Author Topic: Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?  (Read 1425 times)

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Offline MaTachi

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« on: Sat, 15 October 2011, 19:47:38 »
Hi!

I'm planning to buy my first mechanical keyboard, and the one I have in mind is Noppoo Choc Mini with brown switches. It costs only about 100 $ from Ebay (including shipping), which I think is a really good price.

However, I'm not completely sure yet. I'm going to use it for programming and gaming. I think I will like that it's so small, and therefore will the mouse be much closer to the letter keys. And it looks pretty neat with the arrow keys much closer to the letters too. But do you think its compact layout will be a problem when programming? When I have looked on pictures of the keyboard layout it didn't seem to be a problem. But yeah, some input would be awesome.

// MaTachi
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Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #1 on: Sat, 15 October 2011, 19:51:37 »
This is one of those things that you really have to try it to know.  Some people really love the smaller keyboards like the Choc Mini and the Poker.  Myself, I like the standard layout so in your situation I would probably go for a Leopold tenkeyless or something like that.  Unfortunately, unless you live in Tokyo, there's no local keyboard store that you can run down to and try out all these fabulous keyboards before you buy them and take them home :/
Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline MaTachi

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #2 on: Sat, 15 October 2011, 20:02:44 »
I can't find any Leopold keyboards on Ebay, and no stores in Europe did appear when I googled... :/

I have looked a bit on Filco Majestic-2 Tenkeyless. But it costs about 140 €, which is almost twice as much as for the Noppoo Choc Mini. And I think that Choc looks pretty nice even if it's compact.
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Offline hashbaz

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #3 on: Sat, 15 October 2011, 22:20:01 »
I've spent time coding with a Choc Mini.  There's an adjustment period, as with any non-standard layout, but I got used to it very quickly.  My biggest gripe is that Home and End are on the function layer.

Offline MaTachi

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 16 October 2011, 02:49:57 »
Ah, nice. =) I hardly ever use Home or End anyways, so I don't believe it will affect me. Thanks for your reply, I'm pretty sure that I will purchase this keyboard then.
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Offline hashbaz

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 16 October 2011, 02:53:11 »
Are you a vim user? ;)

If you feel like trying blues, I have one for sale...

Offline calavera

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #6 on: Sun, 16 October 2011, 03:32:39 »
I love mine. But come to think of it, instead of having print, home, end, and insert on the function layer, it would have been awesome if they were on a seperate row. Keyboard would have been wider by an inch at the most.

Offline MaTachi

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Noppoo Choc Mini (Brown) - a good choice?
« Reply #7 on: Sun, 16 October 2011, 07:06:06 »
Quote from: hashbaz;432152
Are you a vim user? ;)

If you feel like trying blues, I have one for sale...
No, I use nano. *embarrased* I have never spent time learning all weird hotkeys in vim. But I prefer Gedit if I'm running a graphical desktop enviornment (which I always am). You mean that in vim they use Home, End etc.? ^^
And thanks for the offer, but I will buy a new one from Ebay. Sry. ;)

Quote from: calavera;432161
I love mine. But come to think of it, instead of having print, home, end, and insert on the function layer, it would have been awesome if they were on a seperate row. Keyboard would have been wider by an inch at the most.
Yeah, agree. But I suppose you can't have everything. :/
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