What keyboard do you use?
I have been using a "Pok3r"-style 60% board I assembled with MX Browns for years. As time goes on, I'm growing increasingly tired of the limitations, like pressing three different keys to get a ~. I use my keyboard for writing code, writing reports, and playing RTS games like Homeworld, which a 60% board is simply inadequate for doing. While I initially used VIM as my default text editor, I've moved to using VS Code, where using a function key to access arrow keys is simply absurd. So I'd love to get your set up:
What keyboard do you use?
What is your keyboard? What kind of switches? 60%, TKL, 100%? What brand do you use? Do you use a default keyboard with your system, a laptop keyboard, a gaming board, or some sort of ergonomic monstrosity?
What do you use your keyboard for?
Are you a developer? Are you a gamer? Do you write? What are your primary use cases?
1989 IBM Model M, served me for years now and I don't feel like any change is necessary.
Me too! I think mine's actually an early 90s model, but damn I love that keyboard.
How many years exactly?
This is my keyboard.
I'm a software developer and I use the Ergodox-EZ with a custom key cap set and a trackball. It's fully customizable, so I can set the keys to whatever character I want. It also has layers (like the function key on laptops). I've got mine set up so that whenever I hold down the space bar the keys under my right hand turn into a ten key pad. once I let go of the space bar it goes back to the original layer. Honestly it's one of the best investments I've made as far as personal comfort/productivity. It's fully open source (both software and hardware) and it's responsibly manufactured by workers that are paid a fair wage.
You definitely pay for all of that, but it was totally worth it.
+1 for the Ergodox-EZ.
I ummed and ahhed about getting one for about six months and finally pulled the trigger. It took me a while to get used to but now it's so much more comfortable than using a regular keyboard that I bought a second one to use in the office.
Woooo another ergodox friend! I've had mine for the better part of a year now, absolutely love it. I swapped out the alpha caps from my glorious mechanical modular keeb, and installed Tangerine switches. Next thing I'm planning to do is lube and film the Tangies and probably put some foam or sorbothane inside the two case halves.
The two most used features for me are tap vs hold keys and the layers obviously. Left thumb tap is space, but hold and I get Ctrl. Right thumb tap is also space but hold is shift. I have a layer for mouse movement, a layer for symbols + numpad, and a coleman-dh layer that I haven't really tried to learn yet lol
Also, I'm a developer and use this board for work. My 'play' board is the aforementioned 'Glorious Mechanical Modular Keyboard'. Used for mostly gaming, I have that outfitted with Zealios (and a lubed Tangie for spacebar)
I much prefer Ortholinear layout, I've gotten up to 92 wpm on Ergodox, can barely break 50 on GMMK now 🤷♂️
I ordered one of these the other day because my wrists have been hurting. I was iffy about the price but glad to hear you think it's worth it.
It may take about a month to get used to, especially if you have never used an ortholinear keyboard before, but it's totally worth it. If you're interested you can look at my key map here
Update: I have gotten used to the ergodox and now i'm not sure I can ever go back to a normal keyboard. I absolutely love how easy it is to switch around the layout. Between this and my new desk chair my wrist pain has almost totally gone away.
Wow I can't believe so many people here use ErgoDox! Add me as another ErgoDox user, I have two: one at home and one at the office. I used to have just one and would bring it back and forth between home and work and that got old real quick. It's kinda funky knowing I've spent $700 on keyboards.
I've been looking for a new keyboard and the Ergodox looks about perfect. I did notice the Moonlander on their site as well. Do you happen to know anything about it? It looks like a new version of the Ergodox.
Edit: Thank you both!
I think it is essentially. From some of the descriptions on the site it looks like it's made some improvements, like a usb-c connector on the left side of the board for people who would use it to game. That way you'd only need one half plugged in leaving more space for the mouse. There's also less buttons in the thumb cluster which I personally think is a good idea, I only use the two thumb keys in my cluster, the others don't get any usage. From the looks of it, my personal opinion would be to get the moonlander over the ergodox-ez for the upgraded components.
