Mastodawn

The one and only Jul 12, 2023

Advice on how to start/test

https://sh.itjust.works/post/1017467

Advice on how to start/test - sh.itjust.works

I am someone who has not used mechanical keyboards before, but I am curious about them since I read everywhere that they are great. The issue I have is that I obviously don’t know which things I will like or not. For example the switches, there are a lot of brands, and they produce different switches. When I read about them, I see the familiar terms: “clicky”, “tactile”, but I have no idea what that actually means. However, just starting to buy stuff to test it out will become very expensive, very quickly. How do you start with this without spending hundreds and hundreds of Euro’s at the start (and without knowing if you like it or not)

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SuperFola Jul 12, 2023

For the switches, you can buy switch testers for 10 bucks, with one switch of each brand/type/etc, to give you an idea of how they feel and sound.

Since you are posting in c/emk you might also be interested in ergonomics for keyboards? If you scroll here you will see a lot of different keyboards, many which are split (2 parts, one for each hand). A good idea would be to print the layout of ones you are interested in, to see how they feel with hand placement and movement.

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Andy

I’d second this. Buy a switch tester, and have a play to see what you like. Some computer shops even have them in store to ‘try before you buy’. Next thing is the keyboard typo. Ortho? Split? 100% or 40%? FWIW I started out with an ErgoDox, and then played with layers and key layouts until I found something I was happy with. Then you can simply stay there, or if you’ve reduced your keys to something like 36-keys, there are a wide range of boards to choose from with slightly varying layouts and designs.