The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Keyboard thread (recommendations please)
harvest
By birthright,a stupendous badass.Registered User regular
By birthright,a stupendous badass.Registered User regular
My Logitech G15 is dying. The backlight in the center part of the keyboard is flickering and driving me mad, and the LCD too. The volume disc makes the volume go up and down alternatively when spinning it either direction. Basically it's had it and I want a replacement.
I don't want another G15 though, this thing is too big and not bright enough for my needs.
Ideally I want a keyboard that's backlit with variable brightness (or very bright only, choice of colors a plus), has volume controls and media buttons, and sturdy enough to withstand 10-12 hours a day of use.
I don't know enough about keyboards to know if I want mechanical or not.
It absolutely MUST be available from Amazon.
I'm looking to spend up to $80-100 American, but cheaper is obviously better.
So, Penny Arcade forum. Your task is to educate and persuade me! I can't actually buy the new keyboard until Amazon credits me for some game trade-ins next week or maybe the week after.
I don't want another G15 though, this thing is too big and not bright enough for my needs.
Ideally I want a keyboard that's backlit with variable brightness (or very bright only, choice of colors a plus), has volume controls and media buttons, and sturdy enough to withstand 10-12 hours a day of use.
I don't know enough about keyboards to know if I want mechanical or not.
It absolutely MUST be available from Amazon.
I'm looking to spend up to $80-100 American, but cheaper is obviously better.
So, Penny Arcade forum. Your task is to educate and persuade me! I can't actually buy the new keyboard until Amazon credits me for some game trade-ins next week or maybe the week after.
harvest on
0
Posts
It's got individual backlights behind each key, so they're all even and bright. I'm anal about backlighting, since I'm primarily a Mac user as I love my perfectly backlit MacBook Pro.
It's got media and volume controls on the F-Keys. No stupid extra media specific buttons. It has one column of 5 programmable buttons on the left side.
It's also mechanical. It's loud, heavy, and feels amazing to type on. Those may be positives or negatives, depending on your point of view, but it's built like a tank. Rock solid cherry blue switches under the keys will outlast any membrane keyboard out there. It's as sturdy as they come. The base has a solid metal plate in it running the length of the keyboard. Nice, heavy braided cabling, too.
Now, it's normally a bit over $100, and that's because it's mechanical, but Ifigured it was worth throwing out there, since good backlighting and durability sound important to you.
Edit: just checked and it's $111 right now. The $80 version you might see (sans "Ultimate") is the same board without the backlight.
Gotta ask about the brightness though, how is it? Can you take a glance at the keyboard in a dark room and easily make out the letters?
(incidentally my kb crapped out during this post forcing a restart :P)
Yep, the brightness is great. 3 different brightnesses, plus off, and a stupid pulsing mode.
I keep mine on the lowest setting and it's easy to make out in a dark, or well lit room.
I previously used a Razer Lycosa and a Logitech Gsomething. Both had horrible, uneven backlighting. The Black Widow is by far the best backlight I've seen on a keyboard.
My only, very minor, complaint is that they put the shift-characters ($&@ etc) below the main characters, instead of above. Takes a little getting used to, but I think it was for the purpose of centering the main character on each key directly over the backlight LED.
Anyway, when I'm not lamenting that Microsoft's Ergonomic 4000 doesn't come in mechanical flavor, I enjoy typing on my Das Keyboard. Probably too rich for your blood.
Keep an eye out for Razer's new (upcoming?) Black Widow Ultimate Silent (something like that). It rolls Browns rather than Blues (I like Browns better, your mileage may vary) and I believe upgrades the key rollover, but it hasn't been out long enough for that to be confirmed.
I mentioned several cheaper mechanicals in this thread, depending on how much you like backlighting. Also, the XArmor U9BL is a solid board if you don't care about macro keys, not sure about the backlighting quality, but it supports more rollover than the BW Ultimate.
Battle.net
Anyway, the Silent also swaps out the glossy finish for a nice matte.
I really wish I could get one in matte, but with the cherry blues.
God knows I'll probably end up buying one and gutting it to combine the two into my perfect keyboard.
Did you know you can essentially build your own router? I may or may not have a Newegg wishlist for that...
...And I think I just almost hijacked Harvest's thread. On Keyboards: Mechanicals are great if you really care about the board you're typing on, but I've used some traditional dome keyboards I like a lot too. The Microsoft Ergonomic ones are really nice, I only stopped using mine because I wore a lot of the key caps down to where I couldn't see the letters, and stuff was starting to stick a little bit.
Battle.net
When my wife complains about there being two extra PC cases under the dining room table, I'm totally shifting the blame to you. Unless I can convince her to let me build one up or her. She does need something to play the Sims on, after all.
At least I'm getting more use out of my keyboards now.
I myself have a bunch of caseless parts, an older (but still smoking fast) 1366 build that I'm ashamed to take an internal picture of due to the cable management and general cleanliness, and a ton of Samsung Spinpoint F3s. It's just so much fun. Like a LEGO set you can play games on.
Battle.net
Anyway keyboards. Turns out I'm due $123 from Amazon so the BlackWidow Ultimate is definitely in the running. I'm also looking at Das Keyboard boards but it's hard to tell what's different about the different models (except 'silent', that's pretty obvious).
