I owe this review after I praised so much the mechanical keyboards. I’ve been using mechanical keyboards with brown, black and blue switches. Once I added also those o-rings that reduce noise, distance and hitting intensity. During the last two years or more, I’ve been using blue switches without rings. I still like mechanical keyboards and perhaps sometime in the future I’ll try them again. But my opinion now is changed a little.

I admit that mechanical keyboards can be more reliable, of course durable, usually better for gaming. I don’t like blue keys, though, since this click can become really annoying, no matter how much it helps when you type fast. Beyond that, and most of all, I don’t like the way mechanical switches handle bottoming out. You are supposed to learn typing without pressing fully the keys, but if you type fast and are absorbed in what you do, it is common and it seems unavoidable to press the keys fully and intensely, in which case you will hurt your fingers.

Right now I’m using a keyboard with scissor switches. I still don’t like at all rubber dome keyboards, but if they are complemented with scissor switches, the feeling can be acceptable or even great. I’m typing fast, the keys give this sense I enjoy in some laptops, they are smooth and soft, I don’t need to hit them with a great force, and I can bottom out without getting the mechanical keyboard feeling of striking against a wall… Having typed for a long time with this nice priced Dell KB700, I can say that its metallic body is great and typing feels great! Of course I’d like to try a Microsoft Surface Keyboard, the ergonomic or the straight one, or Logitech’s Craft, but these are even more expensive!

Beyond aesthetics (mechanical keyboards tend to be fat and ugly, scissor switch keyboards can be slim and elegant), mechanical keyboards will be perfect if they add a way to absorb the strike when you type bottoming out, in a way that protects your fingers, while being also pleasant, feeling nice, not mushy. Right now you are afraid to type hard, and if you add o-rings, the feeling of the keys becomes almost horrible — not even soft! Therefore, I stopped using mechanical keyboards, hoping they will be developed enough to provide critical features that now they miss. I must admit though, that if I were a gamer, needing only accuracy and rollovers, without caring for fast typing, I could not but get a mechanical keyboard, with red or brown keys.