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hardware upgrade
I finally emerged from analysis paralysis and things being out of stock and did I say analysis paralysis? and bought a mechanical keyboard. It came today, so I haven't done much typing on it yet, but ooh, first impressions are very positive!
I bought the WASD V3, with Cherry Silent Red switches and no dampeners. (I asked; they said with Silent you don't also add dampeners.) I made one small modification (see if you can spot it in the picture), and otherwise played it straight. (Part of the analysis paralysis was ooh, colors! but how does what I see on the screen compare to reality? should I ask for samples?. Ok, I guess technically I made two modifications, because I did change the color scheme.)
(Not great lighting, I know. I should have taken the picture elsewhere before plugging it in.)
No mechanical keyboard is silent, not even a Silent Red, but the noise on this one is solidly within acceptable parameters. I mean, my previous keyboards weren't silent either, though granted I type too "hard" (something I hope a better keyboard will help me to improve).
A factor that I already really appreciate, though I didn't think about it that much in shopping, is the weight. This keyboard has some heft to it, which means it stays where I put it. Those generic Logitech keyboards are lightweight and slide around on my desktop if not pushed against something. (My monitor stand, until tonight.) That was often on the edge of annoying.
The WASD people were easy to deal with. You can design your own keyboard, and if you look through the gallery you can see some pretty elaborate stuff. I didn't need elaborate, but I did want one change. I asked about it, and instead of making me figure out how to produce the layout file they needed, they sent me an image and said "like this?". Nice.
I did compromise on one thing, but it'll be ok. I never use the number pad though it's always been present on my past keyboards, so I thought to get the keyboard version that omits that rightmost set of keys. Every time I checked, they were out of it in Silent Red, though they had other key types. Eventually I decided eh, might as well get the kind I've always had and that I can actually get now. If I ever need to replace this keyboard (they're supposed to last a long time), I can experiment then. Or not -- it wasn't a strong preference, just a thing to try.
In just the little bit of typing I've done so far I can already tell this is going to be much more comfortable. Yay!
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(Screened temporarily while others are guessing. I hope you can see screened replies or, if not, that you have email notifications turned on.)
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I confess that my favorite keyboards of the time had Control *and* Caps Lock on that row, both with smaller keycaps, Control always being leftmost on the row.
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(Anonymous) 2019-10-30 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)MX brown switches with dampener rings around the key necks are the deal for typing a lot. They are silent - if you don't bottom out accidentally. Dampeners have you covered, though - but that's only for accidents, to not hurt finger joints. The goal is to learn to type without whacking the key down to the metal & thus use less pressure that hurt joints & tendons like on must-bottom-out-to-make-contact kind of keys.
This works by tactile feedback on contact closure - which happens quite some millimeters before bottom, even if dampening rings are in place.
The blue switches are similar, but have the click.
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