7 ms·

I probably don't speak for everybody, but I can try to speak to your points above: - They are loud They can be loud, depending on the switches you get. Howeve

I probably don't speak for everybody, but I can try to speak to your points above: - They are loud They can be loud, depending on the switches you get. However, some people feel that they benefit from it. The loud clicks are satisfying in some way. Maybe it's an ASMR thing for some people. For me, the sound feels like feedback. - They are expensive They can be. But so can regular keyboards. My first mechanical was like $40. - The keys are massive and ugly Unless you put low profile switches on your keyboard - Massive travel time (So slow to type on) Unless you put fast switches on your keyboard. The clickiest keys tend to be the slowest, but I don't type more than 80 words per minute anyway, and when I'm coding a lot less than that. But you can definitely get faster switches. Here's another reason: it's fun. It's just fun. Sure maybe it's just cosplaying as a hacker, but it's still fun. And most mechanicals can be remapped really easily, to allow custom workflows. Or layers. What I may potentially lose in words per minute, I gain by creating an intuitive key map that lets me reach the keys that I actually need day to day.

mewse 6y ago
> They can be loud, depending on the switches you get. It’s worth noting that for folks who don’t know proper typing technique (which is probably nearly everybody under the age of 40, as nobody really teaches it any more, at least in the countries where I’ve lived) it almost doesn’t matter what sort of mechanical switch you’re using, in terms of noise. In my experience, the majority of mechanical keyboard noise for most folks doesn’t actually come from the switches at all; it comes from the keys noisily bottoming out on each keystroke. My theory is that most folks these days learned to type on membrane keyboards where you have to bottom out the keys (often with quite a lot of force, if the keyboard is old), or else on a laptop’s scissor switches where you can’t avoid bottoming out due to the extremely short throw, and so everyone’s just typing with much more force than necessary and driving the keys all the way down to the backplate on every press because that’s what they had to do with the keyboards they learned on. Which of course makes typing far less pleasant, and also much noisier! The complaints are totally understandable, from that perspective. This also links into the “Massive travel time” comment; most folks push the keys much too far down while typing on mechanical keyboards! Cherry MX Blue switches (as one example) actuate at 2mm, which is almost exactly the same distance as most (non-Apple) laptop scissor switches. The only reason that a mechanical keyboard would have “massive travel time” compared to a laptop keyboard is if you’re needlessly pushing the keys all the way down, when you actually only need a gentle tap on them.
- DennisP 6y ago
  That's the exact reason I use mechs. My finger joints started getting sore from typing, which was a career threat for me. I bought a collection of nice keyboards with Cherry browns and reds, and trained myself to type without bottoming out, and the problem went away. As a bonus, it turned out that typing that way was faster for me. For several years, sometimes I slacked off and just typed on my Mac keyboard, and fingers would start getting sore again so I'd switch back to the mechs. Now I've apparently healed up a bit and a modest amount of laptop typing doesn't bother me, but I still bring out the mechs for more substantial work.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  It is difficult to unlearn once you learn it incorrectly. I have learned to touchtype about 80WPM in my teens, over 2 decades ago and I still have hard time not bottoming out or using right shift key. I have been successful in re-learning to use dvorak instead of qwerty and to type in a tempo (ie. with equal intervals, using metronome), but the bottoming dynamic is much more basic than that, I think.
- cbm-vic-20 6y ago
  Agree. Older-than-40 here, I learned to type primarily on electric typewriters and old-school terminal keyboards, where the switches would trigger around half-way down the travel of the key. When I use a mechanical keyboard, I do the same- the Cherry MX Clear switches in my keyboard act in a similar way- you don't need to "bottom out" a switch for it to activate. Manual typewriters, though, had a /huge/ amount of travel, and since the travel provides the force to strike the type on to the paper, you really had to hammer on them.
  - matwood 6y ago
    > Older-than-40 here, I learned to type primarily on electric typewriters and old-school terminal keyboards Came here to say the same thing. But then I was stuck on keyboards that required bottoming out for many years. It's been a re-learning process to not bottom out on my fairly keychron k2. But, wow so pleasant to use.
- 6y ago
executesorder66 6y ago
I did not know you could get low profile keys. That's interesting and I'll look into that. Why aren't they the default though? But even with everything you say, I still don't see the point. You'd have to find specific switches and keys (which will probably be more difficult to find and more expensive) just to end up with something that roughly matches a rubber dome keyboard. And yeah, I admit they look cooler overall. And they have a more "hacker" vibe to them which I can appreciate. But again I still can't think why I'd spend all that extra money/effort on something that struggles to match a normal keyboard for typing. And yeah, when I'm coding I hardly type, I spend most of the time thinking. But I still do a lot of typing in general. Writing online comments, group IM chats, searching stuff on the internet, typing commands into a terminal. And whenever I've tried any of that on a mechanical keyboard, it just feels like my typing speed is unnecessarily slowed down. I get irritated by the latency in the same way I get irritated waiting for a website to load all it's useless extra js scripts that will have no effect on the bit of text I want to read.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  - Why aren't [low profile key caps] the default though? I can't say. I came to mechanical keyboards to get away from the crappy Apple laptop keyboards, so would never occur to me to use key caps like that. - You'd have to find specific switches and keys (which will probably be more difficult to find and more expensive) Have to? Or get to? Sourcing parts for your dream keyboard can be fun. At least as fun as any other hobby. At the end of the day, if you like the keyboard you're using, you're doing it right. The one thing I will say, is that my fingers probably touch my keyboard more than any other item in my house. I'm a developer and I might spend hours straight at the computer. When you consider that, the $150 I spent on my keyboard or the $99 I spent on my trackball don't seem like so much money.
- __float 6y ago
  Low profile mechanical keyboards seem to be pretty slim pickings, still. https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k1-wireless-mechanical-keyboard https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k1-wireless-mecha... is one of the first I saw gain pretty wide popularity.

