Hi everyone!
I've been here reading stuff for the last couple of weeks and I am severely impressed by what I've read! Also feel like I acquired some sort of education on keyboards
I type a lot daily and am very interested in customizations. I've been using autohotkey for ages, and also my list of vim macros is endless.
I haven't bought a keyboard yet because I can't make up my mind what I want/need.. I was hoping you guys could help me with that (not sure if I should make a separate post about it). What I'm realizing the more i read/search, is that I need features from two different camps (gamers vs typists) and nothing seems to reconcile the two..
My requirements for a keyboard are as follows:
1. firmware programmable. Ideally, a lot of layers, as programmable as possible. I would fill every key with macros and key bindings. I kind of do that already with ahk and vim, but it doesn't work 100% of the time for me.
2. As soft and effortless as possible.
3. NOT TKL. The more keys the better. I do use the numeric for various stuff (changing desktops, moving windows around, toggling/editing various ahk scripts)
4. Preferably not ergonomic.
5. LEDs welcome but not a must. the only place i need lights on is my laptop (it doesn't have any and I hate it for that!!)
Extra information* I am writing a lot of LaTeX (in two languages, greek and english), and I also program a little. With Vim, sublimetext3 and pycharm, so having better key combinations for all these is important to me.
* I love caps lock, do not want it to vanish or move away. I use it to switch fast between english and greek. This may happen really often, especially in LaTeX and chat.
* I am a typist. There is no gaming going on (except for spelunky which i've been playing daily for the last 8 months)
Keyboard History:*I currently have a microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 700 v2. This is by far the softest and smoothest (non-mechanical) keyboard I have ever typed in (anyone has any idea how many grams it is? is that 30-45gr?). The only problem is the buttery feel wears off after a couple of months of use (I type *a lot*). So i was hoping i could find a mechanical switch that feels like this. I was thinking either cherry mx red or topre (what do you think?). My typing is really soft and fast (~ 100WPM). Cannot describe the key travel in that keyboard, but I know I hate all laptop keyboards.
* I had once bought (logitech's?) wave keyboard, but I didn't like it at all. The keys got harder to press with time, and the ergonomic part of it sucked.
* I initially considered buying a realforce, but there are no macro keys, and no programmability.
* The ergodox looked very interesting (because of programmability and extra thumb keys), but for me it's too much work. I'm not much of a DIYer.
* I was also considering the TEK (despite not lusting for an ergonomic keyboard), but rejected it after a while after realizing how much training it would require AND after reading about many faulty units. Although its programmability sounded ideal.
*Macro keys look very useful, and for this reason I was briefly considering the corsair K95, but it's not firmware programmable (I mean, no layers, and no mapping L to a K).
budget: no more than 350 Euros (including shipping). would be happy if i ended up spending 150 though.
Sorry for the long post you guys, tell me if you need me to split it into a separate post.
Thanks very much for your time!
