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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: koala on Thu, 05 April 2012, 20:24:37

Title: help: want cheap and pretty good mechanical keyboard
Post by: koala on Thu, 05 April 2012, 20:24:37
I dont know which keyboard is good but i live in canada and i have looked at a couple keyboards such as the CM storm quickfire rapid are their any other good mechanical keyboards that are pretty cheap? leave suggestions please =P
Title: help: want cheap and pretty good mechanical keyboard
Post by: sherryton on Thu, 05 April 2012, 20:38:58
Depends what kind of keyboard you are looking for.  If you plan to look for a 104 sized keyboard, then you should try newegg.  They are decently priced.  The CM Storm are good mechanical keyboards as well for the price.
Title: help: want cheap and pretty good mechanical keyboard
Post by: koala on Thu, 05 April 2012, 21:05:45
ive heard about alps switches is there any difference between them and cherry switches also is there a difference in price?
Title: help: want cheap and pretty good mechanical keyboard
Post by: retsteel on Thu, 05 April 2012, 22:17:38
cherry switches are a lot more common it seems and there are many types of each, may I suggest this (http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Geekhack+WorldWide+Shopping+Links) for your reading pleasure?
Title: help: want cheap and pretty good mechanical keyboard
Post by: retsteel on Thu, 05 April 2012, 22:18:48
also my personal preference for cheap and good would be a nice used model m(what other kind is there...).
Title: help: want cheap and pretty good mechanical keyboard
Post by: dorkvader on Thu, 05 April 2012, 23:55:54
There are some pretty good mechanical keyboards that are cheap. I really liked the CM storm QF rapids I have. I have also heard of other keyboards from ducky, PLU, and keycool that are decent, and pretty cheap (50-80USD range)

ALPS keyswitches are less common than cherry, at least in modern keyboards. They are pretty confusing, and everyone seems to prefer the old "complicated" ones. I thought the green alps on a certain ducky keyboard sounded pretty good, though I haven't tried them myself.

I like the tactility of the ALPS keyswitches on my ALPS-u-lator, but I don't think they'd be very good for typing.
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If you like small keyboards, you can try the Cherry G84-SPAUS model. I was very pleasantly surprised by it: I hadn't thought a low profile switch could be that good, and I use it at my desktop constantly. I think I was able to get it for $15 shipped from eBay. The best bet would be to grab a decent IBM model M or old ALPS 'board from goodwill or maybe ebay, if you really want value for money.