A couple of things: "mac compatibility" is largely a hoax drummed up by Apple to sell their products and license. Command, option, etc -- all those keys map to OS agnostic keys like super and alt. I work on Macs almost exclusively these days and have never once considered "mac compatibility" -- all boards should do the trick.
As for your layout, are you OK with using layers? I would recommend a number of great compact boards (60-68%) at that price point without F-rows. For example, I use a 60% board these days, but have immediate access to arrow, nav, and function keys through a layer.
Also, are you comfortable soldering? If so, you'd have to factor the price of soldering equipment into your budget (if you don't have that covered already). If not, you should only look at hotswap boards. The Obliterated75 is a solder-pcb whereas the Instant60 PCB (great for the Brutal60 is hotswap).
As lake mentioned, anything in the Brutalist series from CannonKeys is great. At that price point you have wiggle room for switches and maybe some nice caps (depending on which board you go with). A Brutal60, pcb, plate, switches, and GMK caps would run you ~450-500.
GMMK Pro is also pretty highly praised in the community if you want something quick and easy.
Obligatory edit: the best way to spend 500 is on whatever makes you happy. There is no "best" or "right" way, as much as this hobby subconsciously makes you believe there is.
Thank you. I've been doign more digging/searching/asking aroudn the web and I'm sort of here now:
Because of the way I work I use a ton of shortcuts and they all involve CMD button. On my magic keyboard it's right under X button, so shortcuts like Cmd+Shift+M are doable with my left hand without much strain (I laso have large hands and long fingers). On most mechanical keyboards it seems that the Ctrl/Cmd button is in the middle between Z and X keys. I've tried remapping by CMD to Option button and I can't do shortcuts like Cmd+Shift+O with one hand anymore. It slows me down.
Someone suggested to remap Caps Lock to be Cmd, and I tried that – In deed for simple shortcuts it's quite intuitive and I had no problem after maybe 3 hours of getting used to it, but I have to use my pinky for that. Then, something like Cmd+Shift+M becomes completely impossible.
I guess my case is very rare, as what I want is pretty much a laptop/magic keyboard layout but with mechancial switches and in a nicer body with nicer caps. Googling reveals there were a few threads asking for this in the past, none received much replies. It seems liek an open spot in the market to me.
I found an EZO 84 board, but it uses EC switches and I am not familiar with those at all. I found a tofu (so no F row) wit ha custom PCB for Alps, that has my perfect layout, but afaik there are no 75-80% PCBs for alps either.
To answer the above question – I do need the F row. I use it all teh time for mac controls (brightness, play\pause, volume) but also with Fn button I use it for macros in various CAD and other professional apps. Same goes for arrow keys – I use them constantly to adjust object positioning in 3D for example.
The search continues I guess. At this point I am OK with soldering as it seems I will not be able to find something hot-swappable with this layout at all. Someone suggested hand-wiring and I am suuuper reluctant to do that, but if I don't find what I'm looking for I might go for it evenrually.
Thank you for all the answers.
