Recommendations for New Cherry Keyboard

[Krogenar]

I love buckling springs, and ALPS aren't too bad, but all the love in terms of keycaps seems to fall to Cherry keycaps, so I'm considering getting a Cherry-based keyboard just to give them a whirl. So here's what I'm after:

1. Gotta be a solid-feeling board. Little to zero flex if possible.
2. Clicky keys, relatively stiff is fine -- my fingers are strong enough.
3. Does not have to be TKL. In fact, I rather like my 122 Model M, so I would not mind a large layout.
4. I'm a typist, a writer a coder -- I might play a game with the keyboard, but only very rarely and nothing requiring fast muscle twitch responses!

I'm hunting for a G80-2100 HDU, but no love so far, as this seems to be the keyboard that would most likely fit my requirements.
My guess is that a Cherry Blue or Cherry Green might be right for me. Any other suggestions would be great. Don't know if I'll be willing to wait for a 2100 to make its way onto the scene. I sort of ruled out Topre only because they're not clicky, and I love the clickiness of Model M's.

Or... do I just attempt a buckling spring keycap group buy? Has that even ever been done? Advice, please, or I will have to break out the nail polish and starting painting keycaps....

[Hyde]

To answer your question:

1. Most Cherry boards are plate mounted these days, so most likely it will have little to no flex.
2. MX Green sounds like what you'd want.
3. Sounds like Ducky or CM Storm are the only ones with green now, I do believe they have both tenkeyless and full size models.
4. Same as above.

So by doing a quick search I found the following:

Ducky:  http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=199
CM Storm:  http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=213

Since Ducky is out of stock, your only option now is CM Storm.  However, what color keycap do you want?  Because Unicomp do sell buckling spring keycaps.  Although they call them "buttons"  http://pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons

Hope this help 

[Krogenar]

So by doing a quick search I found the following:

Ducky:  http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=199
CM Storm:  http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=213

Since Ducky is out of stock, your only option now is CM Storm.  However, what color keycap do you want?  Because Unicomp do sell buckling spring keycaps.  Although they call them "buttons"  http://pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons

Hope this help 

Yeah, greens are looking like my best bet. Which manufacturer is better, in your experience? Ducky or CM? Build quality for one or the other slightly better or worse? I'll hold out for a Ducky if it's better.

[Hyde]

Oh I read in another post that the Ducky one will be in stock soon, so maybe wait for a bit.  As for quality I heard they're very similar.  So you can't go wrong with either but keep a few things to keep in mind.

CM Storm use costar stabilizer and Ducky use cherry stabilizer, most people find cherry stabilizer "mushy" and prefer the costar stabilizer.  I think there's a few post regarding that recently if you just scroll down a bit in keyboard forum you'll see.  In terms of that CM Storm wins.

But the Ducky version comes with PBT keycaps.  While the CM Storm one is ABS keycaps just like any other manufactures.  Most find PBT more solid and wear resistant.  So in this respect Ducky wins.

So I guess it's up to you that if you want PBT keycaps or smoother stabilized keys (large keys like enter, shift, spacebar... etc).  Maybe read up about PBT keycaps and different types of stabilizers and decide after lol.

[rootwyrm]

So by doing a quick search I found the following:

Ducky:  http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=199
CM Storm:  http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=213

Since Ducky is out of stock, your only option now is CM Storm.  However, what color keycap do you want?  Because Unicomp do sell buckling spring keycaps.  Although they call them "buttons"  http://pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons

Hope this help 

Yeah, greens are looking like my best bet. Which manufacturer is better, in your experience? Ducky or CM? Build quality for one or the other slightly better or worse? I'll hold out for a Ducky if it's better.

CM Storm, by far.. they actually respond to support requests. A number of the Ducky keyboards turned out to be defective in various ways. One person has been waiting over two weeks (after fighting for over a month) after Ducky received the faulty keyboard and still hasn't heard anything.

Frankly, Ducky's customer service terrifies the hell out of me, especially with the number of reported problems. (Non-clicky keys, keys quitting working, etc.) Which is really disappointing, because honestly, the ABS keycaps on the CM Storms are terrible.

Yes, typed on my new QuickFire Rapid.

[Vintage]

I'd say to go with the ducky because it's more similar to a model M. It cones with PBT keys stock.

The CM strom trigger with greens has fully backlighting  but lacks in terms of keycap quality.

[rowdy]

The Ducky has partial backlighting (WASD + arrows?), the QRF has none.

Or ... get the QFR and spend the difference on some replacement keycaps.

[nullstring]

http://www.cmstore-usa.com/quickfire-rapid-mechanical-gaming-keyboard-green-switch/

I can't imagine why people like stiff keys. You might consider giving mx blues a try instead.

[jabar]

Frankly, Ducky's customer service terrifies the hell out of me, especially with the number of reported problems.

They do have at least have some minimal tech support stateside unlike Vortex which doesn't even have their own website or any real contact info. And I'm sure as Ducky gets more confident in their overseas customer base, they'll have more international tech support.

http://www.cmstore-usa.com/quickfire-rapid-mechanical-gaming-keyboard-green-switch/

I can't imagine why people like stiff keys. You might consider giving mx blues a try instead.

The extra stiffness, although requiring a higher cN activation force at the actuation point than Blues, is pretty effective in preventing bottoming out. Blues are much noisier because of the lack of resistance and impact force upon bottoming out.

New Ducky keyboards featuring rarer MX switch types (Greys, maybe more Greens, maybe Dark Greys, Whites, Clears...) won't be here for a while.

The limited edition Ducky MX Green board uses "ninja" PBT keycaps. Even though there are other "thick" PBT options around, I really enjoy the texture the Ducky set feature, and the gold font side print is stylish. One could get a CM MX Green board and get those keycaps here: http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=230 for about the same cost as the Ducky MX Green board!

[Krogenar]

Thanks everyone for the input -- I think I'm going to wait for Ducky MX Greens to show up for sale again.