In the world of mechanical keyboards, not everybody is looking for the same thing.
Some want keyboards designed for quick repeat keystrokes, and others want keyboards with stiffness and weight behind every key.
Some want dead-silent keyboards, others want artillery barrages.
Some people want tiny keyboards, others want aircraft carriers.
Some people want keyboards blank as a wall, others want keyboards with so many LEDs, they can host a rave.
Here are several keyboards that may not be as well known as other brands and models but I recommend you at least consider before your [next] mechanical keyboard purchase.
Let's begin with the HHKB Professional 2. It's actually a keyboard many of you may have already considered. It's small and compact, it looks understated, and it's lightweight. It has an unorthodox 60-key layout that many people find appealing. And of course, it has Topre keyswitches.
When you begin typing on this keyboard, there probably won't be a "holy ****" moment like all the hype for these Topre keyboards may suggest. But what you get is a very light typing experience but with enough of a tactile point near the top of the keystroke to not be linear. There is, however, very little resistance after passing said point, resulting in the key bottoming out and a dull thud. Releasing the key pushes the key back up again with a satisfying "thock" sound. In the realm of mechanical keyboards, it's unusually quiet.
The typing sensation on this keyboard is light, responsive, and accurate. In fact, for me, using this keyboard has produced the most consistent and precise typing experience. This is a keyboard does its job, gets out of the way, and lets man communicate with computer. And that's really what most people are looking for in a keyboard. Even if it is a bit pedestrian.
Compact, lightweight, quiet, responsive, and undeniably different from other mechanical keyboards, the humble little HHKB is rightly so the nirvana for many keyboard enthusiasts.
Moving on to another compact keyboard.
This is the Keycool 84 with Cherry MX clear switches. 84 plate-mounted keyswitches squeezed onto a board slightly larger than the HHKB, but decidedly much heavier. For a keyboard of its size, it's hefty, firm and sturdy feel is an unexpected surprise. My variant has an incredibly unappealing font on its white PBT keycaps, so I switched as many of them out as I could. A few blank keycaps should complete the makeover in the near future.
While Keycool 84s have been very popular due to their small size (while maintaining the function, arrow, and scroll keys), great build quality, and affordability, most of them are only available with MX blue, brown, red, and black switches. Interestingly, stock Keycools with clears have been produced and sold, albeit in strangely sporadic durations and in limited quantities.
Typing on clears has a difficult learning curve. I was supremely disappointed when I first began typing on them. They are terrible if you try typing on them fast while bottoming out: your fingers will feel like slogging through mud (yes, it's fatiguing even for Model M veterans), and it's a generally slow typing experience. Try to avoid bottoming out, and you will make plenty of mistakes with keypresses failing to pass the actuation point (leading to unregistered keypresses), again slowing you down.
However, typing on it more and more will eventually make you better. And soon, your fingers will instinctively know the perfect amount of force to use for each keypress without hitting bottom, and before you know it, you're on a roll.
And that's where the clear keyswitches shine.
The feeling and feedback of continuous, uninterrupted typing with clears feels like skipping on water. It's exhilarating. Each keypress is a quick bounce off the surface; stay too long and you will sink, miss a step and you throw yourself off balance, but if you hit your stride, nothing else compares. Maintain your run, and you'll be gliding over all.
The sensation of speed on this board is incomparable. If you can handle the delicacy that this particular keyswitch requires, you will reap the benefits sevenfold. Master it, and you will type faster.
If you want something different, something more demanding, try clears.
And the next keyboard is...
F.
Model F.
M's papa.
But if you're coming from the visceral feeling and orgasmic sounding IBM Model M and you're looking for a even burlier, brawnier father who just returned from the war, prepare to be disappointed.
The IBM Model F is more like M's college professor uncle that stayed back during the war, who, although sporting the same genes as M, is much more refined, precise, and cultured.
Unlike the M, which employs a buckling spring over membrane design, the F uses a capacitive buckling springs, resulting in a longer lifespan and reliability (at the price of more costly manufacturing).