mewse 6y ago

> They can be loud, depending on the switches you get. It’s worth noting that for folks who don’t know proper typing technique (which is probably nearly everybody under the age of 40, as nobody really teaches it any more, at least in the countries where I’ve lived) it almost doesn’t matter what sort of mechanical switch you’re using, in terms of noise. In my experience, the majority of mechanical keyboard noise for most folks doesn’t actually come from the switches at all; it comes from the keys noisily bottoming out on each keystroke. My theory is that most folks these days learned to type on membrane keyboards where you have to bottom out the keys (often with quite a lot of force, if the keyboard is old), or else on a laptop’s scissor switches where you can’t avoid bottoming out due to the extremely short throw, and so everyone’s just typing with much more force than necessary and driving the keys all the way down to the backplate on every press because that’s what they had to do with the keyboards they learned on. Which of course makes typing far less pleasant, and also much noisier! The complaints are totally understandable, from that perspective. This also links into the “Massive travel time” comment; most folks push the keys much too far down while typing on mechanical keyboards! Cherry MX Blue switches (as one example) actuate at 2mm, which is almost exactly the same distance as most (non-Apple) laptop scissor switches. The only reason that a mechanical keyboard would have “massive travel time” compared to a laptop keyboard is if you’re needlessly pushing the keys all the way down, when you actually only need a gentle tap on them.

DennisP 6y ago
That's the exact reason I use mechs. My finger joints started getting sore from typing, which was a career threat for me. I bought a collection of nice keyboards with Cherry browns and reds, and trained myself to type without bottoming out, and the problem went away. As a bonus, it turned out that typing that way was faster for me. For several years, sometimes I slacked off and just typed on my Mac keyboard, and fingers would start getting sore again so I'd switch back to the mechs. Now I've apparently healed up a bit and a modest amount of laptop typing doesn't bother me, but I still bring out the mechs for more substantial work.
lmilcin 6y ago
It is difficult to unlearn once you learn it incorrectly. I have learned to touchtype about 80WPM in my teens, over 2 decades ago and I still have hard time not bottoming out or using right shift key. I have been successful in re-learning to use dvorak instead of qwerty and to type in a tempo (ie. with equal intervals, using metronome), but the bottoming dynamic is much more basic than that, I think.
cbm-vic-20 6y ago
Agree. Older-than-40 here, I learned to type primarily on electric typewriters and old-school terminal keyboards, where the switches would trigger around half-way down the travel of the key. When I use a mechanical keyboard, I do the same- the Cherry MX Clear switches in my keyboard act in a similar way- you don't need to "bottom out" a switch for it to activate. Manual typewriters, though, had a /huge/ amount of travel, and since the travel provides the force to strike the type on to the paper, you really had to hammer on them.
- matwood 6y ago
  > Older-than-40 here, I learned to type primarily on electric typewriters and old-school terminal keyboards Came here to say the same thing. But then I was stuck on keyboards that required bottoming out for many years. It's been a re-learning process to not bottom out on my fairly keychron k2. But, wow so pleasant to use.
6y ago

executesorder66 6y ago

I did not know you could get low profile keys. That's interesting and I'll look into that. Why aren't they the default though? But even with everything you say, I still don't see the point. You'd have to find specific switches and keys (which will probably be more difficult to find and more expensive) just to end up with something that roughly matches a rubber dome keyboard. And yeah, I admit they look cooler overall. And they have a more "hacker" vibe to them which I can appreciate. But again I still can't think why I'd spend all that extra money/effort on something that struggles to match a normal keyboard for typing. And yeah, when I'm coding I hardly type, I spend most of the time thinking. But I still do a lot of typing in general. Writing online comments, group IM chats, searching stuff on the internet, typing commands into a terminal. And whenever I've tried any of that on a mechanical keyboard, it just feels like my typing speed is unnecessarily slowed down. I get irritated by the latency in the same way I get irritated waiting for a website to load all it's useless extra js scripts that will have no effect on the bit of text I want to read.

schwartzworld 6y ago
- Why aren't [low profile key caps] the default though? I can't say. I came to mechanical keyboards to get away from the crappy Apple laptop keyboards, so would never occur to me to use key caps like that. - You'd have to find specific switches and keys (which will probably be more difficult to find and more expensive) Have to? Or get to? Sourcing parts for your dream keyboard can be fun. At least as fun as any other hobby. At the end of the day, if you like the keyboard you're using, you're doing it right. The one thing I will say, is that my fingers probably touch my keyboard more than any other item in my house. I'm a developer and I might spend hours straight at the computer. When you consider that, the $150 I spent on my keyboard or the $99 I spent on my trackball don't seem like so much money.
__float 6y ago
Low profile mechanical keyboards seem to be pretty slim pickings, still. https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k1-wireless-mechanical-keyboard https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k1-wireless-mecha... is one of the first I saw gain pretty wide popularity.