Recommend me a gaming keyboard

I've been paying attention to my typing since I first posted in a way I haven't in years and have discovered that I use the numpad constantly without really thinking about it. When I do any sort of number entry, that's just where my hand goes. I suspect I should stick to that layout. I do like that the mechanicals seem to be making a comeback. Though if I'd just get off my... credit card... and buy one, it would last near enough forever that I wouldn't really need to worry about availability in the future.

consciousness wrote:

I've been paying attention to my typing since I first posted in a way I haven't in years and have discovered that I use the numpad constantly without really thinking about it. When I do any sort of number entry, that's just where my hand goes. I suspect I should stick to that layout. I do like that the mechanicals seem to be making a comeback. Though if I'd just get off my... credit card... and buy one, it would last near enough forever that I wouldn't really need to worry about availability in the future.

They make USB numpads. I have one for the occasions like doing my taxes or whatever, but when it comes to playing games I'm always glad it's not there.

Thin_J wrote:
consciousness wrote:

I've been paying attention to my typing since I first posted in a way I haven't in years and have discovered that I use the numpad constantly without really thinking about it. When I do any sort of number entry, that's just where my hand goes. I suspect I should stick to that layout. I do like that the mechanicals seem to be making a comeback. Though if I'd just get off my... credit card... and buy one, it would last near enough forever that I wouldn't really need to worry about availability in the future.

They make USB numpads. I have one for the occasions like doing my taxes or whatever, but when it comes to playing games I'm always glad it's not there.

Either you're really fussy about having your hand 6 inches to the right or you have a tiny workspace

carrotpanic wrote:

Either you're really fussy about having your hand 6 inches to the right or you have a tiny workspace :)

I just like being comfortable. Sitting with your arms splayed out farther to the sides is fairly uncomfortable. And just like any other kind of bad posture it can cause problems later. It puts more strain on your wrists and especially your shoulders. People don't ever think about their shoulders as much as they do their wrists, but it happens.

My desk is actually on the large side, I just have a lot of stuff on it.

Thin_J wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

Either you're really fussy about having your hand 6 inches to the right or you have a tiny workspace :)

I just like being comfortable. Sitting with your arms splayed out farther to the sides is fairly uncomfortable. And just like any other kind of bad posture it can cause problems later. It puts more strain on your wrists and especially your shoulders. People don't ever think about their shoulders as much as they do their wrists, but it happens.

My desk is actually on the large side, I just have a lot of stuff on it.

IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4r2Vsl3jQeQ/TqnU6VatBDI/AAAAAAAACHA/_NWgOGjGbwU/s500/4884351227_59e98aa292.jpg)

Anyone have one of these?

http://store.razerzone.com/store/raz...

thoughts?? I dislike the "clicky clack" noise.. but love the feel of the actual keys/press

Alright, Thin, I tried the Logitech G510 last night in BF3 and hated the rubbery feel of the keys immediately.

I did, however, really like the LCD screen working with Vent, and the volume roller.

Since I'll be playing BF3 heavily for a while and have a month to return it, I will evaluate it for a couple weeks.

One random complaint: It feels like the keyboard actually slopes away from me, and using the little riser things in back merely improves it to flat. I'm used to somewhat of an angle towards me.

Thin_J wrote:
Gunner wrote:

Consider me enabled on the mechanical thing. Just placed an order at www.wasdkeyboards.com for one of the semi-customs. Should be pretty cool.

Back to this, which switches did you get? Pics when it arrives please :)

Went with the brown.

TheGameguru wrote:

Anyone have one of these?

http://store.razerzone.com/store/raz...

thoughts?? I dislike the "clicky clack" noise.. but love the feel of the actual keys/press

It's an ok board. The keycaps are lowish quality so the keys wobble more than they should/would on most cherry mx base keyboards, but otherwise it's ok. Personally, I think the only reason it's not yet another keyboard failure from Razer is that they didn't actually build a board themselves. The board itself is produced for them by iOne. They just stick their own stuff on it.

If you like the way it feels to type on that much then you should really look into other options. The Blackwidow uses the Cherry MX Blue switches, and those are the ones with the pronounced clicky sounds. If you look into boards with any other Cherry MX switch it should be a good deal quieter to type on.

