From Logitech Illuminated to realforce?

[whizz]

Hello guys, I want to say hello to all of you.

I spend two days reading this board and I am still amazed how many information there is.

I bought a Logitech Illuminated keyboard a week ago. First of all, I was impressed by the material, it feel very classy and also the design is very luxury. BUT when it comes to actual using of that keyboard, I am not so happy. First of all, the front row of keys, like CTRL, spacebar or ALT is stupidly rounded up, I have no idea who thought that this will be a great idea. I constantly pushing these keys when I don't want to.

Secondly, I the keyboard has a noticeable flex. I hate that. It is so slim and plastic, that you can push it like 5 mm down.

And at last, the feel. When I was typing, the keys has some "hard" end, and I found this not much comfy. Like typing to the table, nothing soft. I also feel some sort of vibration from the keys. I don't know what is causing this, it is when the key is going up again, I just feel some awkward feel in my fingertips. I also do some mistakes by pressing two buttons at once, because they are very close together (but damm it looks good!)

(BTW, before this, I had Enermax Aurora Aluminium, which was even harder, but made from a solid material it had no flex at all).

Because I am not so happy with my Logitech, I started to search the net and found mechanical keyboards. Finally I know, why our DELL keyboards in our school is so nice!

I found that Topre or Cherry brown should be the best for me by comparing some info. I do NO gaming, and I mean really 0 %. I am a designer, so I type, and using key-shortcuts in all the applications. I want a silent keyboard as possible too.

Now there is a question. I found that Realforce full keyboard should be nice, but, as I never had mechanical keyboard (or that Topre hybrid) before, I am a bit worried about it due to its price. That Enermax was expensive as a fu*k, that Logitech too, and now the realforce is even more.

So is there anybody, who could compare Logitech Illuminated with Perfectstroke to Realforce by his PERSONAL experience?

I also considering filco brown, but I hate these super-bright LEDs.

Thank you very much,
regards,
Whizz

[jaynoon]

Topres are quieter than Cherry Browns for sure, and have less of a "hard stop" which you describe as not liking about your Illuminated. You can definitely type on a Brown without bottoming out, which removes the hard stop, but it takes some practice.

My last keyboard was an Illuminated, and I've since purchased both a Filco Cherry Brown board, and a Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro. From your description, I think you'd probably like the Topres a little bit more than the Cherry Browns, but they're both good choices.

The blue lights on the Filco Browns SUCK, but they're never turned on because who the hell uses Caps or Scroll Lock?

[whizz]

Thanks for your input. About the LED, Caps and Scroll lock are dead for sure, but Num lock is ON in my case all the time. I need the numpad for InDesign shortcuts.

Can you please tell me your opinion on Illuminated and how these two compare to it? Do you have the same experience with the Illuminated?

[jaynoon]

Yeah, fingernail polish was another one I was going to suggest for altering or toning down the LEDs.

I forgot that the 104 key boards have a numlock (I'm on a tenkeyless).

I didn't mind the hard stop of the Illuminated as much as you, for a scissor-switch board I think they're actually quite nice. That said, the front row on them is maddening--both because of the convex keys, and also because they seemed to think it was OK to steal a Windows key and replace it with Fn.