First Mechanical Keyboard Recommendations?

[A Future Pilot]

Hey everybody!

So I've been lurking these forums for the last couple of days looking into getting my first mechanical keyboard, and I wanted some recommendations.

First off, I'm coming from $5, "included-in-the-box" keyboards, so ANYTHING is gonna be a big improvement! Secondly, I'm expecting to spend $150 - $200. Thirdly, I'll probably go with Cherry switches, but I'm not sure which yet because I haven't had a chance to try them (I'm planning on going to Best Buy this evening and I'm hoping they have some I can play with).

So here's my list of wants:
- 104 key ANSI layout
- NKRO over USB (This is a pretty big deal to me because I play an old game called Descent and I ALWAYS miss keypresses when I play keyboard-only)
- I'd LIKE a detachable cable, but it's not a must-have
- I don't really need LEDs or media keys. Just a barebones keyboard is fine.
- I have a custom keycap set that I'm making that I'd really love to get, but I know that that'll mean either a WASD (which doesn't have NKRO over USB, and I've heard has fairly cheap caps), or doing a group-buy (which I'd be fine with, but I have no clue how to start).

So, given all of that, what would you fellas recommend?

Thanks!

[zslane]

The Ducky One hits all your bullet points, and is pretty affordable right now at $109 over at mechanicalkeyboards.com. As for which switch to use, I guess that depends on whether you want to hear a faint click, only feel a faint tactile response, or have a completely smooth keypress feel.

As for custom keycaps, well, you can order custom WASD keycap sets all by themselves, you don't have to buy a keyboard to put them on. However, their keycaps are very thin and pretty low quality (they are pad printed). But they can give you a chance to try different custom design ideas out cheaply. Then, if you have a design you absolutely love, you can try putting together an Interest Check for it here, gather community interest and support, and try to find a group buy entity to run with it (if your set is good they will usually find you, and you don't have to hunt them down).

[moh18one]

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ikbc-87-rgb-mechanical-keyboard/talk  and buy an extra numpad. It's more ergonomic

[A Future Pilot]

The Ducky One hits all your bullet points, and is pretty affordable right now at $109 over at mechanicalkeyboards.com. As for which switch to use, I guess that depends on whether you want to hear a faint click, only feel a faint tactile response, or have a completely smooth keypress feel.

As for custom keycaps, well, you can order custom WASD keycap sets all by themselves, you don't have to buy a keyboard to put them on. However, their keycaps are very thin and pretty low quality (they are pad printed). But they can give you a chance to try different custom design ideas out cheaply. Then, if you have a design you absolutely love, you can try putting together an Interest Check for it here, gather community interest and support, and try to find a group buy entity to run with it (if your set is good they will usually find you, and you don't have to hunt them down).

Thanks!! Is the Ducky One a pretty well-built keyboard? I had gotten the impression from some threads on here that it was sub-par to the WASD or Filco. And yeah, I'll post an interest-gathering thread on the keycaps as soon as I have the .svg finished

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ikbc-87-rgb-mechanical-keyboard/talk  and buy an extra numpad. It's more ergonomic

I can't really use a separate numpad with the control setup that I use...

[zslane]

IMO, the Ducky One is not as high quality as a Filco Majestouch-2 or a WASD V2, no. But it has NKRO over USB which the Filco does not (its NKRO is only over PS/2). If the WASD has NKRO over USB, then that would be an ideal pick.

[A Future Pilot]

IMO, the Ducky One is not as high quality as a Filco Majestouch-2 or a WASD V2, no. But it has NKRO over USB which the Filco does not (its NKRO is only over PS/2). If the WASD has NKRO over USB, then that would be an ideal pick.

Oh, ok that makes sense! What's your opinion on DAS Keyboards?

And actually...thinking about my key setup, 6 key rollover would actually be enough. JUST enough, but enough lol With 6-key being enough, would your recommend the WASD or the Filco?

Thanks for all your help btw!

[zslane]

I am very partial to the Filco Majestouch-2 (it is one of my all-time favorite keyboards). It is superbly made and I really like the case design. However, it does not have a detachable cable. The WASD V2 also has very high build quality, but I just like the Filco better all around.

Another option is the Varmilo VA108M. It is my daily driver at work. It has NKRO over USB, but like most NKRO-over-USB (which requires firmware emulation), it doesn't work with many KVM switches and USB hubs. That's not usually a problem since there is almost always a conventional USB port somewhere to plug into, but it bears mentioning. Oh, and it apparently doesn't work with Macs.

[A Future Pilot]

I think I'll probably go with the WASD...that way I can have my custom keycaps even if I'm not able to make a group-buy happen (though I'm definitely gonna try!)

So I went and tried a few switches yesterday. I wasn't at all impressed with MX Reds. They didn't have MX Blues, but they had Razer Greens which I've heard are very similar. Also I attempted to try some Browns, but they were inside a freaking plastic wrap so I couldn't really get a good idea how they felt :/

I ordered a WASD switch tester to try them out. I'm guessing I'll probably end up going for clears, but we'll see. (Basically what I would love is a slightly heavier Blue with the actuation point slightly beneath the "click" instead of above it so that you could double tap without having to reset the click...I'm guessing Clears will be pretty close).

