- Apr 1, 2009
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- Whatever, just wash your hands.
What have you purchased recently?
- Thread starter BrawlMan
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Mechanical keyboards are not small. Don't confuse the (stupid in my opinion) TKL and 80/70/65% keyboard sizes for the norm. But okay, here's a short list of stuff I found that I think suits your wants.
Logitech Signature K650 Wireless Comfort Keyboard
I did say it was a short list, but my - admittedly brief - inspection of my regular PC part purchasing haunt leads me to believe that Bluetooth is your major hurdle. Keycap keyboards are reasonably plentiful in the wired keyboard category. Wireless not so much.
Obviously they're not as plentiful as wired options, but there are some options out there. There's wireless mechanical keyboards you can buy and customize, many of which are offered by Keychron. There's also other smaller companies making some wireless options as well. I know my old KBD 67 Lite R2 had a wireless option if you purchased the battery for it. Just gotta seek them out is all. Although, not all of them are something you can buy in-stock and may have to do something called a Group Buy (sorta like kickstarter/pre-ordering)
Since my old laptop (well over a decade old; it may have been eligible to serve in the military) was beginning to suffer from screen failure, I picked up a new one from Best Buy at a pretty good discount. Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to have finally closed off all avenues of going through Windows 11 setup without connecting to an MS account. Oh well; this laptop's primary purpose is going to be playing YouTube videos while I exercise. Do with that knowledge what you will, Microsoft.
Officially, anyway... but it's a bit of fucking around so I've just stayed with 10.
Link to the Best Buy laptop you got?
You have to have an MS account? It is convenient for some things. Been about 15 years since I read an article to paraphrase, resistance is futile: you will use the cloud. Now you will use Microsoft.
Man, I'm impressed it lasted that long. Many laptops don't tend to survive half that.
What did ya get, if I may ask?
Edit: Wow I was beaten to the punch of asking what you got by seconds
It was this little puppy here. Not very powerful, but like I said, it'll be primarily for YouTube watching. And it's upgradable if I need it to do harder work.
What in the cinnamon toast fuck is this?
I AM on the latest Firefox, Best Buy!
Bah. Oh well, I can hover the URL and see what you got. If Amazon's pricing is legit, that's not a bad little lappy for the price! Even better on a discount
One isn't supposed to have brand loyalty Buuuuut, I think a lot of ASUS. This looks to be something that will serve your needs well at a crazy low price. Windows alone is going for around $120.
They are loud too. That’s my biggest complaint about the Corsair K70. Love the looks and functionality (aside from the space bar sticking sometimes), but dammit if even the “quietest” ones don’t sound like they’d give emptying the dishwasher a run for its money. I tested three different ones too. I think the ASUS was *very* slightly quieter but that isn’t saying much.
Pretty much any mechanical keyboard made by the common brand (Corsair, Logitech, etc) will sound pretty crap. Even the ones that say they're super quiet... naw, they don't make it quiet in the areas that count, like the stabilizers, case and plate materials, internal dampening, etc. Even a decently cheap board you can safely open and customize will sound way better with a little bit of time and love to these components. Look up some real silent keyboards on YouTube, and the difference is night and day. Doesn't take a whole lot to get there either.
The ones in stores claiming they're "silent" need a big fat asterisk that reads: *When compared to the usual shite we sell on the market
So the YouTube ones, are they basically “DIY” keyboards? I mean, I guess I’d check into it if there was a decent kit and it wasn’t too time consuming, but if wouldn’t really want to go down this road either -
They are, yup. Custom mechanical keyboards can go as deep as you want it to, and the deeper you go, the more it'll turn out as you want.
There's a TON of options... from case material, to plate material (that holds the switches), hot swap or soldered switch sockets, internal dampening (if necessary), mounting options, different stabilizers (that let the big keys like spacebar do what they do)... on top of tunings for most of these, like lubrication, switch choices, foam additions, keycaps, etc etc.
Some board kits are better than others too. For example, the Maker Scarlet TKL kit I bought is good enough that I don't need any foam dampening to make it sound better, as compared to my KBDFans 67 Lite R2 I used to use that had some foam, yet it sounded worse.
You can make it as simple or complex as you want, as long as you're willing to put in some level of time. Hell, even just lubricated switches, springs, and stabilizers makes a HUGE difference without having to dive into all the rest. It's a kinda tedious process if the idea of taking apart every switch and lubing each part of it doesn't appeal, but the result is a much nicer typing experience.
Hell, some pre-built boards come pre-lubed too, like the Varmillo VA87M. Though, eventually you will have to tune it yourself once the lube stops doing its thing. If you're ever curious about this stuff, you can send me a message and I can send ya in a direction to go.
Edit: After watching that video... yeah, no, that's a road that only the more intense enthusiasts go down. You won't need to do that to make a good board
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Thanks for the info! So I guess my other question then would be, how often does maintenance factor into one of these. Guessing it would kinda inversely correlate with the amount of time put into building one, or is it more or less irrelevant?
The amount of time investment you need will go down with experience, but, typically the amount of time you put in will mean less work later. For example, my first complete job of tuning my first custom keyboard lasted me a year or so before I had to open it up and clean up the stabilizers, though it probably could've been done 9 months in. But the rest was fine overall. Now that I've done a better job of this the second time around, I expect my re-tune to last as long, if not longer, cause I was more careful doing it the second time
I finally caved in and bought a PS5. I've been slightly regretting not getting one when I saw them at Walmart at Christmas time, so when they were in stock again I decided what the heck. They also had the God of War Ragnarok bundle that includes a digital voucher for a game I don't want for full price, but I got lucky and got the base model for $80 cheaper. Now I can finally play all the PS4 games I've been buying for the last 3 years.
Ok Sony, now you can go ahead and announce the PS5 Pro.
Ok Sony, now you can go ahead and announce the PS5 Pro.