Perhaps serious typing needs a mechanical keyboard


It’s been some time since mechanical keyboards like Das Keyboard (considered now the leading device of that market), became popular despite their pricing (they are by far the most expensive keyboards.) Gamers are impressed by their precision, endurance and rollovers, authors or people who type a lot for any reason, extol their reliability, tactile response, even the joy of the sounding of their keys.

As the Editor of PCWorld writes, “swapping my stock [membrane] keyboard … the difference between the two was immediately apparent … a far more satisfying “thunk” noise when I pressed the keys… When I tried to go back to any standard rubber-dome keyboard felt mushyEach keystroke (of a mechanical keyboard) simply feels more solid than it does on a normal keyboard… Ιf you’re a PC power user and you’re willing to shell out a few hundred dollars on a high-end CPU or graphics card, don’t cheap out with a pack-in stock keyboard. You might find that moving up from your old rubber-switch keyboard to a nice mechanical model could make your computing more enjoyable overall.”

It was a pleasure to type on a bamboo keyboard and I was reluctant to make the shift, but after all this “talk of the town” at last I decided to try a mechanical keyboard.

Ducky is not a keyboard you would caress — only wood can be that inviting — but pressing the keys and actually typing is superb, it cannot be compared with any membrane keyboard, not even with membrane wooden keyboards. If you type a lot, keep reading this post, and finally try yourself by all means a mechanical keyboard, to gain first hand knowledge; you won’t ever think about using anything else

Here is a short video presentation of an affordable mechanical keyboard, Rosewill RK-9000 with Blue Cherry MX switches, the ‘clicky’ ones, which are great if you are typing a lot (Red switches are better for gaming, brown switches combine both worlds, which can be an advantage or not, depending on what you need most). Ideally you should try all keys, however, this is not always possible, at least read reviews and watch videos.

According to my personal experience from using browns and blues, if you need a keyboard to type, browns might prove as good as the blues; if you are a gamer, avoid the blues, because they are too noisy. In typing however, the blues can be a great advantage, yet they lack this sense of smoothness and quietness that characterizes the brown switches.

In my opinion, if you can afford it, and you type really a lot, think about owing two keyboards, one with blues and one with browns, so that when you are tired of the one, you will be able to resort to the other.