well, lets see.
5.) I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "throws".
ie, the distance from top of keystroke to bottom of keystroke.
6.) Didn't you mention in your post that NKRO wouldn't be critical for me? I'm not sure, because I've never used a board that had such a feature, so I couldn't say one way or another. I suppose I wouldn't absolutely require it, but I'd consider it a bonus on the keyboard I buy.
well, other gamers might chime in here. I dont know how critical it would be for strategy games, which is what, I gather, you mostly play. I know FPSers (first person shooters) do like n-key but those games put special stresses on the keyboard's controller that it has to handle. TO be honest another reason you may want n-key is if you type super-fast. Whats your wpm? 100 or above? But like you say, for now, lets say its a 'bonus' feature.
so --
if you dont want too much key resistance, among mech boards you're probably looking at cherries or topres (Topres are out of your price range. Most cherry boards are too but a couple of models should be just within your price range.)
Cherries come in two flavors of interest here; blue cherries (audible click plus tactile feel) and brown cherries (no audible click, slight tactile feel).
You mentioned $50 to $60. Blues are easier to find in this price range. I can think of one n-key model and one non-n-key model:
For example, you might like adesso's new blue cherry board that just came out, and also happens to be advertized as n-key: $63 [
froogle shows at least one store that has it for $58 w/ free shipping]
http://www.provantage.com/adesso-mkb-125b~7ADES09Q.htmIn fact, if you buy it, you'll be the first known person at GH to own it, and we'll want to see a review! But because no one has reviewed it yet, we dont know much about it (quality, whether it lives up to manufacturer's specifications, etc). It will
probably be just fine however, and provantage does take returns, so you should be safe there. Its definitely one of the cheapest blue cherry boards (and with n-key, no less) that exists right now.
Another inexpensive blue cherry board is the scorpius m10 (reviewed by numerous people in the reviews section of the GH site). Not n-key. I've owned it and personally i like it just fine, and for your purposes will likely be just fine. See some of the reviews if you want a variety of opinions (of which there is no shortage here).
$59 w/ free shipping
on ebay; plus if you use the
much-talked-about bing.com 8% discount, you'll get it for about $55 if my math is right. THats the cheapest new blue cherry board you'll get.
Those are the two i can think of that fit closest to your requirements at the moment. Other options: buy a
used board on ebay (or GH marketplace) if a cherry board (brown or blue) is available. There are a ton of other cherry-based keyboard models (see the wiki for model names and numbers) that sell for over $100 when new but can be had as used models for less, tho they're not always on the market at a given time.
hope that helps!