I know that it's thinner than the ergodox but it also has fewer thumb keys. I'm pretty sure they still sell the original ergodox Ez as well so I think it's just up to your preference.
I'm curious about your trackpad. What model is it? Do you recommend it?
It's actually a trackball. It's the Logitech M570. I love I will never go back to a regular mouse.
I got the BOX Royal switches, by the way! I haven't switched out the navies in my main keyboard for them yet, but they're definitely super tactile, although with a somewhat lower actuation force than I'd like.
I've been using a blank Planck with Workman for years! It's fantastic. I got mine with Zealios but quickly changed out the springs for 180g (I left the bottom row and the left and right columns at 78g though). My only complaint is that I can only barely feel the tactile bump at that force, and I haven't heard of a solution.
I have some BOX Navies set aside for whatever's next. I really like the Mitosis keyboard someone on Reddit designed, but I haven't settled on exactly what design I'll use. Small, ortholinear, split, and wireless are my goals.
I proudly use a classic: The Model M.
Original IBM Model M or a Unicomp? Asking because I love the old buckling springs design and have been tempted to get a Unicomp for ages now but haven't taken the plunge yet, and so am curious to hear what people's experiences with them are.
Edit: LOL nevermind... I couldn't resist any longer and finally ordered myself a PC 122 Black 5250. :P
Original Model M.
Damn, nice. So many original Model M owners in this topic. Makes me super jealous. ;)
Here's hoping my new Unicomp will be comparable.
I'm looking to buy one, as its one of few cheap enough (relatively speaking) mechanical keyboards for me.
Please post a review once you've gotten used to it.
Will do! Although it could be a few weeks or even months before I receive it, by the sounds of it. I am Canadian and the only affordable shipping option to my location was USPS ground... all the others pretty much doubled the price. :(
I feel the pain. I am confused between Ducky One 2 and Model M/Classic.
Also unsure on whether to get one with backlight. But getting one shipped to India is not going to be cheap.
Oof, yeah I don't imagine shipping to India will be fast or cheap for anything sent from the US.
As for keyboard backlighting, I personally find lighting on computer peripherals incredibly annoying. So much so, I even go out of my way to make sure there is as little lighting as possible on all my PC internal components and cases as well, and if there are any I either don't hook them up or disable them if I can. But at least with keyboards I can understand their use, e.g. for typing in the dark if you're not comfortable with touch-typing.
AFAIK, none of the Unicomps come with backlighting though, since they are built to the same specs (and even using some of the same tooling) as the original IBM/Lexmark keyboards were from 20+years ago, before LEDs were even a thing. So if backlighting is something you want/need you should probably look at the Ducky instead. And there are a number of people on Tildes I know who already use a Ducky and a couple of my RL friends do as well, and they all seem to love them.
Thank you. After some more research, I'm going to go with Ducky. Model M will have to wait.
Mechanical keyboards.com doesn't seem to ship to India. If you know of anyone who ships down here, I can order one. Otherwise I'll have to open reddit again.
Oh BTW, even though I know you're probably not all that interested in this anymore, since you have decided on a ducky... I am super excited and so wanted to share this news with you anyways. I just found out my Unicomp keyboard already shipped!! I just received a tracking number by email and it's on its way. It'll still probably take a week or more to get here via ground shipping, but apparently their "7-14 day production time" warning was just a very conservative estimate not a guarantee. :P
Hey! Maybe your review will sway my opinion the other way! This thing is costing a significant amount here. Enough to have to plan for it.
So I'll gobble up every bit of information I find until then :)
NP, and no sorry I unfortunately don't know where best to buy a Ducky that would ship to India. Their official retail partners list does have an entry for India though: https://www.meckeys.com/
Currently using a Keychron K2. The K2 was an obvious choice because:
I actually am typing my first Tildes post from my new K6 (I really wanted the compact one). Anything I should know about Keychrons? Especially since I probably will switch it between Mac and Windows partitions on the reg? (Guess I can tag @Keegan in this too.)
Thanks. I am noticing what you're mentioning about it sitting high and I think I'll follow your advice and get a palm rest.
