Next payday, I want to buy a #MechanicalKeyboard. I've been looking in shops but they don't have many options and none of them appeal to me.
I know there are lots of people who are nerds about mechanical keyboards.
If this applies to you, do you have any recommendations for me?
@lookitmychicken keychron are always a solid option, I've got two. Is the part thats not appealing about brick and mortar options the appearance or the feel?
@minna They're dull, or not pretty, or they're in sealed boxes and I don't get to tappy tap on them to check the feel.
So far, I've only tried Officeworks and JB Hi-Fi. Both of those places only had 2 or 3 options each.
@lookitmychicken oh yeah they're SO boring haha. for appearance, to have something genuinely attractive or cute ones you generally have to buy a set of keycaps and swap out what it came with. that said, i'd really recommend getting a hot swappable one so that you can try different switches if you want to and still keychron > anything at jb etc. keychron ship from aus and it arrives pretty quick in my experience. do you care about numpad or not, or have a preference for wireless vs wired?
@minna
Definitely want numpad. Slight preference for wireless but not that important
@lookitmychicken i'd rec the aluminium frame Keychron K4 or K10. they're USB-C and you can use them wired or wireless, which also means you can switch between two different machines pretty quick. I've got a K4 as my work keyboard, it's got a great feel without weighing a ton.
re: the feeling of typing on them, a lot of that's about the switch - the 3 most common ones are blue (clicky) brown (tactile) and red (linear). there's some other colours, but they're less common and are variations on those three, being all clicky, tactile or linear theme.
'clicky' is a loud tactile switch, they're the closest to the old school keyboards from the 80s/90s. 'tactile' are similar but less loud, and you don't have to push the keys quite as hard. they both have a sort of 'bump' as you press down the key that tells you it's registered. linear are the quietest, lightest touch & don't have that bump feedback.
if any of the ones you got to try in person advertised themselves as a "gamer" keyboard they were almost certainly linear. the ones that heavily bill themselves as 'retro' are usually clicky, like if you got to try the 8BitDo Retro one that's a clicky switch, and those round-key logitech Pop mechanical keyboards are tactile / brown switches
@lookitmychicken oh something to consider if you haven't had one before as well, they're quite a bit taller than non mechanical keyboards. i had a couple of cheap squishy wrist rests that i used on heavy typing days until i got into the habit of holding my arm up instead of resting the point of my palm on the desk because i kept goofing myself ^^;
@lookitmychicken also also dedicated computer nerd places like centre com will usually have a switch tester somewhere near the keyboards, so you can just press the different keys and see how you like the difference
@minna I've used the old-school keyboards back in the 80s and 90s so I'm pretty used to the larger size and the clickiness.
It sounds like I'm going to want the blue switches and maybe a wrist rest.
I guess my wrists are a bit older now than they were in the 80s, so they might appreciate a bit more support.