So far so good. I went with a logitech 10 keyless style since it was only $39.99 on sale. I don’t know what kind of switches this thing uses but it has pbt keycaps, I think? Anyway here it is on amazon. Feels good to finally have a new kb where I don’t have to struggle pushing down the p key.
Nice, I couldn’t imagine going back after switching to a mechanical keyboard. I also couldn’t imagine not having a 10 key but I guess if you don’t use one it would be fine.
I also couldn’t imagine not having a 10 key but I guess if you don’t use one it would be fine.
I barely use the 10 key as it is so I didn’t need it.
Welcome. This is a deep hole to throw money into if you start getting really into it.
Apparently your keyboard uses “Longhua switches made by Kaihua” and these equate roughly to Brown Cherry MX switches (so half way between a very clicky feel and smooth key, effectively a mild click feel).
I hope it feels much better than your previous keyboard. Mechanical keyboard modding is a thing (if you’re interested). The switches can feel much nicer if they’re lubricated and you don’t necessarily need to de-solder to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Lu3fj6W5s
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Apparently your keyboard uses “Longhua switches made by Kaihua” and these equate roughly to Brown Cherry MX switches (so half way between a very clicky feel and smooth key, effectively a mild click feel).
Yeah so far it has a very nice click sound to it! I’ll look into lubricating it then.
If you lubricate the side where the slider clicks inside the switch then it may lose most of its tactile clicky feel (which may be a good or bad thing depending on what you want, personally I prefer smooth keys). This lubricating process is tedious and takes a couple of hours at least.
There are also Lemmy communities dedicated to mechanical keyboards if you’re interested.
There are also Lemmy communities dedicated to mechanical keyboards if you’re interested.
Cool thanks for letting me know.
they call it “the hobby” and it seems to be a way to spend a lot of money to be satisfied for a very short amount of time before needing to spend more money.
anything new and exciting to recommend for someone who bought their keyboard years ago enjoys their ducky kb w/ mx browns?
Hipyo tech makes good content if you’re looking for ideas: https://youtu.be/GaeIEKilzVA
You can mod your own keyboard. Or if you want to do something new then you can look at other layouts. Look at my post history, I’ve made a couple of custom layout compact keyboards.
If you really want to get your hands dirty then you can look at making a handwired custom keyboard or macropad from scratch: https://www.youtube.com/UCsjCKly4KtkvVyDjG_XkzEA
I don’t think Ducky supports QMK, but if you have a QMK/VIAL compatible keyboard then you can do all sorts of interesting custom key assignments.
I guess I was also pointing at like…key switch types. If there has been any uhh I guess “improvement” is the word word over the cherry type switches
Yeah there are loads of options now.. Even that link is old and there are even more types. I’m using Gateron switches myself. There are low profile mechanical switches as well.
tyty
ty!
I’m currently rocking an AliExpress Corne because why have a regular keyboard when you can have a keyboard that you have to spend a bunch of time programming to make useful? It’s super fun, though. I love split keyboards.
Getting a hotswappable board is also fun because then you can easily experiment with different switches. My favorites are currently the Gazzew Boba U4T Silents.
Hell yeah I have a Cantor 42 key I built, love the split kb vibes
Nice! How did the assembly go? Is it hot swap or did you solder the switches in? I’ve wanted to try building a keyboard but I have very limited soldering experience and feel like I would go crazy doing all the LEDs and sockets. I like the look of the stagger on the cantor.
It wasn’t bad but I also love soldering lol. It’s a very simple kb (no hot swap, LEDs, or diodes) so assembly was just popping in switches and soldering, and the same for the microcontrollers and TRRS connection. I think if this ever dies though I definitely want something with hot swap, I like my kailh choc pinks but would love to keep experimenting w new switches
Split keyboard gang! I have a sofle (lily58 derivative) with low profile choc switches (Kailh sunset oranges). Big love.
Ooh, I almost went choc but stuck with MX. I want to try a board with sunsets at some point.
Really like the low profile. Keeps your fingers lower and wrist in a better position. But it’s spoilt me, I don’t want to go back to mx now.
Re the sunsets they’re great, the only good low profile tactile I’ve tried. I’d recommend to anyone who liked the old school MacBook Pro keyboard from back in the day. Which I say as a compliment. It reminds me of them in the best possible way.
i there any budget mech keyboard out there that any of you can recommend that also has a numpad? preferably sub-50 dollars, i’m poor as shit lmao
/r/BudgetKeebs
I got a logitech G413 SE for around that on sale. Might’ve been ~80 normally. Great keyboard so far and it looks normal.
Yeah looks like it’s $56 on Amazon right now. Don’t know how often it goes on sale, but apparently not that irregularly.