I probably don't have anything to share you haven't already figured out, but on the K2 you can store up to 3 bluetooth pairings. On the K2 you use the Fn + 1/2/3 to cycle through them. I keep my Mac on 1, Bootcamp on 2, and my actual windows machine on 3. There's also the option to use it as a wired keyboard using a toggle on the side. And there's Window/Mac toggle that lets you switch between the two bottom row layouts (CTRL/Option/CMD vs CTRL/Win/Alt).
This is all actually very useful to me as I haven't dove in on doing Windows stuff yet. Thanks for the overview, sounds pretty great actually. I was wondering what the actual difference between Windows and MacOS settings were.
Looking forward to seeing how this shakes out, thanks.
It does, but I made the decision to go bluetooth before I even realized there were keyboards with USB-C. Now that I've been wireless for my kb/mouse for a few months now I don't think I could ever go back. Keeps the desk tidier, no cables to unplug when I move the laptop to another room, etc.
I use a DK-3318B. It's a very exclusive brand of keyboard, so exclusive they don't even put their logo on the keyboard itself. Each key has dedicated RGB, which is set by the manufacturer to the most objectively aesthetically pleasing value of #000000 - even the the written representation of the value looks pretty! And the best thing is the connectivity - it uses USB A, which is obviously two grades above USB C.
It was a little expensive - it cost about $600 - but it came with some nice accessories, like a matching mouse and computer.
A Logitech K310 that I can dunk in water when it starts to get scuzzy.
It must've been discontinued...because the price that's showing on Amazon is ridiculous.
Magicforce 68. Nothing fancy. Serves me well.
Just configured caps lock to act as control and esc in Linux and i'm all set.
The Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
I love it. It is absolutely the most comfortable keyboard I've ever used. I have no interest in mechanical switches or RGB, so it completely suits my sole usecase, which is typing out unnecessarily long internet comments.
Between this and my vertical mouse I've come to appreciate good ergonomics, to the point that going back to regular versions of those feels limiting and off-putting. Meanwhile, my husband teases me for having what he calls my "Mad Catz" peripherals.
I used the MS 4000 for years and recently switched to a Logitech ERGO K860, and really enjoy it. Maybe a day or two of getting used to the new feel/slight layout differences.
I use a Vortex Race 3 (model VTG-8200) with brown switches for everything. I use the boring understated grey keycaps instead of the colored accents. I keep it plugged in to a thunderbolt dock at my desk and I swap out my work and personal laptop on the dock.
For work I am a developer, fullish stack, using Neovim for just about everything. I generally only have a terminal, browser and slack open during work, so I am very keyboard heavy and use tmux for organizing all of my dev work.
On my personal computer I do a range of things. Lots of programming still, but primarily game development, and otherwise I'm writing or playing games. I've found this board to be great at everything. It's a bit tiring on my fingers after a while, especially if I'm writing a lot, but browns do that to me.
Before this, my only other Vortex keyboard was a Vortex Core, but that was too extreme for me. Fun, tho.
Main things I like about it overall are the size, availability of keys I care about pressing often (especially function keys), and the build quality. This thing feels so solid. It has a solid metal base and no visible frame when looking at it straight on. It's gorgeous, heavy and makes you want to type.
I have a Das Keyboard v3 with cherry blue switches for programming. It's one of the better keyboards I have owned; it's solid, glyphless, and delightful to type on.
On my gaming machine I have a (ugh) Razer Black Widow Chroma. It has "Razer Green" switches. The keyboard itself is actually okay, but boy howdy do I ever hate Razer software. It's a crapshoot whether I'll have to reboot a couple of times before the keyboard or mouse work.
I have a few other keyboards that I own but don't use, including a model M, which is just in a sealed plastic bag right now and hasn't been used in upwards of 15 or 20 years.
Razer Black Widow from 2013. I wanted a mech for it's durability, but now I really want to build my own. It has survived years of TF2, roguelikes, Tetris, and college papers, command line and programming as well as a couple of unortunate huge spills. The issue is I have a hard requirement for media keys, which don't seem to be a thing for hobbyist keyboards as far as I know. I would, however, love nothing more than knowing I soldered every switch into place and flashed it myself, and hand-picked the switches (I'd use MX Reds to keep it quiet).
