Mechanical keyboard help

[Nooblite]

I am looking to buy a full sized mechanical keyboard for about $100, but I can increase my budget somewhat if it means I get a much better experience.

 

- something with clicky switches? I really like the feel of the cherry MX blue, but the sound is deafening

- some o rings to make the switches less noisy

-wired keyboard, detachable wire would be nice

- needs to be full sized. I need the numpad and f1-12 row

 

Are there any good recommendations?

 

 

 

 

 

[191x7]

Yes, check some videos of Switch & Click on youtube. She does mechanical keyboards.

[Ominous]

A word of warning, O-rings will drastically change the feel of your switches. If MX Blues are too loud I'd recommend just not buying them at all. Unfortunately, there are no non-clicky switches that will really replicate the feeling of MX Blues due to the click jacket mechanism used inside the switch. The closest thing you would get from Cherry are probably the MX Clears. They are quite a heavy switch so if you'd prefer something lighter you could always opt for Browns but they barely even have a tactile feeling.

 

I recommend a Leopold FC900 with MX Clears or Browns. They are a little but above your budget but Leopold make some of the best off the shelf boards. MechanicalKeyboards.com has them in a variety of colour patterns as well.

[Nooblite]

10 hours ago, Ominous said:

A word of warning, O-rings will drastically change the feel of your switches. If MX Blues are too loud I'd recommend just not buying them at all. Unfortunately, there are no non-clicky switches that will really replicate the feeling of MX Blues due to the click jacket mechanism used inside the switch. The closest thing you would get from Cherry are probably the MX Clears. They are quite a heavy switch so if you'd prefer something lighter you could always opt for Browns but they barely even have a tactile feeling.

 

I recommend a Leopold FC900 with MX Clears or Browns. They are a little but above your budget but Leopold make some of the best off the shelf boards. MechanicalKeyboards.com has them in a variety of colour patterns as well.

I will use the keyboard mainly for typing, with some light gaming, as I tend to use a controller over mouse and keyboard.

 

Do any large retailers like best buy or amazon sell mechanical keyboards with mx clear switches? I want to be able to return it for a full refund in case I don't like it.

 

If not, can you recommend any mainstream keyboards that are good for typing, while also not sounding as loud as cherry mx blue switches?

[Ominous]

8 minutes ago, Nooblite said:

I will use the keyboard mainly for typing, with some light gaming, as I tend to use a controller over mouse and keyboard.

 

Do any large retailers like best buy or amazon sell mechanical keyboards with mx clear switches? I want to be able to return it for a full refund in case I don't like it.

 

If not, can you recommend any mainstream keyboards that are good for typing, while also not sounding as loud as cherry mx blue switches?

MX Clears are not as common as Blues, Browns or Reds so its a bit trickier to find pre-built boards that offer them, especially on Amazon.

 

Looking at US Amazon, the iKBC CD108 V2 is reminiscent of the Leopold at a smaller price tag. I have never seen one in the flesh but some online posts say they are of comparably lesser quality to the Leopold. It should still be a good quality keyboard and this also brings the price within your budget. This is the only decent looking board on Amazon I could find that offers Clear switches. Best Buy only seems to stock the most mainstream gaming keyboards which are usually have a poor price/quality ratio.

 

Another common recommendation are Keychron. They do not offer Clear switches on their prebuilt 100% board but they do offer a Brown flavour. Brown (tactile) switches are generally supposed to be a quieter version of Blues but they will not feel the same. The tactile "bump" in most mainstream Brown switches is very muted compared to harsher bump felt in Blues.

[OhioYJ]

On 11/22/2022 at 4:11 PM, Nooblite said:

- something with clicky switches? I really like the feel of the cherry MX blue, but the sound is deafening

- some o rings to make the switches less noisy

Perhaps you should get a switch tester (example)? If you like blue, I would get blue. After using blues for many years, I decided I might want to get something slightly quieter. So I thought I'd try browns, even tried O-rings. The O-Rings, make the keyboard feel horrible in my opinion (just an my opinion).  After taking those out, and using the keyboard for over a year, I still couldn't get used to them. I just didn't like them, and still found myself making lots of typing mistakes. I just prefer the blues.  Which then meant I ended up ordering another keyboard, that looks identical, but with blue switches... (Point is, Get what you want the first time around)