The Ultimate versions have unlabelled keycaps, the Pro versions have labelled keycaps. I have a Pro Silent.
Battle.net
The brown has a "silent "actuation point (which, yeah, is really just quieter. Not silent), but still has the clack when it goes all the way down and hits bottom. It's still audible (not as quiet as a laptop keyboard), but has more of a dull hollow clack than the sharp, loud click of the blues.
Personally I prefer blues for gaming and I firmly believe browns were created purely to keep coworkers in offices from wanting to murder you as you type. But a lot of people do prefer browns for extended typing, I've heard. Me, I like laptop keyboards for extended typing, but that's a whole other quirk.
So basically I don't care if the switches I get aren't optimal for long periods of typing, because I don't do that on the PC
I've got a Das Ultimate and a Blackwidow ultimate. I much prefer the BlackWidow, although in a perfect world I'd be able to relocate or even just remove the column of macro buttons on the far left side of the keyboard. I hit the macro button in the lower left instead of left ctrl all the time and then my entire hand ends up way off where it's supposed to be because the bottom-left most button should be ctrl, not some silly macro button!
As far as build quality goes I wasn't super thrilled with the Das, the spacebar was pretty wobbly, one of the USB ports didn't work most of the time, and it eventually developed a crack just below the space bar. The crack didn't seem to really harm the structural integrity but it was pretty unsightly.
twitch.tv/tehsloth
I have to admit, despite my mechanical keyboard fetish, I love laptop-style keyboards so, so much for extended typing.
Thermaltake makes decent, but not amazing stuff. Mostly cases and coolers and such. I haven't used this particular one, but it looks awfully similar to the Razer Lycosa (low profile laptop-esque keys), which is a nice keyboard for a non-mechanical. I've played around with a TT mechanical keyboard and found it kind of flimsy and lacking, but I'm not sure I'd condemn their whole product line based on one keyboard.
If you're looking for a low-profile non-mechanical keyboard with backlighting, this one fits the bill.
Cherry MX Browns, Laser etched keys, really solid hefty base, no backlighting (only lights are numpad/caps/scroll lock on/off notifications)
Pretty much an amazing no-frills (aside from two optional USB plugs on the side) keyboard. Runs a bit pricey, but I haven't been disappointed. Most keyboards honestly have too much shit for me personally. Had a G15 before and hated using the macro keys, never used the LCD. Keys finally starting feeling gummy, even after I cleaned the thing out. This keyboard my fingers are floating on clouds.
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html
It's the sort of keyboard you put in your will because it will outlast you. The keys are loud as fuck, you could probably punch a hole in a tank with it, and the fact that it's basically the IBM Model M with a usb cord gives you so much nerd cred, you might as well wear a pimp hat while typing.
Yes, the store looks hokey but it is 100% legit.
Ugh, I know exactly what you mean. Frustrates the heck out of me with my g110. I'm not sure why it happens given that, really, it's not like you often on a regular keyboard miss the left control and hit your desk instead. Maybe it's a matter of peripheral vision. I wonder if I'd stop hitting my macro keys if I painted them white.
I've been using an older version of that for almost 6 years now and it's still going strong.
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html
a) has a lcd which can be written to via various programs (lcd studio, everest etc). I really don't use this for game stats, but I do for monitoring temps. It's alerted me to a few bad situations that I might not have seen before part failure.
b) doesn't have macro keys, i pulled them off my g15 because I didn't find them useful and they got in the way of touch typing. If they are situated somewhere out of the way I wouldn't mind.
c) has usb 2.0 ports built in, not required but a plus.
My g15 has been fine for years, but the letters are pretty much faded to crap at this point, and its a mess even after cleaning the crap out of it.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
You just gave me a good idea to macro M5 into L+Ctrl.
Not now. I'm lazy.
You, my friend, are a god damned genius.
I own a Lycosa, which is the Arctosa with backlighting. Good solid keyboard. My only real complaint is that the backlighting is super uneven and splotchy, but that wouldn't be an issue on the Arctosa. I love the low profile laptop-style keys. My second favorite keyboard subgenre behind mechanicals.
Left CTRL sticks.
It sticks in a way that makes me think it's getting stuck under the plastic casing around it, because if i tap on its left side toward the right it pops back up. Or if i mash on it a few times it usually springs back. I knew from seeing lots of user reviews on amazon and newegg and the like that there were build problems with the keyboard but I kind of expected them to be worked out by now. I guess I'll have to get in touch with Razer and see if they have a solution, like maybe a slightly less-wide key they can send me. Or maybe this is something that will go away if I keep using it? Who knows. Everything else is fantastic so I'm almost willing to keep the keyboard even with this flaw.
I decided on a replacement because I use Left CTRL constantly. I play New Vegas a ton and I'm constantly hitting that button for crouch/sneak and not having it come back up is highly disadvantageous. What REALLY sucks is when I hit it for some Chrome function and it doesn't come back up. If I start typing in a text box all kinds of crazy shit happens on screen, basically makes the browser unusable.
I'm eagerly awaiting the replacement though, hopefully it doesn't have any major flaws.
I have the Lycosa as well and have gotten a lot of hate for suggesting it. If you're not looking for the feel of a mechanical I'd recommend it. My Lycosa has rubberized keys which are soft to touch and have the feel of a laptop's low profile set. Depends on your preference.