I use a kinesis advantage. It has the arrow keys just below the index and middle fingers of each hand, so they’re actually usable for navigation.
I used to use a planck but nowadays having my hands so close together causes wrist pain.
I have a Kinesis Advantage Pro with Evoluent Vertical Mouse, but I'm waiting patiently for the KeyMouse to be back in stock. I also have a Kinesis Freestyle for when I'm on the go. Don't use it much right now cooped up at home though.
I've used a Leopold Tenkeyless with MX Browns for a good while and it's served me well, but I'm looking into split options now to take better care of my wrists.
Alternative suggestions, reviews, etc. welcome!
[Note: I've seen keeb.io but building my own is beyond the level of effort I want to put into this right now..]
I use a Unicomp Ultra Classic and my roommates absolutely hate me. As far as I know (and excluding wild shit like this), buckling springs are the loudest keyswitch out there and slightly on the heavier side, but if you are like me and type super aggressively its pretty nice.
I only have 2 minor problems with it, the first being the lack of NKRO which can make some games annoying. The other is that the key travel distance feels a lot shorter than something like the cherry MX switches. From what Ive read the difference between the two is .2mm, so I dont know if thats something I'm actually feeling or not.
I've got a Durgod Taurus k320 (TKL) --- its fairly boring compared to the other mechs out there. I run silent reds with o-rings, too. I've got a variety of keycaps, but the mains are stock. Truly nothing special.
I'll start with the most boring keyboard I use. I somewhat recently started a job as a software developer, and I'm still in the office, and I've been using the generic HP rubber dome keyboard they gave me. It's very meh, and I recently asked my boss what the rules on bringing a keyboard from home are, and pretty much the main rules are don't use something too loud (so my Model M, or anything with Blue switches are out), and nothing with built-in storage. I'm probably going to replace it with something soon, but I'm debating if it'll be the Cooler Master Quickfire Rapid with mx reds I have lying around, or if I"m going to buy something with mx/clone browns. I use arrow keys and Function keys all the time, so if I end up going the "buy a new one" route, those are just about necessities for me.
I have an 1989 IBM Model M that's really nice. I Ended up doing the Bolt Mod on it, because I had to replace the inner membrane after I spilled water on it. In all honesty, I don't notice too much of a difference in typing feel from it, but she works perfectly fine again, so I'm happy with it. I like it, but I have a pretty small desk, it doesn't work best for gaming (I think the amount of keys you can hold down on it is like 2 at a time), and I don't do a lot of stuff where I need to type a lot when I'm home, so it's kind of just meh. If noise weren't an issue, this would be my work board in a heartbeat, but if I ever get to work remotely, this is going to be what I use at home.
I also have a Cooler Master quickfire rapid with Cherry MX Reds that I kinda like. The reds aren't as good for typing, but the best for gaming for me, and with having no numpad, it fits much more nicely on my desk.
I also have a Cooler Master Rapid-i with Cherry MX Blues that I'm a big of. The clicky keys are nice, and since it doesn't have the numpad, it fits much more nicely on my desk.
Finally, I have a MagicForce 68 with Gateron Browns. This keyboard is even smaller, I think it's pok3r sized, but with arrow keys, and page up/down, delete, and end? buttons, and was also really nice, but unfortunately some keys on it have quit working for me. I've opened it up, and they really skimped out on the solder for a lot of the switches that are giving me problems. I've been meaning to try my hand at getting a soldering iron to fix it, but I haven't gotten to that part yet. Still though, I really like Brown switches, and I think I want to get a bigger board that this with this type of switch on it.
At work (back when going to the office was a thing) I used the unfortunately named Lolita spyder keyboard. It's a really nice keyboard for the price and the logo rubs off pretty easy to avoid the unfortunate name associations. The Kailh brown switches are quiet but still tactile, and keyboard has some decent weight which means it doesn't move around at all, something I like. As it gets older (~1yr old before covid reduced it's usage) I notice an annoying white residue building up on the surface of the keys which I am pretty sure is coming from the keyboard and not my fingers (I use about 4 other non-mechanical keyboards at work as well and the lolita is the only one with the residue) it's easy enough to scrap and clean off though, it's not a huge pain and for $60CAD I still consider it a steal. If you want a quiet mechanical keyboard and don't care about bells and whistles this is a good keyboard. I would love a 104-key version though.
