Keyboards don’t seem like the sort of thing you’d pay too much attention to. You pick one that looks nice or fits your budget and plonk it on your desk. Done. Right? Not always.
There are enough different models out there with different bells and whistles that you can pay a lot of attention to keyboards and get quite snobby about it. Especially when you consider the amount of hours you can spend using it.
I’ll confess to being bit of a keyboard snob. For years I used a Ducky mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches. Those are the super clacky ones that make it sound like Thor is doing some demolition work when you unleash the full fury of your fingers.
My wife gave me a new keyboard for Christmas, a pink Ducky One with Cherry MX Brown switches. It’s less clacky – which I’m sure helped influence her choice to buy it for me – and has a nice smooth typing motion. Plus it’s pink. Pink things are inherently better.
Mechanical keyboards are great. The physical feedback from the keys feels pleasant and I’m sure someone can come up with a whole range of excuses why they’re better.
What I’ve never understood is when a keyboard has a whole bunch of additional macro keys and lights. Why do you need to light up your keyboard like a Christmas tree? There’s no need. You shouldn’t be looking at your keyboard, all you’ve done is put a bright neon distraction between you and your monitor.
Still, all of the brands aimed at gamers love putting bright lights on everything so there must be a market for it. Right? Or am I just being an old curmudgeon again?
Then there’s the whole thing about wireless vs wired. Yet another thing I may never understand. My keyboard doesn’t go anywhere so the question there is whether I prefer one more wire on my desk or the irregular hassle of having to change batteries. But I’m sure people that own wireless keyboards have their reasons for doing so.
Unfortunately I also have an Apple laptop and that keyboard is a constant source of frustration. At one point in my life I liked the low profile keyboard. Then some crumbs or dust or something got stuck under the ‘E’ key. Do you know how much it sucks to use a keyboard where the ‘E’ key only works most of the time? It sucks quite a lot and no amount of cleaning seems to fix it.
Enough about me, what are your thoughts on keyboards? Do you splash out for the biggest, shiniest thing in the land or stay with the stock standard el cheapo keyboard because you don’t care? What features do you want in a keyboard?
Oh and one last thing, clean your keyboard. These things get disgusting.
Leave a Reply