Mechanical Keyboards

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Deathwing

Deathwing

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I'm using a shitty logitech from...2002 I think? I'm leaning towards browns because reds feel too easy to press. Blues too noisy. Blacks, greens, and whites too hard to find any variety.

Any reason not to get a logitech G710? I like that it's the same brand as my mouse and that it comes with o-rings already installed. These are both very small things but I look at reviews and can't really find much to differentiate models.
 
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Tenks

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What do you mean variety for the blacks? Blacks are marketed pretty heavily as a "gamer" switch so there is a pretty big swath to choose from these days.

Although it seems more and more some of these companies are putting out proprietary switches for marketing buzz to differentiate themselves from other deck makers
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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You're right, my mistake on the blacks.

I was going to stay away from non-Cherry switches. Still seem too new to have detected any longevity issues.
 
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Tenks

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Deathwing_sl said:
You're right, my mistake on the blacks.

I was going to stay away from non-Cherry switches. Still seem too new to have detected any longevity issues.
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The biggest reason many companies are going away from Cherry is because of the RGB LED backlighting. Cherry switches by nature aren't designed well for it because of the central stem. Personally I hate backlighting so none of the newer style switches really appeal to me anyways. I prefer fairly basic decks which are more concerned with construction than aesthetics.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Backlighting is a reason not to buy a keyboard, for me. Another point of failure = no thanks.

Also, those rainbow keyboards look pretty gay. I wanted to consider buying a keyboard for work and no way am I using something like that in public.
 
Brahma

Brahma

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Deathwing_sl said:
Backlighting is a reason not to buy a keyboard, for me. Another point of failure = no thanks.

Also, those rainbow keyboards look pretty gay. I wanted to consider buying a keyboard for work and no way am I using something like that in public.
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Embrace your inner gay man. I don't give a flying fuck what people think at work.
 
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Tenks

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I had a backlit Blackwidow at work for a while and I had to turn it off. I couldn't let me fag flag fly like big B.
 
Lanx

Lanx

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Deathwing_sl said:
Here's my problem. Go onto newegg, go to gaming keyboards(does mechanical have to mean gaming?), filter list by anything that looks like it is a brown switch, then sort by amount of reviews and get the following:

Kailh Brown, Brown Mechanical, Brown Cherry MX, Gaming Keyboards, Gaming - Newegg.com

Pricing is all over the fucking place. Usually, if you filter your list well enough, there's some correlation between price and reviews.
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Your problem is you're including cherry mx browns and kailh browns in the search.

Kailh browns are the newer cheaper chinese copycat.

decide if you want kailhs or cherry mx, price difference is usually about 40%, cuz cherry mx switches are like 50c in bulk, while kailhs are like 10c
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Brown Cherry MX comprises the large majority of that search. Limiting it to just that switch doesn't help much. Prices are still all over the place which makes me think the market just isn't developed or invested enough.
 
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Tenks

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The actual switches are cheap. Like lanx said. Where the expense comes in is in the build quality, key cap quality, electronics, country of origin, etc etc.

And I suppose "gamer" and mechs have become somewhat synonymous but mostly because you can get the PCMR fags to open up their allowance purse strings if you claim it is the ultimate gamer experience and will give you the ultimate gamer edge. In reality modern mechanical switches were originally targetted towards typist trying to recreate the feel of 80's era decks. I remember Das was approached by multiple e-sports orgs (6-8 years ago ... around SC2's release) for sponsorship and they turned it down because they wanted to exclusively market themselves as a typists deck. But more people play PC games than are avid typists or programmers so that is a more niche market. Those decks *do* exist and they often use topre switches instead of Cherry. Personally I've never typed on a Topre to compare it to a Cherry.
 
Khane

Khane

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Welp, this g910 is already acting up. Shift key doesn't register sometimes. Other times it stays "stuck" on push down (the button isn't actually stuck down, but shift keeps getting sent to whatever client/window I'm using at the time).
 
Abefroman

Abefroman

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Noodleface_sl said:
RMA it

I'm trying to find a business reason to justify a mechanical keyboard for work
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Mechanical switches can be replaced individually unlike a membrane keyboard where you have to throw the entire thing away. Saving money and time. Your productivity will increase due to faster typing speeds. It also makes you look like a mover and shaker! That's all I got.
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Deathwing_sl said:
Brown Cherry MX comprises the large majority of that search. Limiting it to just that switch doesn't help much. Prices are still all over the place which makes me think the market just isn't developed or invested enough.
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You are either a cherry mx user, or you are a kailh user, the switches from many subjective reviews say they are VERY different. How is it all over the place? the lowest for a cherry mx brown is 80 bucks to a high of 260, that's pretty standard, now. Obviously w/ more money, you get more features, whereas the 80bucks gets you a 104 keyboard.

Noodleface_sl said:
RMA it

I'm trying to find a business reason to justify a mechanical keyboard for work
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just say Ergonomics, if that doesn't work say ergo + health.
 
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Tenks

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Noodleface_sl said:
RMA it

I'm trying to find a business reason to justify a mechanical keyboard for work
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Its like $100. I just bought one for myself instead of trying to jump through the hoops of trying to get the office to cover it. In fact if they heard how loud the MX Blue switch is they'd probably pay me to NOT buy it.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Well I don't even have a mac dock at work (they don't exist here). And even if it's only $100 I'm not paying for a keyboard.
 
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Tenks

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I don't think anyone here uses a docking station for their mac, either. I just have the VGA converter dongle to broadcast to multiple monitors and plug the shit in. I suppose it may be more convenient than having to unplug/plug in my keyboard, power and audio all the time.

Also if you're willing to wait massdrop.com generally has good deals on mech keyboards such as

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/dsx-bac...%20Promotional
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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lanx_sl said:
You are either a cherry mx user, or you are a kailh user, the switches from many subjective reviews say they are VERY different. How is it all over the place? the lowest for a cherry mx brown is 80 bucks to a high of 260, that's pretty standard, now. Obviously w/ more money, you get more features, whereas the 80bucks gets you a 104 keyboard.
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Some of those "features" look pretty fucking stupid. $40 extra(the two gskill models) so my keyboard can look like a rainbow instead of an annoying red? Why does the Corsair K95 cost double the Logitech G710 just for the same rainbow backlighting?

As I said, you take the same search in a different component, like video cards or cpus, and you get a much smoother correlation of price to reviews. This makes me think the mechanical keyboard market is underdeveloped or just always destined to be niche. Which is fine, not everything can be high demand. But it makes it real hard to determine which model is best for what I want because manufacturers bilking customers with useless features is quite typical of niche markets.

I was all set on buying a G710 but then multiple reviews of keycaps breaking after months of use made me hesitate. All I really want is a replacement keyboard because my spacebar is squeaky and gets stuck sometimes. Maybe I'll just buy membrane instead. "Gaming" peripherals are so stupid.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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I'd be fine with my arctosa but the keys are so low profile, it's like a laptop keyboard with how low they are.
 
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