on the stiffness of blacks. If it is still easier to type on a black than rubber dome then it can't be that stiff... I guess they're too used to the easy light keys of blues/browns.

[Sintpinty]

Browns are better for typing by far. I can achieve high speeds on it but idk, blacks are extremely stiff and plain uncomfortable

[Ilostmytoeinvietnam]

I hate to do this, I really do, but no matter what you do, do not go for anything made by cherry, unless it was manufactured by cherry in the 80's. also tell that friend what I'm about to tell you now. the main complaint for cherry is the linears are scratchy, the tactiles are barely tactile, and the clickies make a horrendous click noise that is loved by people who don't know better, and hated by people that do. the final complaint that most people have is that the weighting for cherry mx is so strange. the light ones are so light and hyperactive, with them being set off with just the weight of your fingers (so a no for touch typing) while the heavy ones are bone breakingly heavy. note that i like a heavier switch, but would advice against it for your use case. for linears, go with gateron red ink (make sure its the ink version), novelkeys cream, alps skcc cream, alps skcc green, alps skcl green, (if you can find them). for tactiles go for orange alps (apple m0116), topre, aliaz, or zilents/zealios (they are the same thing but one is silenced) or black alps. to find these search up dell bigfoot. for clickies go for kailh box jade, navy, pink, or white, alps skcm blue, or Matias tactile pro (the name is deceiving.) you can't know till you have tried, and if all you have tried is cherry mx blue, then that is one hell of a bad first impression. please take my word on this as I have tried a bunch of cherry switches (manufactured by cherry, not the cherry style stem) and they all have very similar problems. and all of the options listed above are practically divine intervention compared to the lactose goblins that are cherry mx. as a final note, the colors that I have listed in the essay above do not correspond with the weightings of cherry mx. take note that black alps are significantly lighter then mx blacks, and also are a different switch type in the first place, with mx blacks being linears, and black alps being tactile. cherry mx is just too unbearably average to be worth anyone's time.

[jacethesaltsculptor]

@Zore

If you can swing the extra cash get a tester: https://www.amazon.com/Max-Keyboard-Mechanical-Keyboards-keyswtich/dp/B07ZK6LKZL/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=key+tester&qid=1577716723&s=electronics&sr=1-5
Of course, get one that has the various switches you wish to test, so if you only want to test 4 switches, buy one with those four switches.

Or if money is no object and you really WANT TO KNOW just what switch you want:
https://kbdfans.com/collections/switches-tester/products/kbdfans-72-switches-tester-all-in-one

I bought one of these and use it quite a bit for friends, and as a desk toy.

Preferences for what someone likes to type on are thousands of different faces on hundreds of different people. You'll get a ton of conventional and not so conventional people who all type differently.

For example, I really smash my keys with my hands, I've just always done so, I've been working on typing more lightly, but old habits die hard. For this reason, buckling springs, and harder clicky switches really appeal to me and I type best on those. You may be completely the opposite, and that's cool, some people prefer strange switches to type on.

I'm currently writing this post from an Old IBM model f that I would have someone take from me only from my cold dead fingers because the typing feel to me is amazing. (I've had a few friends tried it and then who hated it, or can't even tell how it's different.)

Best of luck with your search, but if you are doing a democratic vote of what people in this thread prefer: I'm a Cherry blue, buckling springs kinda guy, and I got one of my keyboards banned from the office for that reason, so I type rubber dome at work, and loud clicky at home.

[yuppie]

Always black

[Greag56]

Topre all the way.
You might be a bit underwhelmed by them if you're coming from a rubber dome board, but you will learn to appreciate them .
Now...about your budget...

I agree. Great option.

[tacomn]

Get a leopold or varmilo is my recommendation. I honestly found out that the quality of the board is really really important and makes two boards that have the same switch massively different.

Also instead of a switch tester go to best buy and try a board with linears and tactile like brown.

[Leslieann]

Linears are bad for typing, clicky (especially blues) are bad for gaming.

Tactiles like browns work great for both, it's also why most people start there and recommend others start there.

[Polymer]

as a recent convert to filco browns, as a math and compsci major that likes to game a lot, I can tell you that browns feel VERY light and its easy to make a typo on it, yet it is quite effortless to type on it, altho I tend to bottom out a lot.