At home I went in the other direction; have a Cosair K70 with fully addressable RGB, macro keys and blue switches. I have the numpad setup to light up with colours corresponding to my GPU and CPU temps which I find extremely useful, the wasd keys are rainbow and every other key is red, but sets off a rainbow ripple effect when a key is pressed. The macro keys are also great, I obnoxiously have 1 setup to save an instant replay (through AMD's relive) and play this sound effect. I feel like the macro keys aren't all that useful for me at work, but in gaming I find it gets enough use to be justified. The corsair software is way ahead of the razer software I was using previously. The volume wheel feels so good to use. Is all this obnoxious and tacky? Probably... Do I love it? absolutely.
I generally don't like the minimalist approach to keyboard design, typing is the single most common task I do, I want the thing I type on to be as fully functional as possible, desk real estate is comparatively unimportant to me. I dislike most ergonomic designs as well for 3 reasons. First is that I use a lot of different keyboards for my work, so whatever I do I'm going to be using a crappy dell keyboard at least some of the time, which means any keyboard with a significant learning curve is out, I had to abandon an old Raser blackwidow I used in university because it had a curve to the keys that made typing on other keyboards just slightly annoying to get used to, I also had a keyboard like this for an emergency backup but it is such a pain to switch between that I would rather unplug and replug the keyboard than use that monster for even a minute or two. Any of the more extreme design changes some people are posting here would be very frustrating to switch between. Second, I also don't really find most ergonomic designs really fit how I type. I know how to touch type but I use my keyboard primarily one handed while I write in a notepad or use a mouse for a second computer with the other. This style comes so naturally to me now that even when I am using two hands my right hand ends up mostly using the control keys (ctl, alt, shift, end, del, home, arrowkeys, etc) or the number pad while my left hand does the heavy lifting for the actual typing, it feels sort of like playing the piano. I guess I could probably get be faster with traditional two handed typing but I manage 60WPM using my style which is almost always faster than I can think up the things I'm typing. Third, I find most ergonomic keyboards expect the user to keep their hands, body and keyboard as stationary as possible in one ergonomic position, I find that I am moving around my desk too much for this to be feasible, I raise and lower my home office desk multiple times a day, and at the office I am moving between 3 or 4 different PC setups, I may be typing at one computer while looking at the screen of another and the motherboard's post code display on another. In short ergonomic keyboards seem to go after the S in RSI while I find it easier to tackle the R.
I use a Ducky One 2 TKL. I like it because it's backlit and takes up less space. I'm not a programmer, I just type a lot. It feels good to type on and that's enough for me. It doesn't require any stupid software, it doesn't need any special drivers, it just plugs in.
I like the keyboard.
I use the Keychron K1 mechanical keyboard. I used to not get the whole mechanical keyboard trend amongst gamers until i tried one out for myself, now i'll literally only buy mechanical keyboards lol. What I love so much about the K1 is that it has flat, laptop-style keys, but they're mechanical rather than membrane. This is important for me cause before i built my gaming PC a couple of months ago, I never owned a desktop, so I really needed that laptop feel and this totally delivers.
At work (coding, emails) : Topre Realforce 87u.
At home (formerly gaming, but now remote work) : Corsair K70 (mk1, with only red Led) with Mx Browns.
At home (home theater / gaming PC) : Samsung VG-KBD2000.
**At home (coding, emails, photo) **: My Thinkpad X1 Carbon 5th gen keyboard
On the go: SwiftKey on my android phone.
Topre: Bought during a trip in Japan. I wanted to get the black version but it wasn't available at the time, so I got a very retro whitish beige and gray. I like the feeling: softer than a purely rubber dome keyboard but firmer than the Mx Family. Also, I can have some street cred in face of my Ergodox-, Das Keyboard- geared colleagues (OK, we're the only three strange guys who have non basic keyboards).
