geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: chuckf410 on Fri, 23 November 2012, 19:22:48
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Hello Everyone,
It was recommended that I try posting here to get some advice on a keyboard purchase. I was recently exposed to mechanical keyboards and learned to enjoy them to the point I purchased a Das for myself. Now my wife has learned to enjoy the mechanical kb and wants one of her own. The kb will not be used for any heavy gaming. It will be used primarily under Windows XP or 7, and sometimes used under Linux (Fedora in particular).
She's happy with the brown switches and doesn't want a clicky switch. She does, however, want a backlit kb which rules out the Das for her. While she hasn't said so, a purple backlight would be a nice to have for her. I've found two different models that seem to fulfill the criteria. The first is the Ducky Shine II (DK9008S2) but the concern I have about that one is that in reviews it is often mentioned that the LED is more pink than purple. The second one is the Max Keyboard Nighthawk X8. I've not found a review of that one which mentions the color of the purple LED. Currently a tilting factor towards the Nighthawk is that through Monday they're on sale for $99 (down from $144).
Is there any big reason to stay away from the Nighthawk? I had never heard of them before searching for the purple LED bit. I notice that it comes with software for Windows. Will there be any hindrance to using the kb and modifying the backlighting under Linux without that? Loss of shortcut keys won't be an issue. And will I experience the same issue with the LED being more pink than purple?
Is there another brand that will satisfy the need for the purple LED and brown cherry switches that I should investigate? (I'm already staying away from Razor and Rosewill based on friends warnings about those brands.)
Thanks for your time.
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Thing is, one of the main reasons for people to stay away from Razer is its OEM, iOne. And who makes the Nighthawnk? Yeah, iOne.
And even if it does looks more pink than purple, if she wants the best quality LEDs and light effects in the market, the only available choice is Ducky.
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the first board jumped into my mind is a MX brown Ducky9008s2 with purple leds.
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You already mentioned that two keyboards that only come in purple LED, no other ones come with stock purple. Although, the purple on the Ducky won't be a satisfying purple. You could get almost any backlit keyboard and mod it to purple LEDs yourself. Purple LEDs generally run in the range of 3.0 - 3.5v, so choose a KB that is already backlit with green or blue. Switching out LED is not technically hard, but just tedious and time consuming.
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So iOne is not a good OEM? What are the good OEMs besides Costar?
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So iOne is not a good OEM? What are the good OEMs besides Costar?
TG3 Electronics, PLUM, Ducky, Datacomp, Topre...
Actually, there aren't that many OEMs out there... Just thousands of brands who make keyboards with them.
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Thanks for all the responses. We decided to go with the Nighthawk with a blue back light. She didn't want to risk it and get the 'wrong' shade of purple lighting.
I couldn't find any bad reviews about the company or their keyboards, so we're going to take a chance on them.
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Browse /r/keyboards/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards/). There was someone who had Nighthawk and was very satisfied with it. I would still be careful, because "iOne => questionable soldering quality".
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The only TRUE Purple color LEDs I've ever seen were on a keyboard in iOne's booth at Computex - it wasn't branded yet, just iOne OEM. I don't think they ever mass produced the board because the Purple LEDs were VERY expensive (I think I recall hearing something like 2 to 3 times the cost of other standard LED colors). I have no idea why it's so expensive to make a true Purple LED - I'm sure an engineer could explain it. The keyboard itself wasn't that impressive. I wish Ducky could get a hold of the LEDs though :)
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Two links to Wikipedia: The blue and white LED (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_LED#The_blue_and_white_LED) and also High-energy visible light (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-light_hazard#Blue-light_hazard)
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The only TRUE Purple color LEDs I've ever seen were on a keyboard in iOne's booth at Computex - it wasn't branded yet, just iOne OEM. I don't think they ever mass produced the board because the Purple LEDs were VERY expensive (I think I recall hearing something like 2 to 3 times the cost of other standard LED colors). I have no idea why it's so expensive to make a true Purple LED - I'm sure an engineer could explain it.
I've tried sourcing purple LEDs for quite a while and they're really hard to find in the US, even from large electronic stores like mouser and digikey. And you're right, they're really expensive as well. It's probably because what the diodes are made from to produce the purple color. And also the fact that purple is not a mainstream color like blue, red, or green.