Thank god for wide-ish shoulders. Don't mind the numpad.

boogle wrote:

Thank god for wide-ish shoulders. Don't mind the numpad.

Ditto. My mousepad at home sits a good 3 or 4 inches left of the keyboard; I 'm forced into having it closer at work and it's miserable.

With my old desk, space was not an issue, but my new one has a much smaller keyboard tray. I'm currently typing on a MS Ergo 4000, and it leaves me about 6 inches of mouse surface, which translates to about 3-4 inches of travel. Adequate, but barely. Going back to a regular keyboard should give me back an inch or so. Probably won't help me die less in TF2, but it might allow me to cover the whole screen in Eclipse without picking up every third time or so.

I think I'll wait for those Coolermaster keyboards, whenever they come out (they're not out yet, right?). Paying $155 (with cheapest shipping) for a custom on WASD seems a little steep to me.

Thin_J wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

I think I'll wait for those Coolermaster keyboards, whenever they come out (they're not out yet, right?). Paying $155 (with cheapest shipping) for a custom on WASD seems a little steep to me.

Rumor is those boards might not make it to US availability until December or January now, but it certainly can't hurt to wait. Always helps to have more options.

Sounds like a good Christmas present to myself, then

carrotpanic wrote:

I think I'll wait for those Coolermaster keyboards, whenever they come out (they're not out yet, right?). Paying $155 (with cheapest shipping) for a custom on WASD seems a little steep to me.

Rumor is those boards might not make it to US availability until December or January now, but it certainly can't hurt to wait. Always helps to have more options.

That is just rumor though. Coolermaster still has the availability listed at November in a bunch of places.

Got my WASD Keyboard several days ago (semi-custom model, dark grey keys across the board, MX Brown switches w/ o-rings). I'm currently adjusting my typing to softer keystrokes and back to a standard keyboard layout after the better part of a decade using various MS ergo models. I am quite satisfied so far. I pulled a couple of the o-rings off to compare, and they do make a difference in sound and feel when bottoming out. It's still mechanical, but overall it's quiet enough that I suspect I could use it in a cubicle environment without unduly disturbing neighbors. The only complaint I can muster relates to the overly-bright blue LEDs for the lock indicators. And they only really get me when I lean forward to reach for something on my desk.

So, I'm typing on a Model M here, and I'm a bit annoyed at the lack of multikey rollover and the P8P67's inadequate power, requiring a soft reboot for it to work. Do any of the Cherry switches come fairly close to duplicating the hard-strike Model M? I really need the hard-strike to keep my RSI in check -- I get sore on mushy keyboards.

Malor wrote:

So, I'm typing on a Model M here, and I'm a bit annoyed at the lack of multikey rollover and the P8P67's inadequate power, requiring a soft reboot for it to work. Do any of the Cherry switches come fairly close to duplicating the hard-strike Model M? I really need the hard-strike to keep my RSI in check -- I get sore on mushy keyboards.

Cherry MX Clear switches will be the closest I believe. Unfortunately the clear switches are, at this point, even more rare than the red ones. The closest that are commonly available will be the blue ones. You can fiddle with those a bit at most BestBuy stores, as they usually have the Razer board that uses them in stock.

The only way I know of to get clears is through Elitekeyboards while they still have the Leopold tenkeyless boards in stock. If you want a numpad... I have no idea where you get one.

You might be able to import one through PCHome, if you can go through the trouble of figuring out the ordering process on a site that's not in English. There's guides on Geekhack for ordering there usually, but all my browsers through up malware warnings for Geekhack lately so I've been a little nervous about visiting.

I'd say see if you can fiddle with the Razer board somewhere first. See if that's enough pressure required. If not, the only way you get more pressure from Cherry switches it the clears ones.

I think everybody here knows I don't like Tom's, but they do have an old but still semi helpful article up with three pages that cover a few types of Cherry switches.

consciousness wrote:

The only complaint I can muster relates to the overly-bright blue LEDs for the lock indicators. And they only really get me when I lean forward to reach for something on my desk.

Typically when I get a device with those ridiculous super bright blue LED's on them I find a way to darken them up. I've done everything from coloring over them with a Sharpie to covering them with small pieces of that smoky colored packing tape.