From the exterior, the F's layout varies depending on when and what it was built for. My variant is a PC AT keyboard. Its function keys are on the left, and its numpad does double duty to accommodate for the lack of a dedicated navigation island and arrow keys. The Ctrl key is where Caps Lock usually resides, the Enter key grew a tumor on his head, and Backspace had a left mastectomy. On my keyboard, I swapped out stock keycaps for ones from an M, such as the "F", "J", and numpad "5" keycaps to make up for the absence of ridges on the original keys.
Typing on the F is somewhat similar to typing on the M, but with marked differences in feel. M's keystroke is dull and heavy, while F's is sharper and lighter. F feels more crisp and responsive, and pushing down the key completely returns a firmer feel. And while both keyboards are highly tactile in feedback, their voices are completely different.
Whereas typing on an M sounds like a toddler furiously rubbing Duplo bricks against one another, the F sounds like a flurry of ballpoint pens clicking in a hollow metal barrel. If you want brutal, hefty sounds from a keyboard, this keyboard will not do.
Model M enthusiasts who are looking for a meatier keyboard should stick with their Ms. But for those who appreciate better build quality and a quicker, snappier typing experience, go for an F. But beware, your ears may still prefer the much more substantial sounds of the M to the pingy clicks of the F. As for myself, however, in the war between ears and fingerkind, fingers win out.
Now I want to show you a keyboard you may have never even heard of.
The Matias Mini Tactile Pro.
Matias has been making keyboards for a while now, but they've been mostly doing Mac mechanical keyboards.
The Mini Tactile Pro is yet another compact keyboard that, like the Keycool 84, is just large enough to cram the function, arrow, delete, and scrolling keys onto its small plate. However, this one is designed to space out the F row with the standard gap between every four keys, which is arguably better for touch typing those F keys (the function keys on a Mac, by the way, conveniently default to the standard brightness/mission control/dashboard/media/volume keys as on the Apple keyboards). To make space for those gaps, Matias excised a few of the more useless keys, leaving the Delete, Pg Up and Dn keys (which double as Home and End).
Aesthetically, the exterior design is stuck in Apple's original iMac days, with its glossy white finish and curved body. It's not a particularly beautiful keyboard.
The Mini Tactile Pro has laser-etched legends on its ABS keys with the standard alphanumeric set as well as other symbols and letters that Mac users can input by holding down Option or Shift+Option. There are also 3 USB ports (two of them are positioned on the sides but near the shorter top portion of the keyboard, so as to minimize any attached USB devices' protrusion) and a micro-USB port for connecting its cable (a much more durable option than a mini-USB port).
Now, the Mini Tactile Pro uses Matias' self-developed clicky keyswitches which are a clone of Alps switches. That means they have a tactile point up on the top, and they are quite clicky. Very clicky. Compared to Cherry MX blues, though, these switches have more weight behind them, but not enough to feel like an M. It strikes a very good balance, in my opinion.
The sound of the Mini Tactile Pro also falls agreeably in between the M and the Cherries. Unlike the M's disturbingly brutal sounds, and unlike the paltry sounds of the Cherry MX blues and greens. the Matias sounds just right. It sounds like what a keyboard should sound like. Cherry MX blues' and greens' clicks are like cheap firecrackers compared to the deeper and richer sounds of the Matias clicky switch. They also sound more refined than Class 1.3G B shells that is the Model M. They're actually noisier than an M though, but as any car guy will tell you, that's just another reason why it's so good.
Each keyboard I've gone through here has a very unique feel and personality, and I enjoy using each of them. The Topre HHKB is a great all-around quiet keyboard that's accurate and light and succeeds in letting you focus on what you're doing on the computer rather than on the keyboard itself. The clear Keycool is insanely fun to type on if you can keep up, but as a daily driver it requires serious commitment. The F, while possessing nowhere near the powerful voice of the M, makes the M feel like typing in mud (although you could floss mod the springs to decrease the ping noises). And while I have to turn off the lights before I can kiss it goodnight, the Matias is hands down the best sounding, best feeling clicky keyboard I've ever typed on.
Keep in mind that there is no perfect board, and should you embark on that expensive journey in search of your end game keyboard, know that your favorite one may end up being the one costing the least. Mine was!
Happy keyboarding!