Maybe refurbished you might find something in that price range? Sorry I really don’t know as I’m a newbie myself.
The really cheap AliExpress ones and Amazon ones can be hit or miss, but keychron has the C2 which I think is one of the better options for 50 bucks
clack clack gang
clickity clickity
Welcome to the “likes hearing themselves type
/probably also talk” crowd! :DAs someone who also loves them clicks
So I figured out a trick to stop my hands from paining on the new kb. I was using the hand rest wrong and it simply had to be adjusted. Now I’m enjoying click clacking away with these clicky keys. I’ll test drive it tomorrow playing some FFXI and see if it beats out my 360 controller.
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I believe that’d use Logitech’s own proprietary “Romer G” switch that’s supposed to be similar to a Cherry MX Brown?
Oh that’s cool and I didn’t know that. I had borrowed a mechanical keyboard from my friend a few years ago to try it out but after a few days it ended up hurting my writs badly and I’m not sure why. So I bought a memory foam hand rest to go with it.
Mechanical keyboards seem so cool, I’d totally get into them if I had a lot more money…
I do have a pretty nice old keyboard that I got for free (only had to buy an adapter because this computer doesn’t have PS/2), it also makes quite a lot of the clicks, I’m quite satisfied with it, but it’s not mechanical
Yeah like I said this one was only $30 something on a black friday discount from amazon, and I know you can buy even cheaper ones off aliexpress although I can’t vouch for their quality since I’ve yet to use one from them. But this logitech is worth it for the price, very solid and nice to type on. I’ve yet to try it for gaming though.
My Keychron K2 V1 died on me recently and I need to replace it. It was a good little keyboard while it lasted. They make ultrathin models now and in curious how those are. It would be ideal for my use case.
So far I like this and it seems good for the price. I was tempted to go buy a $20 no name brand from aliexpress but then I saw that this one by logitech was only $30
Yeah that’s a good price. Keychron is a little pricy but they offer a lot of variety. I like having keeb that’s portable.
i have gone in search of an mkb 3 times and every time i ended up with a keychron. they are the best price + selection. especially for a tkl. if i was OK with a smaller kb there would maybe be better choices. but how do you live without a nav pad???
i’m sure there are 10000 youtubes and reddit posts to answer this for you.
nav pad? you mean numb pad? I’m pretty good at touch typing numbers, but also I’d totally buy a stand-alone mech 10 key. I want this thing pretty bad: https://www.8bitdo.com/retro-18-mechanical-numpad/
no I mean the part to the left of the num pad:
maybe that’s just my personal nomenclature? you use it to navigate up down left right top bottom.
what I can’t stand is a 60% where you need to use some key combo for pg up, arrows or whatever. fts. but for some reason thye are more numerous and cheaper.
that’s a pretty fancy number pad, and not toooo expensive actually. I got a $10 number pad on aliexpress and found I never use it. But if you have data entry or gaming or some other application then very possibly justifiable.
Oooohhhh! Yes OK that makes sense. I think the K2 is a 75% maybe? It has those keys but they are jammed in there. The home/end/pgup/down keys are on the right side positioned in a single column. The arrow keys are stuffed in the right corner.
So I have that but it’s just in a different spot. The K2 also has a separate F key row too.
I do some spread sheet work at times in my day job and use a calculator at times. Plus it has built in game lol. I have the matching keyboard so u just want to complete the set too.
ya k2 is 75%. I’d rather just go up a tiny bit to 80% [tkl] and have an easy to use navpad. Also anything that abbreviates/relocates the shift key I don’t like.
for me personally since I will always have to use computers I don’t control, I try not to deviate too much from standard at home because I just get myself all muddled. In highschool I changed my kb to Dvorak over the march break. It was great and I immediately got up to my prior typing speed on qwerty. But then I couldn’t type anymore back in the school lab. So I decided I had to go with qwerty. Sadly. Lesson learned.
(In the revolution, perhaps we may strike a committee to reform the keyboard. As it is, inherently, a location of collective struggle/complacency.)
At home I have caps lock mapped to control and even that is annoying when I use other kbs because I’m constantly engaging caps by accident. This is why I won’t go so far as learning emacs or vim or other more intensive kb interfaces; would constantly be a problem for me.
Maybe when I am retired I will go back to Dvorak and make all kinds of mad macros on some custom QMK thingy. Or thingies, with a bunch of side kb macro pads hanging off the side for specific applications.
+1 calculator - people don’t value this enough; just because you can use calc on your phone doesn’t mean it’s the best way. honestly a printing calculator is amazing if you can get it cheap (which you can at a big box thrift store) but either is better than a dang phone.