Part of why I like the Leopold boards though, is that the LED's for caps lock and scroll lock are built into those particular keys. All I have to do to darken them is switch the keycaps out. I have both those keys changed out for red caps right now. Typically the lights are off in my PC room when I'm using it. If I hit one of those keys and the LED comes on the keys glow noticeably, but there's no direct glare from the LED's like there would otherwise be.

Thin_J wrote:
consciousness wrote:

The only complaint I can muster relates to the overly-bright blue LEDs for the lock indicators. And they only really get me when I lean forward to reach for something on my desk.

Typically when I get a device with those ridiculous super bright blue LED's on them I find a way to darken them up. I've done everything from coloring over them with a Sharpie to covering them with small pieces of that smoky colored packing tape.

Much like the check engine light in my car (because f*ck oxygen sensors) those get the old tape and forget treatment.

Thread! Arise once more to do the bidding of your keyboard masters!

So today at Fry's I picked up a Corsair K90 Vengeance board. It comes with Cherry MX Red switches, a full backlight, a bunch of programmable macro keys and an aluminum frame.

Unfortunately, it is also a terrible, awful, no good, very bad keyboard.

Strike one: Separate music keys and volume don't work. Not in iTunes, not in WinAmp, not in Pandora, not in anything as far as I can tell.
Strike two: The macro software is just plain bad, for a number of reasons I won't bore you with here.
Strikes three-eight million: Upon activating numlock, my tenkeys would double register. Typing 1 would register 12, typing 7 would register 78, and so forth. The ultimate deal breaker? Using the frigging space bar with numlock enabled inserts an extra zero. What the eff?

Apart from that, not all of the keys were mechanical - Corsair cheaped out and used rubberized keys for the macros and Esc/F1-F12.

I will admit that the backlight was pretty and the typing feel was nice. But Good God, for a $125 keyboard Corsair should be ashamed.

I think I'm going to wait for the CM Storm Trigger. You can choose from the four most common Cherry MX keys, and it's fully backlit. That's really all I want - I don't need macro keys (although it has a few) or a separate LCD screen or whatever. Just a simple mech keyboard with backlighting.

I've got the same keyboard and while I haven't attempted to use the music keys(I have all my music in Amazon's cloud player), I haven't had the issue with the tenkey pad that you're reporting. As for the price, $125 is pretty steep, but you can find them at or under $100 easily, which I'd say is a good price for it. Every other backlit mechanical I was able to find was north of $150.

As for the rubberized stuff, I find that the keys they used rubber domes for are keys I rarely use, if ever. So I can't say that it bothers me a great deal, but to each their own.

edit - Oh, and the volume wheel; mine works perfectly fine. It controls the system volume, not the app volume.

So yesterday (after some fortunate googling for a coupon code) I managed to score 20% off on a Nighthawk X8 from Max Keyboards. It's a fully mechanical keyboard with MX Brown switches and backlighting. I also ordered some 50A dampeners from WASD. Everything should arrive next week... when I finish modding I'll post some pics for you guys and let you know how it turns out.

I am looking forward to your review; they look good.

MyBrainHz wrote:

and so far it's like Goldilox: Blacks were too resistant, Reds were not tactile enough, but the Browns are just right.

That new mechanical keyboard feeling is great.

So here's an update (no pics yet I will add those later)...

I received the Nighthawk X8 via UPS last night. 12 hours in, it is an absolute dream. I won't bother rehashing all the features - you can read more about it in the link above - but I'll run down the list of the pros and cons.

Pros:

*Backlighting is very well done. There are LEDs on every key, and the four brightness levels are adjustable on the fly. I use the middle brightness. It's great.
*Key feel is unbelievably amazing. I had only had a chance to try out Cherry Reds and Blacks so far, so I was taking a little bit of a chance on the Browns based on what I read online, and so far it's like Goldilox: Blacks were too resistant, Reds were not tactile enough, but the Browns are just right.
*It's relatively quiet for a mech keyboard after I added the dampeners. No squeaks!
*Key sensitivity is very good. You can bottom out the keys if you want to, but the lightest touch is very effective and much easier on your fingers. I am going to have to train myself to type with less force... it's not needed on this keyboard.
*This isn't revolutionary or anything, but I like having the extra USB ports on the top right of the board for mouse access. If I had a typical headset with 1/8 connectors I would probably use theirs too (mine is USB). All the connectors are gold plated and the cables are braided. It's a nice touch.