[Entropia]

I'm more or less on the same situation than you. I would had bought the Ducky One, if only it hadn't Cherry stabilizers, which makes all the long keys feel mushy and dumb, like if they had a rubber dome instead of a switch. Take this into consideration if you don't want a big disappointment. Right now, my decision is in between a Filco Majestouch 2 and a Unicomp Ultra Classic. The first one is beautiful and the materials and the finish are all perfect, but has the big con that its keycaps are the worst ever, made of thin abs plastic, which will get shiny after some hours of use and with printed lengends that will fade and disappear before the keycaps get shiny. You will have to spend almost as much as what the keyboard costs for a set of good pbt keycaps. The Unicomp, on the other hand is a beast and a top performance keyboard with good pbt keycaps, but the finish is terrible, with a case that has dozens of bulges and even different random textures. The keycaps legends are also blurry and some are off-centered. It's also extremely noisy and can be problematic with key combinations in videogames, so I suppose it's not the right keyboard for you. Another cheaper alternatives to the Filco Majestouch are the Rosewill RK-9000, which is supposed to be a clone, with the only problem (apart from the keycaps, that I guess are equally bad), that the connector of the detachable cable can break very easily if you move your keyboard accidentally. Another cheaper clone of the Filco that you could consider is the CM Storm Quickfire XT, which I suppose it's as good as the Filco and has the same weak aspects. Well, this one also has legends with a terrible font.

[zslane]

Folks who spend over $100 on a mechanical keyboard should not be afraid to spend the same on beautiful, high-quality keycaps as well. After all, a mechanical keyboard with crappy keycaps is really only half a keyboard.

It's like all those folks (and they know who they are) who spend $2000 on a Gibson Les Paul and then plug it into a $200 Line 6 combo amp. The (electric) guitar itself is only half an instrument, and skimping on the other half is just plain foolish.

[A Future Pilot]

Folks who spend over $100 on a mechanical keyboard should not be afraid to spend the same on beautiful, high-quality keycaps as well. After all, a mechanical keyboard with crappy keycaps is really only half a keyboard.

It's like all those folks (and they know who they are) who spend $2000 on a Gibson Les Paul and then plug it into a $200 Line 6 combo amp. The (electric) guitar itself is only half an instrument, and skimping on the other half is just plain foolish.

I totally agree! (I'm a musician so that analogy works REALLY well lol). And actually because of that, I'm considering maybe getting a Filco instead of the WASD since I'll be heading up a group-buy either way.

[hurst]

6kro should be fine for Descent unless you play with two hands.

[zslane]

I'm not a gamer so could someone explain the benefits of sending more than six keycodes out of a keyboard as a single keystroke event?

[Entropia]

I see your point, but Filco would make it better selling their keyboards without keycaps at all, or maybe increasing the price and offering decent pbt keycaps. Someone who is after a quality product wouldn't mind paying some extra dollars for that, whilest, on the other hand, many potential buyers could be put off by their default ****ty keycaps or by the annoyiance of having to search the Internet for custom keycaps (good luck if you are European), some of which may be of good quality (or maybe not) and may be easy to install or interfere with the stabs...

[A Future Pilot]

I'm not a gamer so could someone explain the benefits of sending more than six keycodes out of a keyboard as a single keystroke event?

Well first off in most games, you don't ever need to. What makes Descent special is that it's a 6 degree-of-freedom game, which means you can maneuver on 6 independent axis (basically you can travel along and rotate around the X, Y, and Z axis). Also, in many old games moving along multiple axis gives you a speed boost (Quake is a great example). In Descent it works the same way, but you can do it on 3 axis and get an even greater speed boost (on 2 axis it's called bichording, on three it's called trichording). When I play keyboard-only I use the following setup (the numbers are on the numpad):

W/S - Forward/Back
A/D - Strafe Left/Strafe Right
Q/E - Roll Left/Roll Right
Shift/Space - Strafe Up/Strafe Down
8/5 - Pitch Up/Pitch Down
4/6 - Turn Left/Turn Right
Enter (numpad)/Right Arrow - Fire Primary/Secondary

So you could be pressing W, A, E, Space, 8, 4, Enter, and Right Arrow all at the same time while trichording and shooting. That's 8 keys. (And that happens pretty regularly).

I decided I'd rather have a really good keyboard and wait to make use of NKRO until I have a computer with PS/2 (which will probably happen next year sometime) rather then get a sub-par keyboard with NKRO.

Hope that clears it up

[A Future Pilot]

I'm resurrecting this just to say a thank you to zshane for his Ducky One recommendation. I finally bought one, and it's in the mail right now. (I found it on the Canadian NCIX site for $102 CAD which is about $75 USD with shipping). I got a non-backlit one with Cherry Green switches.

Now do any of you happen to know if it's possible to buy Ducky's blue PBT keycap set somewhere? (Not the blue/gray one, the plain blue one).

Thanks!