geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Matt3o on Tue, 21 August 2012, 06:57:38
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After sometime with a Filco tenkeyless with reds I finally bought myself the same keyboard but with blue (ninja this time). I wanted to share with you my impressions (if anybody cares).
First of all the blues are not so horribly noisier than the reds in standard typing. On the red the noise comes from the button hitting the base and being the keys very soft it's easy to put overpressure. The blue switch has a higher resistance and together with the tactile feedback I end up making less stroke noise (which is replaced by the soft click sound). Of course if you are extremely gentle, typing on the red could be completely noise-less (but that's not my case).
One thing that I noticed about the blues is that the actuation point is really short, maybe I would have liked a slightly longer actuation point, but that's probably just a matter of getting used to it. The key travel is something like: OFF--->CLICK->ON------------->End-of-travel.
I tried to switch a couple of times from red to blue while writing this post and I really can't say which one I like most. They are two completely different worlds. Reds are definitely more relaxing on the fingers, but I'd say I prefer the tactile feedback and the clicky sound of blues. Probably the mx red will end up to my wife's PC, she was pretty envious of my mechanical keyboard and I hope she won't become a keyboard addicted, it would be too expensive for the family :P
Typing speed: I tried on http://10fastfingers.com/typing-test/english and surprisingly I'm 5 WPM faster on the blues.
One note about the keycaps print. I have the black keyboard and the Filco has very bright white text which tends to grey out pretty quickly. I don't know if it's a defect of my sample but in less than a month the most used keys are already grayed out, not worn out, just greyed (and I don't eat at the PC). That's why I took the ninja as my second keyboard.
Apart from that the keyboard is a great piece of hardware. I Totally love it!
Hope this helps someone to pick his/hers new keyboard.
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Matt, thanks for that quick impression. I'm sure it'll help members here one way or another and yes, it can turn into a very expensive hobby indeed. :)