Like most folks (I'm guessing) here I spend a ton of time each week on a PC so I feel it's a good idea to find the perfect input devices. I am a heavy gamer, programmer and and occasionally I write long boring forum posts so I want to have a really decent keyboard. I've used many, many models over the years but none I could say I really loved and that kinda annoys me slightly with all the thousands of options out there. I apologise for this semi-rant but it might be useful to someone looking for a new keyboard.
So my search begins with (and most importantly) switch type which dictates the feel of the keyboard, the reliability and the noise it makes in use, the options in this category:
Cherry Mechanical switches are preferred by many tech-savvy people as durable, precise and reliable. They are also the noisiest in use even with rubber o-ring dampener modification and I think the noise puts more people off more than anything else. One plus with cherry is they come in a variety colours (types) with different amounts of resistance and feedback to suit most people. In my own personal experience I've found them the least reliable having tried keyboards by 5 different mechanical keyboard manufacturers which all suffered from having 1 or 2 dodgy keys with inconsistent input. I also find them heavy, clunky and clumsy to use so I've ruled out mechanicals for my perfect keyboard.
Rubber dome or membrane keys are used in most boards. They have a soft spongy feel and can have a varied amount of force required to actuate sometimes even across 1 board. Actuation requires 'bottoming out' the key or pressing it almost all the way down. They are cheap and readily available and this is the type the vast majority of desktop users have. There a many options to choose from out there with varying features and price tags. Typical lifespan is 20% or less of a Cherry switch though at 5-10 million strokes. My experience with these is that they are satisfactory but nothing special. I haven't had major reliability problems with them. They make a small amount of noise in use but nowhere near as much as a mechanical.
Scissor switch keyboards are another type of rubber dome keys. They are called scissors because the plastic mechanism under the key has a pivoted design. These are generally found in notebooks, laptops or lightweight multimedia/wireless keyboards. They have a very short bottoming distance and require a very small amount of force to press and are the quietest type of keys to use, almost silent in operation. I'm not certain of the durability of these types of keyboards but I suspect they have the least lifespan. This is also my favourite type of switch since it's so quiet and feels very responsive to me with such a light touch required to press them. Unfortunately this greatly limits my options as there are relatively few scissor switch standalone keyboards out there and almost all of them are designed with office/multimedia use in mind and not for heavy gaming.
Topre capacitive switches are the last type I know of. They are somewhere between mechanical and rubber dome in design from what I can gather. As far as I know they are designed to be supremely reliable for situations where precise data entry is a must. Unfortunately I don't have experience with this switch type as they are prohibitively expensive and not readily available at least here in the UK. Maybe someone else here can explain what a Topre switch feels like?
Now I've listed the main switch types I'd like to mention a few other features I look out for on keyboards. Layouts are first up. Most people prefer a standard 100+ key layout but keyboards come in many shapes and sizes with extra macro keys, multimedia keys and so on. There's also more compact versions of keyboards available with less keys and my favourite layout here is known as tenkeyless as seen in the CM Storm Quickfire. It's a standard layout keyboard with no numeric keypad. Why no numeric pad you might ask? It's simple I don't really use it much and removing it off the keyboard allows a more comfortable space to use the mouse.
As for bonus macro keys I don't use those much either but I find it handy to have just a few. A lot of keyboards have followed the original Logitech G15 style design of putting them on the left of the main keyboard. The Corsair K40 recently reviewed here does this perfectly for me, having just one column of macro keys there does not make the keyboard much larger but gives it some useful extra functionality - a nice compromise I feel. Multimedia controls are something I can live without however the volume wheels found on the top right of certain Logitech and Corsair keyboards I find extremely handy and nice to use so given the chance I'd gladly add this to my perfect board.
Another feature that can be seen as a gimmick or a useful feature depending on the user is backlighting. Before backlit keyboards came along I didn't pay much attention to how easy it was to see my keys. Then one day I bought a new keyboard with backlight and since then I've never really looked back. I often have late night gaming sessions so when playing in dim conditions this becomes an invaluable feature - especially for someone like me who never learned to touch type 100% properly. My perfect keyboard would therefore include backlighting of some form if possible.
Now we get to a really important feature of keyboards for gamers. That is anti-ghosting or n-key rollover as it's sometimes known. So what's this all about? you might buy any cheap keyboard and plug it into your computer and think it's fine. Then you load up battlefield and press shift to sprint while holding down W to move forward until... you hit an obstacle you need to vault over. What's that space doesn't work? This is because your keyboard isn't designed to allow more than 2 keys to be pressed at once. Sure it will work with modifier keys like control-alt-delete but shift + two different characters at once? Not so much. That combination is not really used outside gaming and the keyboard wasn't designed for gaming. Now this is a big deal for me as I love scissor switches and very few scissor keys are designed for gamers. For example ghosting is a commonly reported problem with the Logitech Illuminated keyboard, a backlit scissor switch keyboard. This is a must have feature so my search for the perfect keyboard just got a whole lot harder.
Finally there's aesthetics of the board itself. It's not that important but I least want to have something decent looking on my desk. I'm not a big fan of big flashy gamer designs with red stripes and multi-coloured lighting. I Prefer something that looks elegant and professional while being good for gaming. Again Corsair does well in this area by providing plain looking game keyboards with nice features. It's K series keyboards are all rather nice. Unfortunately almost all of them use Cherry switches and none have scissor switches as far as I know. Ironically Corsair's only tenkeyless board the K65 does away with the volume wheel, the macro keys AND the backlighting.
So where does that leave me? Maybe I am asking too much but my perfect keyboard does not exist it's as simple as that! The closest thing I can find is the Gigabyte Stealth K7. It's not tenkeyless and it has no macro keys but at least it has a scissor switches, anti-ghosting, volume wheel and backlighting. It's also pretty cheap so what's the problem? Well the reason I haven't got it yet is it seems to be plagued by problems. Even Techradar's review model had a dodgy key which doesn't bode well at all. As much as this keyboard seems to almost fit the bill I need it to be reliable too.
So at the end of my search I'm left with nothing. Nada. Zip. Perhaps I am too fussy but I just can't find any keyboard that really fits my particular style. If anyone has suggestions I'm very open to hearing them otherwise the search continues...


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