geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Dragowing193 on Sun, 08 June 2014, 06:08:17
-
I am looking at some backlit keyboards and dude to my keyboard tray size, it would be preferable to have a TKL board. I do a lot of gaming in the dark so backlit is unfortunately a must. Any good recommendations? I know blue leds are not good quality and will burn out fast so I am not looking for that. Any good recommendations would be great because I can't find many that fit the description. I haven't been too keen on Ducky in the past though.
-
Ducky Shine.
WASD CODE (keep an eye out for these - they don't last long when they are available).
Maybe QRF-I (not sure if it is out yet, and I haven't seen any reviews of it, but we're hoping it will be just like a backlit QFR).
-
Although i haven't tried it,
http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-keyboard-blackbird-tenkeyless-tkl-cherry-mx-backlit-mechanical-keyboard.html
It is a keyboard with a "gamer design", with side ambient leds and full backlight (you can choose red or blue). Comes with a wrist pad and has 2 usb connectors.
Depending on a budget, it seems decent, considering it comes with double-shot key-caps that wont wear easily like on the majority of backlit keyboards.
The drawback is, they don't have red (so called gamer's) switches available atm.
-
Although i haven't tried it,
http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-keyboard-blackbird-tenkeyless-tkl-cherry-mx-backlit-mechanical-keyboard.html
It is a keyboard with a "gamer design", with side ambient leds and full backlight (you can choose red or blue). Comes with a wrist pad and has 2 usb connectors.
Depending on a budget, it seems decent, considering it comes with double-shot key-caps that wont wear easily like on the majority of backlit keyboards.
The drawback is, they don't have red (so called gamer's) switches available atm.
I own it and love it. Sold my CM Storm QuickFire TK with Cherry Reds for a Max Keyboard Blackbird with Cherry Browns. I primarily game, and found that I prefer browns to reds for gaming. Until I got the Blackbird, I also didn't realize I prefer PBT over the ABS the QuickFire TK has.
-
I love my Blackbird, there's only one other brand board with doubleshot keycaps that has backlighting and this one certainly looks better. The only negatives I have discovered is some strange incompatibility with my chipset at home z87 asus hero (works on all 7 other computers I have test it perfectly fine, the work around was to plug it in through a hub). So if you have that particular board you might look into the deck keyboard instead.
Only other complaint is that I don't like the location for the lock-light indicators. When they are above the Ins/Home/PgUp they can be hard to see. The backlighting in red or blue should be fine though with either keyboard. I think the issue people have with blue LED's has more to do with the quality of the keyboard itself. You want good current regulation for LED's but some places probably just use resistors or other poor forms of regulation.
if good keycaps are not important to you then I would look into getting the CM Storm Quickfire TK.
Also, nraymond the information above isn't correct the blackbird does not have PBT keycaps, they are doubleshot ABS. The doubleshot abs are still also nicer than regular painted ABS caps though! Deck is currently the only option for doubleshot PBT keycaps with backlighting, but IMO they didn't look as good or as uniform in the pictures, so it is a trade off I guess. I also love my blackbird, especially since it is a lot cheaper than the deck with it's funky fonts.
Another positive is that the blackbird is made in Taiwan, rather than china, although made in china does not indicate it is a bad board in itself it's not something I look for when purchasing, the QC for boards made in Taiwan seem to have less variance.
-
Also, nraymond the information above isn't correct the blackbird does not have PBT keycaps, they are doubleshot ABS. The doubleshot abs are still also nicer than regular painted ABS caps though! Deck is currently the only option for doubleshot PBT keycaps with backlighting, but IMO they didn't look as good or as uniform in the pictures, so it is a trade off I guess. I also love my blackbird, especially since it is a lot cheaper than the deck with it's funky fonts.
Thanks for the correction - I'm not sure how I got confused, but you are right. Perhaps I just thought they must be PBT because the plastic texture is so different from my old Quickfire TK? (I prefer the Blackbird, and I'll take it's doubleshot ABS keys over the funky-font PBT doubleshots on a Deck keyboard.)