geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: overture2112 on Tue, 29 March 2011, 17:17:58
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I'm looking for advice on buying two new boards for myself; one for typing code at work and one for gaming at home. I was hoping some more experienced folks here could sanity check my thought process and offer any advice.
1. I want two different switch types to experience more variety.
2. I used Model Ms throughout university (unfortunately no longer have access to one) and really enjoyed them, but I haven't tried any other switches so maybe I really like buckling springs but maybe I just like sturdy boards with longer throw and midway actuation (or just hate cheap domes).
3. Noise isn't an issue as our office is noisy, most of my coworkers have Unicomp BS boards anyway, and I live alone.
4. I noticed that every BS board I've tried has had 2KRO and thus was unusable for certain games, so unless I'm mistaken, that eliminates BS boards for the one at home.
5. My current domes at work and home both require >60g to actuate and based on my experience with them and the Model Ms, I'd be interested in trying out a significantly lighter switch.
6. Must be tenkeyless and I would even consider a compact board like the Poker or HHKB.
Obviously since I've only used a buckling spring I'm mostly basing this on what I can gather from force diagrams and thought experiements, but my current thoughts are:
A clicky board for work (cherry blue or buckling spring). I figure I can't go wrong either way as they're both safe choices, but I'm leaning towards the blues as they're a bit lighter and something new.
A light force board for home (cherry red, an extra light topre, or cherry brown). I'm more woried about this as the linear force of the reds is completely foreign to me (although sounds good in theory) and the topre's force is frontloaded (so I question the subjective lightness). Furthermore the topre is quite expensive, there's very limited options for tenkeyless reds (and I heard a 3 month wait for the compact KBC Poker), and browns scare me as some king of mediocrity. I'm also curious about the subjective feel of using a linear black and just not bottoming out.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to your thoughts.
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Well, i think you've largely answered your own question - get 2 tenkeyless or smaller boards, one with cherry blues, and the other browns. The leopolds over at EK come in both.
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Yea, I mostly wanted a general sanity check from someone who's actually used these so that I'd feel more confident before spending a few hundred dollars, as well as some guidance on the choice of a light board.
So why do you suggest a brown over a red or light topre (eg. 30/45/55 or uniform 35g), if you don't mind me asking?
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Thanks. I've been doing pretty much nothing but browsing the forum for the last week and it seems pretty nice.
Yea, to be honest I thought mechanical keyboards were just the domain of grad students and unix admins so I was quite surprised when I started working at my new job. Even more so when we found out our manager was quitting and the first thing someone did was call dibs on his keyboard.
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So why do you suggest a brown over a red or light topre (eg. 30/45/55 or uniform 35g), if you don't mind me asking?
well, topres are quite expensive, and IMHO feel like a high quality springy dome keyboard (because they are) and if you're buying two boards, a topre eats that budget alone. As for browns vs reds, reds are harder to come by and are largely popular at the moment because until recently, they were only available in Asia. Across many polls you'll find blues and browns to be the two most popular switches because they represent the lowest common denominator of click and non click switches.
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Who could have foreseen that a $300 board with rubber domes with springs underneath would feel like a "high quality springy dome keyboard"?
There seems to be a stigma with rubber dome keyboards due to most of them being cheaply made pieces of @#$%.
Topre switches offer a fairly unique key feeling in a high quality board, and that's nothing to be sniffed at. Whether they are worth the huge premium is another question however!