Corsair: My first mechanical keyboard, I still like the tactile confirmation, the volume wheel, and the understated (compared to other gaming keyboards) looks. A shame that most of my music listening happens in the browser now (YouTube, Bandcamp) : the media keys are next to useless.
Samsung : Pro: I got it for free from my in-laws. It's also Bluetooth and I can natively switch on the TV with it.
Cons: everything else.
This thing is an exercise in frustration. Switching from "TV remote" to "Bluetooth keyboard" takes ages (to be fair: about 3 seconds; I'd argue it's still 2.8s too slow).
The touchpad is meh. It has no multitouch but has two scroll zone making its effective zone even tinier than what is already is.
It's left/right click buttons have no tactile affordance whatsoever (while the scrolling zone has a noticeable bump! So infuriating!) , so you cannot click without looking at the thing.
The response time is like half a second.
It has <infuriating>-key rollover (sometime I can do al- tab, sometime it release the pressed key mid way).
It's just sufficient enough to launch Firefox, go to YouTube and type something in the search bar, but barely.
Thinkpad: I have tested both old style (on a X220t) and new style (on my X1) keyboards, I find them equally good. I cannot get enough track point in my life though. An unreasonable gift I could ask is for a TeX Yoda.
SwiftKey: I chose it back when it was SwiftKey vs Swype. I tend to be faster when approximately typing vs swyping. Sometimes the text substitution algorithm put on the wrong word, but it that happens with all keyboard I tested.
Nothing fancy. I have a Logitech G610 with a Logitech G502. I got both at a bargain for $35 from someone on CL. I use it for just about everything. Work (coding), web browsing, and gaming. Initially I was looking at TKL keyboards, but I later learned the media controls + volume wheel is a godsend. Had this for 2+ years and it's still going strong.
I use any standard 104-key keyboard I can get my hands on.
I prefer light keys, so my current HP is way too rubbery for my taste.
However, I can still hit all the keys without looking, since this is the layout I have been using for a long time.
I don't care if I'm using a laptop on a trip, I still lug around a 104-key or find one at my destination.
Given today's glut of over-produced hardware, it is not difficult to find one wherever I end up.
I use a Leopold FC980M. It's a great compact keyboard in an 1800 layout. Very useful to have a dedicated numpad in something the width of a laptop.
Logitech G910 because I require a volume knob/roller on my keyboards. I got it for free as a warranty replacement for the Logitech G810 that I sent them an email about when the LEDs would occasionally stop working until I restarted my computer. The G810 was discontinued so they sent me the G910 instead and told me to keep or donate the G810. The G810 is now my WFH keyboard and for whatever reason the LEDs have never gone out while connected to the laptop dock. I picked up the G810 for $20 as part of a PC parts trade.
Currently a Logitech MX Keys, which is decent enough, but not so good I'll be singing its praises from the rooftops.
I like large low profile, chiclet keyboards, so my preferences are pretty much the polar opposite of the prevailing trends in mechanical design. I actually liked the low travel and slight snap that the old butterfly keyboard had, even if they had the functional lifespan of ice cream in a warm room.
I'm tempted to try a Keychron K1, but the lack of an ISO-size return key would bother me. Price plus tax & shipping to the UK is high enough that it doesn't seem worth taking a punt on unless they add it to their ISO range.
I have a Leopold FC750R and I love it. I went with the 80% because, while I don't often use them, I like the option of having arrow keys for scrolling. Plus the function keys come in handy occasionally. I mostly program and write, with very little gaming, so for me it was certainly worth the purchase.
I have a tenkeyless Varmilo VA87M and Cherry MX Browns. It's a great, reasonably priced prebuilt keyboard. I'm not a big fan of RGB, so having white LEDs is a huge plus for me. I do a lot of writing, and it's consistently felt great to type on. I have the CMPYO keycaps and they look really nice.
I currently use a Durgod Hades 68 with Gateron Yellows. Excellent size and sound. Has held up well over the last year. Would love to do a custom build in the near future.