Which to go for? HHKB Lite 2 vs Noppoo Choc Mini

[harataiki]

Hi, I've been lurking around this forum for a few days. I currently have Ubuntu 12.10 running on my aging macbook, with virtually no use of OS X left. I am also learning C from Kochan's Programming in C, which has led me to using Vim quite a lot recently. My current keyboard is a very crappy £10 bluetooth 'mac-esque" keyboard which is quite frankly horrible.

I have a limited budget (I can probably get together around £90 within about 3 weeks) so have really nailed it down to between the the Happy Hacking Lite 2, despite the trash talk I've see about it, I love its layout (obviously I'd love a Pro 2, but its waaaay out of budget and with a some big expenditures coming my way soon, I know I won't be able to afford it anytime soon) but the price from a seller on ebay plus the Royal Mail handling fee and import tax it's right up there at the very top of my budget.

Whereas the Noppoo Choc Mini sits a little more comfortably in the budget and seems to have quite a good rep. Are the mac problems a hardware problem or a software problem? Should it work perfectly fine under Ubuntu on my macbook or will the same problems encountered by many under OS X also appear under Ubuntu on Apple hardware?

Ultimately, I'm new to buying good keyboards (I suppose the last two good keyboards I had were the Packard Bell keyboard that came with a PC the family had in the mid 90s, and the keyboard on my Apple IIe that I've had since I was a kid. I humbly petion this community, which is would be the best keyboard to go for between the Choc Mini and HHKB Lite 2?

thank you in advance for any advice. 

[sth]

neither. i think noppoo MIGHT have fixed the problem but you may or may not get a newer one, and i heard there were some QA problems with the new ones anyway.
HHKBlite is a total ripoff. it's seriously not worth half the retail price.

basically you have your heart set on two keyboards that have problems and really aren't the best choice for your needs. have you looked into the Pure? it's hhkb-esque with cherry MX switches.

[tp4tissue]

err... why not just get the HHKB or topre tkl... I see the 90lb budget,  you can just save for a month, and you'll have more than enough for the HHKB.  )

there's no point to half ass it...

[jwaz]

err... why not just get the HHKB...

Ssshhhhhh


OP, get the noppoo! (or another small footprint alternative)

[FoxWolf1]

I'd be cautious about the Choc Mini...

I have a Noppoo myself (though not a Mini) and it's great, but it seems like, whether here or on OCN, you can't hardly throw a fish without having it land and flop around on a "My Choc Mini is malfunctioning!" thread.

[sth]

I'd be cautious about the Choc Mini...

I have a Noppoo myself (though not a Mini) and it's great, but it seems like, whether here or on OCN, you can't hardly throw a fish without having it land and flop around on a "My Choc Mini is malfunctioning!" thread.

it's because they implemented a ghosting fix that works best on windows, but for whatever reason barfs on mac (and maybe linux, i can't remember anymore).

OP just don't buy **** boards made by manufacturers who dont care about putting out even one quality product A real HHKB would be another good choice if you're a fan of the layout but i still recommend the pure for your budget.

[hashbaz]

Dr. Sth is in!

[harataiki]

sth: If the problems the Noppoo has on macs only appears under OS X, then its not really a problem, the last time I booted into OS X partition was 3 months ago. You're second reply came up as I was typing this, just looked at the KBT(?) Pure. £99.99 on amazon UK, right up at the top of the budget, but Damn, thats one good looking keyboard.

tp4tissue: If I didn't also have to buy new tyres for my motorbike (which is my only form of daily transport) then I would definitely just go for a HHKB Pro 2. also getting the HHKB's in the UK is exceedingly expensive, the higher price of the pro 2 adds Duty Tax to the VAT and as far as I can find, there are no stockists for the HHKBs in the UK


Thanks to all of you.

I think, I may just follow STH's advise, and aim for the Pure 60%, blue blacklight, if I do, which Switch would you recommend, the only real 'gaming' as such I ever do is a few laps on a game called rFactor, and I usually break out a joystick for that, so keyboard doesn't really matter for that, so typing is the only concern? Browns my best bet?

[sth]

personally i dislike browns (they're scratchy and the bump feels weird to me for some reason). blues are super obnoxious sounding but IMO feel the best of any stock cherry switch. you could also try a linear; i'd recommend the mx red. it's very smooth for an MX switch.

Dr. Sth is in!

slow day at work  )

[digi]

I just bought a Choc Mini w/ Reds for $99 on Amazon, free shipping with Amazon Prime, so far I really like it.

I used a Filco w/ Browns for the last two years. The Filco build quality might be slightly better, time will tell.

I use Windows 7 so I cannot speak on the OS related issues that STH brought up.

[Betty]

… so have really nailed it down to between the the Happy Hacking Lite 2, despite the trash talk I've see about it, I love its layout (obviously I'd love a Pro 2, but its waaaay out of budge...

I guess you're after the ctrl-key placement, right? As I'm a heavy vim user myself, I simply remapped the caps lock key to ctrl and can highly recommend that to all serious vim users. Just open the terminal and run the following command:
setxkbmap -option 'ctrl:nocaps'
(trust me this won't crash your system  , if you want this setting on every session you can place this in your .profile file)

Since I never had an HHKB, I only can say that this should not affect your decision on your future keyboard to much.

[harataiki]

Hey guys, thanks for all the help, just thought I'd give you an update. while looking to see if I could get the KBT pure via ebay cheaper than on amazon uk, I stumbled across a HHKB lite 2 that was at the time at £10 bid, I ended up bidding on it and got it for £16.50+£6p&p. It arrived yesterday and I've been using it ever since, and I have to say, short of the keyboard on my Apple IIe, this is possibly one of the best keyboards I've ever used (so far) and hell, for what £22, can't really go wrong (maybe one day I'll get something like Filco, but for now, this thing is great).

Thanks again.

PS: the only thing I am struggling to get used to on this keyboard is the slight weridness of the delete key, I have the switches so that the delete labeled key acts as a backspace, but for some reason that doesn't make fn+backspace the delete key, it makes fn+` the delete key, bit weird, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.