MEW Community Keyboards

Turn up for what

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rofl

Which is your favourite? And where do you put the numpads?

I kinda started thinking about keyboard kits again lately, are there any available in ZA at a realistic price?

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I’m liking the new grey and red keyboard for work, and the old blue and yellow one for gaming. Numpads are what you get when you take cotton wool and swab some anesthetic. The only local shop I found was https://www.ctrlshiftesc.co.za/, but have never actually bought from them. They list many things, but stock a fraction of what you can browse. One of THOSE online shops.

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Might as well vomit some words out:

Brand: Royal Kludge G68 or just RK68
Switches: RK Brown, which are tactile, fairly loud
It’s has wireless dongle as well as bluetooth. Takes USB-C and outputs 2 USB-A’s. Has windows and mac modes. Does have RGB glow, but with solid keycaps(no light shines through). No angle adjustment, but is at a “normal angle”, if there is such a thing. This is still a pre-assembled mechanical keyboard. It’s not custom in the sense that you choose and assemble the world, before you can use it. But of course, you can open up and fiddle, and they have some custom software too, though it’s not required.

It does come with it’s quirks. The TILDE key is top right, which I’m used to being the DEL key. But to put this in perspective, usually (not always, but usually) there isn’t a TILDE key on a 65% layout keyboard, and you need to FN the ESC key. So at least it’s one key press to hit that key, and FN isn’t needed.

Weakest and definitely would be a problem for some. Long key rollovers aren’t as good as they should be. eg. Ctrl-Alt-Shift-FN-= which should give me Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F12 just won’t work. That’s a little odd. It could be because the FN VOLUME UP function is interfering. I haven’t investigated much, since I don’t really need it.

Also, if you use an FN key, often during depress (or on the upstroke of the key press), if you aren’t fast, it will actuate the normal key press immediately afterwards. eg. the ] key is also END. So you go to jump to the end of a line, and if you’re not fast, it will drop a ‘]’ at the end of the line. This might all be a symptom of using brown switches together with the way they’ve implemented their board firmware. The muscle memory is coming along nicely, so this is happening increasingly seldom. :man_shrugging:

None of these are deal breakers for me. It does however sound the best out of the lot. The chassis is heavy by keyboard standards, and probably fairly well padded internally. If I had to guess, they might have chucked some metal inside, because the case does sound like plastic. :thinking: Typing is an intentional and satisfying thing. I score it 4/5 puppy dog eyes

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this is why I need a numpad - a key for every thing on its own. I can’t be arsed with doing hand signal more intricate than Ctrl + Alt.

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I want to know who the camera person was and whether they stopped filming and then klapped you around the head, or whether you just edited out the smack? :rofl:

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my name is timothy i am speed you can not touch me

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looooooooooooooooooool Mel?

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I’ve never owned or experienced a mechanical keyboard before. Unless old-school keyboards were mechanical, they sounded loud. Nevertheless, your video and words here make me want one. Is this, or is there, a good “beginner” one to look at getting?

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LOL! Brilliant ending!

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Hahahaha I have to agree between the last two, at least they are a bit more quieter :stuck_out_tongue: We HATE clacking in the office…

Also WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY people do you not use the numpad! FFS, how do you do anything!?!

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As far as mechanical keyboards go, I would break them up into 3 groups: custom keyboards (you buy the parts, you assemble it yourself, you pick and choose to your hearts content), pre-assembled but not mainstream, and mainstream, which is just about every big brand out there.

You want one of the latter 2. There isn’t a one size fits all though. Choose a layout. Choose a switch. Wired vs Wireless. Ease of shortcuts, if you’re going for something cut down like 65 or 75%. If you can try before you buy, that’s absolutely golden. But I guess that’s what’s attractive about fully custom keyboards, that you build yourself. You choose every single part vs choosing what a big brand decided to put together, to make their keyboard.

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That’s helpful, thank you.

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The Mechanical Keyboards subreddit also has a great wiki that I’m sure @aldyr already knows off by heart.

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Bzzzzzz :honeybee:


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