Keyboard-Fi - Page 37

I've been ordering caps from ebay and aliexpress.  Not sure if there are any other good places to get them from, but aliexpress is actually reasonably secure. 

http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/

whoever is interested, I have a brand new set of 104 key Cherry-MX keycap set Black on Black. I bought it for my Ducky 9008. let me know, will post on sale forum as well.

Pulled the trigger on a Choc Mini with MX Browns and POM keys. Hopefully it arrives in Canada safely, and without too many fees.

If it's terrible, I'll get a Cooler Master Quick Fire and live with that. I love the mechanical keyboard revolution though.
Edited by Blisse - 2/15/12 at 12:36am

I was looking at the Cooler Master, but the logos on the case and the font used on the keys are fugly.  I think those mini and compact keyboards are cool, but I don't think I'd be able to use them efficiently at work, where I type all the time and don't want to bother with special function keys to access often-used commands (e.g., delete, home, end, page up/down, arrows).

 

I am going to buy a tenkeyless model with MX blues next.

 

Post some pictures when you get the Mini.

 

They have some sort of sale on the coolermaster keyboards here:

http://us.ncix.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031501&sku=67069&vpn=SGK-4000-GKCL1-US&manufacture=COOLERMASTER&promoid=1029

Seems like a fairly good price to me, I'm not sure how much they usually cost though.  It's supposed to have mx blue switches.

 

I really liked the Noppoo choco minis, especially with brown switches.  I'm using another keyboard at the moment, but I still keep an extra one around in case I ever feel like going back.

I think that they revised the noppoo choc minis a bit.  I had a defective one at some point and when I received the replacement recently the lasering on the keys was much more visible and very even.  It was a sort of light brown as opposed to the barely visible brown from before, and there weren't anymore of those random keys that just stood out.

The NCM's do have 4 function keys down the side, I think they're pause, pg up, pg down, and del.  I mostly just use the delete key so it's enough for me.

Edited by sari0n - 2/15/12 at 8:37am

The Cooler Master is attractive because I want the smaller footprint, and MX Blues are great. I'm okay with over-branding as long as it looks nice and clean. Most mech keyboards do that fine though. I like the DA2 and BF3 version of the BlackWidow for example. I think they're clean. Font's fine coming from a BlackWidow. I don't look at my keyboard much anyways (poor parents when they use mine ).

I don't use the HOME/END/INS keys much except for Maplestory, and I don't even play that much anymore, so I'm good. I find that Home and End aren't as convenient for me when I'm coding, but that might change. I'm still learning.

Agh, whyd you post that picture. Now I can't wait. :d
Edited by Blisse - 2/15/12 at 1:43pm

With the Cooler Master, I honestly think it's worth the extra ~$20 to go with a Leopold or another brand's tenkeyless instead just because the branding on the CM is so damn ugly.

 

Also, I don't really like the position of the Fn key on the Choc Mini, it's kind of hard to reach without leaving home row. For a compact board I'd rather have the layout of the KBC Poker because the Fn key is easy to hit with your right thumb without moving your hand off of home row

I considered the KBC Poker, but I'm a programmer and I live around the keyboard. I can't have random keys missing, or waste time pressing Fn everytime i want to use the Function keys, or Delete. That's a real turn off.

My hands are large, and I use the BlackWidow so I'm familiar with the Fn key placement.

But mainly I need those extra keys.

And as I said, I'm perfectly fine with the Cooler Master's branding. It's not ugly to me, at least not from the pictures. Maybe I'll see in real life if I get there.


Also with CM, it's a main brand so it's infinitely more convenient to buy than shipping a Leopold or something in.

i have literally beat the living snot out of my das pro s including coffee and beer. still works. all this i heard about mx is fragile. of course ymmv big time. btw, similar treatment killed a hhkb and realforce. even though the overall package of the realforce appears to me to be better.

This is how I feel.  Not because I'm a programmer, but because I type long boring technical documents all day long.  I think I could live with the logos on the Cooler Master case, but I would replace the keys immediately after purchase with something less distracting.  I never use my machine for gaming, so that plays a part, too.

I'm quite the gamer so I use the Alienware Tactx keyboard (a friend of mine works in Dell and got it for free and she gave it to me) and also a fully programmable keypad, the Razer Nostromo for gaming....

You should really try a mechanical keyboard for gaming, they're a whole lot more comfortable. If you need macro keys, the Razer Blackwidow has 5 programmable keys to the left of the alphanumeric cluster

I've got one of the original Belkin Nostromo N52 and I like it way better than my Unicomp IBM Model M clone for gaming.  The keys aren't great but the ergonomics are king.

The Alienware Tactx has 6 programmable buttons! Yea, I wanted to get the Belkin one too, but the next thing i knew... Razer took over... lol