Cons:

*There's no LED for scroll lock? Instead it is replaced by a "Gamer" LED that indicates the Windows key is off (and maybe something about macros?)
*Some people probably won't like the media and macro key placement. Personally I don't mind, as I am unlikely to use them all that much, but there aren't separate keys - you have to combine use of the "Fn" key with the F1-F12 keys, kind of like a laptop. I knew about this going in so it doesn't bother me, but it's a legit gripe.

Other stuff:

To go with the keyboard I ordered a wire key puller and a set of 50A dampeners from WASD. I thought this would be painful and time consuming to do, but applying the dampeners turned out to be trivial once I learned the trick to deal with the larger keys (the ones with stabilizer bars like backspace, shift, spacebar, etc). I probably spent about 1-1.5 hours pulling all the keys, and it has made a pronounced difference in both noise level and key feel. I spent about $20 including shipping on the parts from WASD and it was well worth the effort.

It comes with a non-crappy wrist rest. They claim it is memory foam but I don't know about that - it's pretty firm. I tried it for a while and went back to my old one so I couldn't really list it as a pro or con. It's just kinda there. I imagine some folks would be grateful for it.

I haven't tried out the macro software yet. I'll report back when I've had a chance. I think I'll mainly use it for admin commands in TF2, if I actually use it at all.

All in all, I should have made this upgrade much sooner. I will use this keyboard for 10 years easily. Thumbs up to Max Keyboard on a pretty damn fine product.

I AM NOT A SHILL I PROMISE UPDATE:

Just across on the twitters, Max Keyboard is having a Memorial Day sale (20% off!) this weekend if you are feeling enabled. The code for the sale is F6AJE131. That puts the cost of the keyboard at about $125 shipped.

MyBrainHz wrote:

Just across on the twitters, Max Keyboard is having a Memorial Day sale (20% off!) this weekend if you are feeling enabled. The code for the sale is F6AJE131. That puts the cost of the keyboard at about $125 shipped.

There's also a couple of their models on Amazon for about $130, and while the order is through Amazon marketplace it's fulfilled by Amazon so it ships from one of their warehouses, not someone else's.

Monoprice seems to have a mechanical keyboard very similar looking to what MyBrainHz posted above. You can see here there is one with black and one with red cherry switches.

After 11 months of use, my Razer Blackwidow Ultimate has failed me. In a weird way: the CTRL keys don't work anymore. The switches still click satisfyingly, and every other key I've tested is fine, but not (either) CTRL.

So, I'm probably going to be in the market for a new mechanical keyboard once my financial situation improves a bit. In the meantime, I'm glad that I kept my Logitech G15 around.

misplacedbravado wrote:

After 11 months of use, my Razer Blackwidow Ultimate has failed me. In a weird way: the CTRL keys don't work anymore. The switches still click satisfyingly, and every other key I've tested is fine, but not (either) CTRL.

So, I'm probably going to be in the market for a new mechanical keyboard once my financial situation improves a bit. In the meantime, I'm glad that I kept my Logitech G15 around.

The switches have probably just gone kaput. You can order Cherry MX switches online. I ordered a bunch when my "S" key went out on my Steelseries 7G.

You do have to be able to do some light, extremely easy soldering depending on what type of switch it is exactly. Mine were the kind that required soldering.

You can figure out the model number by going here: http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/sw.... Scroll to the very bottom, and there is a chart that helps you determine the part number.

You can then google "cherry MX1A11NN" (edit: insert your specific part number where I have mine) to find a place that sells them. They are under $1 each (for example). In my case, I ordered MX1A11NN and MX1A11NW. The part ending in N is the soldering type and the part ending in W is a clip on type. You can easily cut off the plastic to turn a W type into an N type. I have a bunch of each, so I am set for many years. So far, I've only had one key go bad in a couple years.

Mine are blacks, otherwise, I'd mail you a couple.

It was a fun, satisfying project that saved me well over $100 since the keyboard cost me $150 originally.

It hadn't even occurred to me that it could be repairable. Hmmm.

Thanks!