Greetings from Germany

[nostalgix]

Hello everybody,

I don't know how many of you are really interested, but I'd like to introduce myself. I am from Germany, almost 42 (finally!) and working as DevOps Engineer with vim as my IDE. Therefore I type a lot and I prefer typing over copy and pasting my stuff together like lots of my colleagues do.

It all began back in the days with an old IBM Model M which I used up to 2008 I guess. I had to stop using it on a daily basis because my new workmates did not enjoy the sound of it too much. So I used one of the offices regular Dell keyboards before I asked my boss if it would be possible to get a silent DasKeyboard. It was silent but it felt wrong and so I switched to brown switches without telling anybody.
Because of switching jobs I lost access to the keyboard and had to get a new one. DasKeyboard again. This time I chose a Prime 13 model with brown switches again. It did not feel well build and I regretted that decision for a long time. But kept using it because it still felt better than those flimsy keyboards the office offered.

A couple of weeks ago I got the opportunity to get a Kono Nightfox and I went down the rabbit hole of mechanical keyboards.
I have to admit that I am not willing to pay hundrets of dollars/euros for fancy keycaps, but you probably should ask me about that in a few months again. But at the moment I regret not having an office at home, too, for setting up a second mech there. I am toying with the idea of getting a Pok3r anyways.

Cheers,
nostalgix

[_GMK_]

I own a 60% pok3r but I miss very much the arrows. Plus the pok3r is unusable for me (low quality stabilizers that broke 2 of my spacebars, unusable firmware). So stay away from pok3r and the vortex brand.

My next keyboard is a tkl, but I would probably consider a 65% too (pok3r plus arrows).

Probably you'll want to try some hot swap pcb, to understand what is your favourite switch.

Here are some (I've tried none of these):
https://www.lfkeyboards.com/lfk65-hs/
https://mechboards.co.uk/shop/all/hs60-pcb/
https://candykeys.com/product/gk64-rgb-60-hot-swap-pcb
https://kbdfans.cn/ (many pcbs)

I can surely suggest you to look only into keyboards that are compatible with qmk or tmk firmware. Nothing else.

[AJM]

Hello from Germany, as well.

Just for the record: I have 4 vortex keyboards and swapped the keycaps on all of them without breaking anything. The stabilizers seem pretty good to me, certainly better than the original Cherry ones, that I got in a board from kbdfans.ch.
Also better compared to kbdfans.ch: All switches sit perfectly plane and straight in a Vortex board.
Concerning "unusable firmware": While the programming capabilities are limited, they're sufficient for 98 % of people and after a bit of practice I find them quite comfortable. And after one has tried to flash another keyboard with QMK toolbox, one comes to appreciate the programing-directly-on-the-keyboard approach.

One quirky negative detail about Vortex: Their Race 3 boards seem to come often with screws that are too small, so they don't hold the case and the inner assembly together properly.

[nostalgix]

Thank you both for your experiences.
I have a workmate who seems to be very confident about the Pok3r. He has the LE version.

But I will think about the hot swap pcb. Another part of me was already fantasizing about putting my own kboard together. I thought about a soldering construction though, but for testing different switches that might be a bit more work.

[_GMK_]

Kbdfans is known to sell fake cherry stabilizers, so that doesn't count.
Pok3r is expensive too, you spend less if you build your own keyboard. The case is ugly, I got a ten USD case from AliExpress and it looked and sounded way better. And the keycaps. They start to fade after two days. They are worse than the g80 Lasered keycaps.

I use vim all the time, but at work I need arrows, because they're really necessarily when not using the beloved vim.

[_GMK_]

I forgot to say that more and more keyboards are compatible with the qmk GUI for programming, for example the one on http://mechboards.co.uk