First Impressions

[Fanmonty]

Ok I have the Deck, my first impressions are mixed. Some of the keys have uneven back lighting leading to a brownish color coming through on both the f and j keys. The build quality is amazing though and I like the look of it including the strange font on the keys. The keycaps are smoother than I like though, but better than the Logitech G110. When I first tried it my typing speed was better and I rarely hit the wrong key, but after using it for an hour of light typing and web browsing, it starts to hurt a little bit and cause some wrist pain, I am currently testing to see if that is the keyboards fault or the wrist rest I bought. Also after about an hour I start getting just as many typos and wrong key presses as my old board, it is a few days later now, and when I start using the board, I am having the pain and wrong button presses, I am probably going to be returning this keyboard and going back to rubber domes, but this overall has been a good experience and now I know what I was missing. I am going to give it a few more days and I will report back with my final decision.

[Phaedrus2129]

Sounds like blacks, since he described it as "smooth". For someone going from a 35-45g rubber dome to a 60g MX black board, I certainly would expect pain with typing, especially if you don't know how to not bottom out, in which case it's an 80g switch.


Might want to try MX blues, browns, or reds next time.

[washuai]

I think ergonomics need to be carefully looked at.  Fatigue style pain is more associated with needing less force in a switch, feels different than just having wrist pain after an hour.  This sounds a little more like Fanmonty needs to carefully examine ergonomics and form.  I get wrist pain sometimes doing the reach, because of full size keyboard versus trackball location.  I do get mild fatigue if I have a major document to type up on the rubber chicklet, because it requires more force, than my cherry brown board. Fatigue pain feels quite different than that bad ergonomically caused pain and more importantly fatigue can be felt and one can take a break, then jump back in, before any pain happens.    Fanmonty do you feel the pain of exercising muscles you aren't used to exercising?  Do you have someone that can watch you and see where you went wrong ergonomically?  Can/have you catch yourself bending your wrists in ways you shouldn't?  If you take a moment and train a friend what to watch for, even a non professional can spot some basics.  
Makes me happy that I hover (laptop being the only exception) and don't have to bother buying wrist rests.  I do like having wrist rest for the mouse, occasionally.
If it is fatigue, then it sounds like Fanmonty needs browns or reds or blues, but clearly the OP likes backlit, which without modding good luck on that.  I really want a blue or multicolor LED backlit board with reds for gaming, myself.  Unless I'd made the plan to mod before purchase, then I would return a $169+ board, rather than switch out the springs on all the switches, too.  I think I can actually handle the extra force of blacks and clears, but it still wouldn't be my daily driver.

[Fanmonty]

By smoothness I meant the plastic on the key, I use the frost clear switch keyboard, I do feel I may be bending my wrist too much. I bought a cheap Fellowes Memory Foam wrist rest, which may be the problem, the way I type is my right hand I have on the rest and I use four fingers to type, in a kind of claw grip while my left hand hovers and does one key at a time as I use only one finger. I am getting more typos than I ever did with my old keyboards, and my favorite keyboard is still my dad's old Dell Quietkey. I am thinking of buying the Unicorp Spacesaver with rubber domes, but I need to know the required key pressure as I am used to low pressure keys.