Typing/Gaming Keyboard UK

[KaZuK]

Hey people,

I live in the UK and it seems it’s hard to get a decent keyboard for a reasonable price. I’m new to the whole mechanical keyboard business, so any help would be great. In the past I’ve only used the cheap rubber dome keyboards and at the moment I’m using the G11 which I don’t particularly like. I need a keyboard that can press all the button combinations I want, this may be difficult because I’m an arrow gamer , but combos like UP, LEFT, CTRL, NUMPAD 1 All at the same time, my G11 can’t do this which is pretty annoying…

I need a keyboard with a UK English layout or whatever it is with the vertical Enter button and the backslash next to the smaller left shift. I can’t have the arrows squished in to make the keyboard more compact, as I use arrows , so it needs to be a 105 button keyboard… I think ?

I’ve seen the website where you can get Filco keyboards in the UK but I really don’t want to be spending £111 on a keyboard especially when I can look at the elite keyboards website and see it for $109! The Steelseries 7G seems expensive and I believe people have said the black cherry switches aren’t great for typing ? The Cherry G80-3000LSCGB-2 looks alright and the price isn’t too bad on their website, but I really have no idea, so please recommend me some keyboards that I can order in the UK that will be good for gaming and typing!

Oh yeah pluses would be that it had a backlight and a change song/play pause buttons. [I will be using this keyboard for lans ]

Thanks!

[ch_123]

The Cherrys are good, but they are not fully n-key rollover capable, so in theory you could get some blocking. It's very hard to know whether this will actually happen as a lot of good keyboards are designed in such a way that you'd really have to go out of your way to get any blocking. Im sure someone with a Cherry can test your combination for you.

Incidentally, you can pretty much forget about getting what you want with media keys (use software based hotkeying instead) or backlighting (there's only one company that makes backlit mechanical keyboards - they're expensive, US layout only and not particularly great)

I really don’t want to be spending £111 on a keyboard especially when I can look at the elite keyboards website and see it for $109!

Americans don't have VAT. If you order one from the US, they'd probably tax it at customs.

[whininggit]

Have you considered using two keyboards - a nice mechanical such as the G80-3000LSCGB for typing and then some Logitech rubber dome for gaming? I don't find my G80-3000 particularly enjoyable for gaming on but then it's superb for typing. With USB it's a trivial exercise to pull the other keyboard out of a drawer and plug it in, no need to shut down.

[KaZuK]

Never really crossed my mind of having two keyboards, but really it would be great just to have one.

[FunkTrooper]

Without wanting to sound mean, would you consider not using arrow keys for playing games? I've never understood why anyone would want to do this; it seems like such an inconvenient and cumbersome way to play games. And if you're going to LANs, you must be pretty serious about your gaming. Isn't this control scheme a *serious* hindrance? What exactly do you like about it?

(I know I'm derailing this thread, but I just had to ask)

Back on topic, something with Cherry Browns should be fine for both gaming and typing. They're tactile, but quiet so they won't be a problem at LANs. They also don't require such high pressure to be applied as Cherry Blacks.
How about the Das Keyboard Pro Silent. I know it's a US layout (if you get used to it, I assure you you'll learn to prefer the US layout), but it's got N-key rollover, so even your bad arrow key habits shouldn't be a problem. It's also got media keys. It's not backlit, but if you're worried about it looking pretty at a LAN, that wouldn't be an issue with something as sleek as this. I don't know if they've fixed some of the key transposition issues people were having with Das Model 3s; perhaps that's sorted with this new Model S series.

[ch_123]

The Filco has the brown switches and the UK layout. No media keys though. Not sure how it stacks up in terms of cost with the Das.

[KaZuK]

You don’t sound mean . I get this question a lot and I’ve tried to switch to WASD for this game but it just doesn’t work for me. I’ve used these same controls for a good 8 years now and it just feels natural to play with them. Also the keyboard doesn’t need to be quiet because these LANs are far from quiet!

This is the cherry keyboard I may get, I believe it has blue switches, but I’m not sure G80-3000LSCGB-2. As for the Das keyboard, it looks really good, but I’ve also heard bad things about them :S.

[FunkTrooper]

Well, you wouldn't want to be too loud at a LAN. Taking a Model M to one would give away your movement to nearby (in real life) enemies. Admittedly, most other boards aren't quite that loud, but it's still something worth considering.

Btw, what is “this game” that you play with the arrow keys?

[KaZuK]

Counter Strike Source of course and Counter Strike 1.6 before that

[rdjack21]

Counter Strike Source of course and Counter Strike 1.6 before that

Oh man sorry to derail this thread but Did you say "Counter Strike" hmm looks like a job for my CSNEO (Topre OEM) :


it was supposed to have been made specificity for Counter Strike.

Now about the boards you are thinking about getting:
Blue Cherry - nice switch but the high pitch click gets on my nerves so don't have one any more. If you can deal with that then no reason not to get one they are fun to type on.

Brown Cherry - Really nice this is my favourite cherry switch but it is a little lighter than the Blues and not as tactile as the blues either.

Also have you taken a look at keyboardco they are the European distributor for Filco and really have a nice collection of other boards as well including Cherry boards. You may want to take a look at the tenkeyless Filco with full N-Key roll over.

Oh Bruce from the keyboardco can be found in the vendor section as well.

[kriminal]

Without wanting to sound mean, would you consider not using arrow keys for playing games? I've never understood why anyone would want to do this; it seems like such an inconvenient and cumbersome way to play games. And if you're going to LANs, you must be pretty serious about your gaming. Isn't this control scheme a *serious* hindrance? What exactly do you like about it?

(I know I'm derailing this thread, but I just had to ask)

im quite comfortable with wasd keys fpr FPS gaming, what do you use? i currently have a belkin n52 pad which i thought would be more useful but that didnt work out...

[KaZuK]

Thanks rdjack, I think I'm going to go for one of the cherry boards, they seem to be an alright price even if they don't have full NKRO. The tenkeyless looks good but i need one with the keypad as well. I can see you can get the filcos with the US layout, but they're more then I'm willing to spend on a keyboard . Oh yeah thanks for the warning about the cherry blues, but that shouldn't be a problem with my headphones!

[keyb_gr]

BTW, neither a Model M nor a vintage G80 (with the old Cherry matrix) have any problems with the combination given. Ironically gaming boards frequently seem to use "cost-cutting matrices", while the most basic corded entry-level models (of all things) feature an M-style matrix which does noticeably better - at least it seems to be like that for Microsoft and Logitech.

Modern-day G80s have a Model M matrix expanded to contain the three Windows keys.

[microsoft windows]

It drives me nuts when they cram the layout together into one big blob like that. I like to have my QWERTY pad, F-keys, arrow keys/Ins/Del group, and my number pad all separate. Guess I could compare it to comparing a messy, cramped room with a nice, big clean one, but I'm in no position to do that.