The Joy of Mechanical Keyboards

Do you not have long fingers of a pianist and/or someone who eats olives straight out of a jar? Your wrists hurt from having to hover over the trackpad and your thumbs are bent unnaturally and have that searing pain shoot through them, so you wonder why most words in the English language are so God damn short?!

Are you perpetually annoyed with the flatness of most commonly sold computer peripherals? Does their slappy ding-ey sound make you irrationally angry?

Then maybe you should go mechanical and discover the wondrous (and expensive) world of keyboard enthusiasts! Like me!

The main selling points of a mechanical keyboard are:

• easy to maintain

You probably hand-soldered the PCB yourself, so if one key breaks, you can probably fix it using YouTube tutorials, trial and error, panicked screaming, and a hot tool of your choosing that you only whip out every forty years.

• easy to clean

Did you eat an entire croissant leaning over your precious keyboard? No problem, just flip it over and spank it like it has been bad (it hasn't)! And if you really want to get in there, you can remove each and every key cap and go to town with an antistatic brush lightly coated in dielectric grease. Why should it be coated in dielectric grease? You probably lubed your switches with it. What, why? Stop asking questions!

• easy to customise

Christmas. Themed. Everything. But also... in every color!

Now you really want a keyboard, and it's Christmas somewhere, so let me guide you to a gift you can genuinely give yourself.

Now some people ask directly about your switch preference, but knowing most people are visual, though I'm definitely not, I'm going to ask about the most important thing first: the size. I cannot be held liable for what you're thinking as the statement above is not reflective of my opinion on size in every single regard.

If you barely ever leave your house, and when you do you do not bring your keyboard to where you're going, but your key binds, key shortcuts and secret key ideations are your entire personality, also you dabble in computer games and Excel sheets, maybe you should choose a full-sized keyboard.

These are generally given the moniker of 100%, even though they can go as far as 150%. I have once seen a 200% keyboard, so I beg you to accept that percentage is NOT an exact science, defying the very nature of that concept. It's just that opinions on what keys must be on the keyboard for it be complete, vary depending on your economic status, career, and keys you consider functional.

Another factor to consider is the desk real estate. Do you have a big desk? Is it kind of smallish? How are your elbows these days? Is having a lot of empty space around you important for your mental health and cognitive endurance? This chunky good-time special boi might not be for you:

Let's say you do need space around you or you become a bit claustrophobic, and your arms aren't long enough to keep your mouse in the other room. But you still want those important keys like Ffff.... 5, and Del? DELETE?? Also where's Home? Welcome to my chosen layout, the 80%.

These will not let you down if you're a gamer, they will not let you down when you code, and sometimes like in the image above, they will have unassigned keys that you can just use... For anything! The only time you'll feel like you've got a missing hand is when you're filling an Excel sheet with numbers, or using The Dreaded Calculator. I've compiled many a tax return to tell you that gets annoying. So some genius came up with a smaller, pluggable keyboard just for that. I've never used one, though, my arms are kind of short.

Let's say you don't need to Page Up and Down with your keyboard, and function keys are for the lazy and unemployed, you've got words to type and fast! And also because you're a minimalist (ew), visual clutter is too distracting. So Leda, how small can we go?

They sell 30% variants, like the Gherkin.

You probably have to map all the keys you need by hand, though, because with a total of 25-35 keys, you have to make some tough decisions.

So if your work computer is a Raspberry Pi you jammed a webcam into with your bare hands, and your mouse is a vat of jelly you somehow super glued a Hall effect sensor into, so you're scrolling on a magnitized full-metal ball, calling the whole thing your "Magic Trackpad" (vomiting in my mouth a little bit), you'll be really happy with a 60%. You'll need at least 4 modifier keys, but you're a finger gymnast, you'll be fine. But if you do get a bit bored with that, there are always in-between sizes!

Now with the size of the keyboard decided, there's still the matter of ANSI vs ISO. Also what is that?

I won't bore you with a history lesson, just consider that the US likes to be different, and unfortunately for coders, superior. So if you enjoy the backslash being really IN YOUR FACE and you're perfectly content sacrificing the size of your Enter key because [laughs] who needs this much key... ANSI keyboards are made for you.

The feel of a keyboard is very important, and this is where we get to the switches, because travel and actuation play an incredibly important role.

Travel is the length your finger needs to go to push that sucker to the limit, and the actuation point is where the key goes "I've been TRIGGERED!"

There are three types of switches and all three of them are beyond good or bad, they're a matter of preference. Even representatives of each group can sound and feel completely different to other members of that category, just because... well, why not?

All switches are assigned a color by which you can sort-of-kind-of recognise their category. And the exact amount of Newtonian force you have to exert to push it! Which you can also read in the specs.

The most prominent linear switch representative is the Red. Linear means that the actuation is at the very bottom of the travel, so it's a push-your-pedal-to-the-metal kind of a switch. Red switches are also a bit heavy, so you have to work a bit to push them. Most keyboards work like that, so a Red can be pretty underwhelming if you want your mechanical keyboard to feel different.

If you want the feel of a typewriter, where the most force is applied on the surface and from there how far you push is really irrelevant, and you want it to make a deafening sound every time, no matter how hard you bang your keys or not, Blue will be the most famous switch you can pick, because you're a member of the Clicky tribe. If you don't live alone, this isn't a keyboard for you, because it will wake even your dead relatives.

Brown is always something... in the middle. Habitually considered a gamer switch, it's ... kind of loud for that. Tactile switches like the browns are perfect for gaming because the actuation is in the middle, not the top, or the bottom, so you need intention for the key to actuate, but not too much force so it becomes a workout. The Browns do make somewhat of a rattling sound when pressed, so it sounds a bit clacky.

I can hear you getting uncomfortable about the sound. So...

Listen.

If you're a bit insecure about the noise you make when typing, if you work in an office, there's not going to be an option that fully satisfies you. However, if you're delusional enough to think that the Magic Keyboard doesn't make a sound, I suggest you stick with it, because it does, and it's very annoying, it's the sound a third grade class makes, clapping with their clammy little hands. It's the sound of buttcheeks! It's the sound that's both a snap, a crackle, and a pop.

The light rattle of key caps can't physically be avoided, no matter how much sound foam you shove into the casing, no matter how silent your ninja switch is, or how taped and lubed your stabilisers are. What's lubing? Shhhshshhhhhh. Shut up.

Yes, people will hear you type, it's a low, ASMR-worthy sound most people can safely eliminate from their focus. Most enjoy it, and if you're chill about it, so will you.

So where do I go to buy one of these babies, without getting royally ripped off?

I personally think that Durgod keyboards are kind of neat. They're very solid, and if you don't want to dive into customisation and get easily overwhelmed by choices, you can get one even on Amazon. Also not all of them are RGB, and since I'm not 13, a Durgod Taurus K310 was my first. The space-grey color scheme, prominent switches, and a generous layout were the initial selling points for me. But also... if you look at how this shit is soldered... Damn. It's a clean, beautiful job. Does this keyboard, however, look like you work in the 80s? Yes. But equipped with Gateron Aliaz switches, sound foam to the brim, that's as close as you can get to silent typing.

Now, do you want to explore every flavour of switch, every keycap, every twisty aviator cable, every way of frivolously spending your money without worrying about waste because... incompatibility? Welcome to Keychron! They ship through China, and everyone does, so you'll wait. They even have those flat-ass keyboards to ween you off Apple slowly, so that your fingeys don't hurt at first.

But nobody goes truly custom, without getting ripped off by AliExpress! It's a rite of passage.

So just have fun! It's a hobby like any other, and you don't need permission to enjoy it.