Mechanical keyboard buyers advice
Go to solution
Solved by olbaze,
Two anecdotes on mechanical vs membrane:
- My older sister, after using my PC for a few hours during a visit, commented on how comfortable it is to write on my mechanical keyboard.
- I cleaned my mechanical keyboard the other day, forcing me to use my membrane keyboard for a number of hours. That was not nice.
Now that that's out of the way: Getting a mechanical keyboard makes most sense if you spend a lot of time typing on your keyboard. One of the biggest motivators for getting my keyboard two years ago was that I was typing a lot of essays at the time. Since I hadn't used a mechanical keyboard, I went for the cheapest one I could find, a SteelSeries 6Gv2.
To answer your questions:
- There's a whole bunch of different switches and they each do different things. Primarily, the switches are either linear or non-linear. This just means that either there is a tactile bump that you can feel while pressing down, notifying you that the key has been actuated prior to being fully pressed down, which is one of the features of mechanical switches. Beyond that, there's the "heaviness" of the switch, basically how much force is required to press the key down. I have seen some people say that their fingers get fatigued after writing on one of the heavier switches for an extended period of time. The most common switch types are: Non-linear Blue and Brown and linear Black and Red. Difference between Blue and Brown is Blue has an audible click when it actuates, whereas Brown just has the tactile bump. Black and Red switches do not have the tactile bump, with Black being the heavier of the two switches. Some people make an argument that Reds are the best for pure gaming as they are the lightest and linear, making it easier to spam a key, with Blues and Browns being the best for touch typing as you can increase your typing speed by not bottom out the keys.
- The biggest thing to watch out when shopping for a mechanical keyboard would be the layout. Mechanical keyboards are very durable, so buying new keycaps is a big appeal of owning one. A lot of manufacturers (gaming peripheral companies mostly) have all kinds of custom layouts that make it impossible or very difficult for you to buy a new set of keycaps that cover all the keys on your board. This is especially true if you happen to use a non-US layout.
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now