So my husband is a developer at a big corporation and, ever keen to be the class clown, he wanted a really idiosyncratic keyboard to attract attention and amuse people at work. Here is what I came up with for him:
- HPE 87 (qtan), red switches
- Rainbow POM Jelly key caps (Feng)
It turns out he actually really loves this keyboard (which certainly has raised some eyebrows among his colleagues), and he actually strongly prefers the feel of it to the black-body red-switch Filco with black blank PBT (non-thick) key caps I set up for him at home.
He says (and I agree) that the sound and feel of the POM (especially the noticeable texture) on the surface of the caps is both different and preferable, in a way that is hard to describe. The sound of the keys is definitely deeper and more resonant (more of a "thock" or "clack") than the thin PBT (more of a click), and for some reason the switches on the HPE feel smoother as they actuate.
I also really love that there is Chinese writing on the face of the board. Taobao listings for the HPE list it (amusingly) as a "wind-powered" keyboard (courtesy of Chrome's Google translation), but a Taiwanese friend helped me translate the characters a bit more accurately. He said it might best be translated as "'The source of the inner power of wind' but in a more poetic way, not an engineering way. It doesn't mean the power for the keyboard is wind power, of course, just saying the source of the power moves as fast as wind, using poetic language." I'm not sure that's actually more clear, come to think of it, but take it for what it's worth.
Anyway, I just thought I would share our experience with this board/cap combo, and of course also some pics:
TL;DR: jellypix!!
Here is my best attempt at showing the texture on the surface of the keys:
Since he likes these keys so much, I've ordered an all-white set of jellies for his home keyboard on Taobao (I thought the rainbow would be a bit clashy on a black board). I'll post pics of that combo here once they arrive too.