From the impressions I got from what people on this forum say about cherry browns, I think they exaggerate on the stiffness of blacks. If it is still easier to type on a black than rubber dome then it can't be that stiff... I guess they're too used to the easy light keys of blues/browns.

No that's not it...Blacks are tiring for anyone used to an average keyboard because the effort you need to consider is how much it takes to bottom out. 

Blacks are clean but heavy...if you use them long enough you'll get used to them though, but that's more of just forcing an issue other than finding the right type of switch. 

I also think linears aren't that enjoyable to type on...I think they're great for gaming and can be ok for typing. 

Blues are fine for gaming..you might run into some doubletap issues but that's not very likely.  If you are used to doubletapping and letting the key come all the way up, you'll be fine.  If you're used to doing it with only allowing the key to come up partially, you'll probably miss here and there because you'll be in this window where the switch hasn't reset.  That said, you'll get used to it and adjust.  I think a vast vast majority of people will never have any issues with blues as most people will never get to the point where that slight fraction of a mm is making a difference in your gaming where you're optimizing every ms of reaction speed/movement.  I think people would like to think they are but they're not.   

[Sintpinty]

Hey Zore, welcome to GeekHack...

I haven't used Cherry black but seeing as they are very heavy and non-tactile, I would expect typing long papers to be quite painful. I reccomend you go for the browns or (my personal favorite) Topre.

Me no like heavy switches, light linear gang with red is best

[dotor]

if you liked cherry blues, then get cherry blues  if you never had cherry blacks before, your fingers will hate you so much for attempting to type an essay with them...

[Rayndalf]

The original post was from 2010, Zore only has 2 posts, so I guess they picked a switch and liked it enough to stick with it.

[granola bar enthusiast]

is this guy racist why is he asking if people are brown or black

[mohawk1367]

Typing on blacks is, in a word, dreadful. I could understand their place on a pure gaming rig. But if you ever plan on doing significant typing, they are an awful choice.

If your mind is set on getting blacks, you might consider just holding on to whatever rubber dome board you are using right now. You can always use your old board for the 10,000 word essays. Blacks are in fact worse to type on than most rubber-dome keyboards.

I have never felt cherry browns, but I am sure a lot of people are going to suggest them as a good choice for dual-use. Cherry blues are fine for gaming as well. I have been putting in a few good hours of gaming on my Filco with blues, and find no real faults with them. They have a strange hysteresis effect which I don't care for, but claims of their inadequacy for gaming are grossly exaggerated.

Really? I'd think the total opposite. Blacks would be horrible for gaming I'd think due to their weight + how inconsistent stock Cherry springs are.

[Sandra_Walters]

Typing on blacks is, in a word, dreadful. I could understand their place on a pure gaming rig. But if you ever plan on doing significant typing, they are an awful choice.

If your mind is set on getting blacks, you might consider just holding on to whatever rubber dome board you are using right now. You can always use your old board for the 10,000 word essays. Blacks are in fact worse to type on than most rubber-dome keyboards.

I have never felt cherry browns, but I am sure a lot of people are going to suggest them as a good choice for dual-use. Cherry blues are fine for gaming as well. I have been putting in a few good hours of gaming on my Filco with blues, and find no real faults with them. They have a strange hysteresis effect which I don't care for, but claims of their inadequacy for gaming are grossly exaggerated.

Really? I'd think the total opposite. Blacks would be horrible for gaming I'd think due to their weight + how inconsistent stock Cherry springs are.

I totally agree with you, blacks are really terrible for gaming in my opinion, but I found them really uncomfortable for typing as well. I used black for my work and it was a disaster. I am an essay writer and it's very important for my job to type fast, btw if someone needs an essay https://ca.edubirdie.com/top-writers that's the link where you can find me, but if you are searching for a keyboard for writing Steelseries 6GV2 is not a good option. I would recommend Logitech Ergo K860 Wireless Ergonomic Keyboard.

[Darthbaggins]

I love Blacks for typing, but prefer something a tad lighter (around 55-60g) for both gaming and typing.  I use Blacks at work daily, but I have a set of Aquakings 62g that I use at home - also swap out for Drop Panda X's that I love as well for home use.  In the end do you prefer a tactile feedback or do you want a smooth feel - it all comes down to the user's preference in feel and needs.