Mechanical keyboards are all the rage these days. Hardcore gamers and
long-haul coders alike are flocking away from traditional
membrane-based keyboards in favor of their more clicky-clacky
competition. If you still haven’t hopped on the bandwagon, here’s
everything you need to know.
How Keyboards Work
To understand what makes mechanical keyboards great, you must first
understand how keyboards work. At its most basic, any keyboard
(mechanical or otherwise) works pretty much as you would expect it to:
you hit a key, that keystroke is registered by the electronics in your
board, and sends it to your PC, where it turns into text. What separates
the different styles of keyboards, though, is how those strikes are
actually communicated to your board.
Most standard boards use what’s known as a “membrane” system, where a
thin film of dome-shaped rubber or silicone separates the key from the
top of the keyboard’s electrical circuits. When you press a key, the
membrane depresses, allowing the two contacts to meet and the keystroke
to register with the computer. As such, the key only has two positions:
up or down. You can’t really press a key down halfway.
In mechanical keyboards, however, there is no membrane. Instead, each
strike is handled by an actual mechanical switch that slides up and
down. Each individual key is its own self-contained system, complete
with the key, a metal actuator, and a spring that depresses on a stroke
and returns the key back to its un-pressed state after a successful
strike. The keyboard registers a keypress when the key is halfway
down–not when it bottoms out completely.
Why Mechanical Keyboards Are Great
In a word: flexibility.
Membrane-based boards pretty much offer one of two choices in how the
keys respond: rubber or silicone (which doesn’t make all that much of a
difference when typing). Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, come
in many different types of switches. Some are harder to press, some have
more tactile feedback, and so on. With so many choices, you can
personally choose your board based on your usage and typing style.
As technology continues its inexorable march forward, we find
ourselves spending more time sat down at our keyboards than ever before.
Mechanical keyboards give users the option to acutely target exactly
what they need from a board, and buy accordingly. If you’re a hard typer
(like myself) and bottom out immediately on every strike, there are
switches that are made to accommodate that. If you type light and quick
and don’t find yourself making too many typos over the workday or during
a gaming session, there are switches for that, too.
Those switches also allow for more keystrokes at once than many
traditional dome keyboards, which is great for gamers. This
functionality is described as “rollover” and high-end keyboards will be
advertised as having “n-rollover” where “n” is the maximum number of
keys that can be simultaneously pressed. Never again will you have to
deal with a key not registering because you were pressing down too many
keys at once.
Lastly, since mechanical keyboards use more durable switches, they
tend to last significantly longer under any typing conditions. The
average rating for a membrane key is about 10 million keystrokes before
it finally starts to give way, while mechanical keys are rated at an
average of 50 millions strokes. This means that a mechanical keyboard
could potentially last five times as long.
Of course, all that comes at a price. Mechanical keyboards are always
going to be slightly more expensive on average due to the parts
required to manufacture them. They generally range anywhere from
$50-$200, depending on the features and design. So a $20 membrane
keyboard may be better if you’re on a serious budget, but $50 for a
keyboard that lasts five times as long is a good deal–especially since
you have so many choices.
As technology continues its inexorable march forward, we find
ourselves spending more time sat down at our keyboards than ever before.
Mechanical keyboards give users the option to acutely target exactly
what they need from a board, and buy accordingly. If you’re a hard typer
(like myself) and bottom out immediately on every strike, there are
switches that are made to accommodate that. If you type light and quick
and don’t find yourself making too many typos over the workday or during
a gaming session, there are switches for that, too.
Those switches also allow for more keystrokes at once than many
traditional dome keyboards, which is great for gamers. This
functionality is described as “rollover” and high-end keyboards will be
advertised as having “n-rollover” where “n” is the maximum number of
keys that can be simultaneously pressed. Never again will you have to
deal with a key not registering because you were pressing down too many
keys at once.
Lastly, since mechanical keyboards use more durable switches, they
tend to last significantly longer under any typing conditions. The
average rating for a membrane key is about 10 million keystrokes before
it finally starts to give way, while mechanical keys are rated at an
average of 50 millions strokes. This means that a mechanical keyboard
could potentially last five times as long.
Of course, all that comes at a price. Mechanical keyboards are always
going to be slightly more expensive on average due to the parts
required to manufacture them. They generally range anywhere from
$50-$200, depending on the features and design. So a $20 membrane
keyboard may be better if you’re on a serious budget, but $50 for a
keyboard that lasts five times as long is a good deal–especially since
you have so many choices.
That said, membrane-style keyboards do have one big benefit over
their mechanical counterparts. Because of the way the mechanical
switches are constructed, you won’t find them in slim designs like Apple’s chiclet keyboard, or Logitech’s slim K740.
For anyone who has shorter fingers or finds themselves struggling with
hand fatigue on standard keys, flat keys can provide a more relaxing
alternative that make for less travel distance between the top of each
key whenever you need to reset on a new word. Plus, they’re a bit easier
to transport, if you’re moving them around a lot.
The Different Types of Mechanical Switches
Since there are so many different types of mechanical switches, it
helps to know the basics before you go out shopping for a keyboard.
The most common switches include Cherry MX Blue, MX Brown, MX Clear, MX
Red, and MX Black. Cherry (now Cherry US) has been the king of keyboard
switches since the early 1960’s, and if you grew up typing on old clunky
IBM keyboards, you’re probably already familiarized with various
products the company has put out over the years. (There are other
companies that make their own switches, but we’ll get into later).
There are two main differences between switches. The first is what’s
called the “actuation force” (measured in “cN”), which determines how
much pressure you need to put on the key for it to move. In theory,
the less actuation force necessary, the faster you can type. The more
force necessary, however, the more difficult it might be to get a
keystroke to register, which can translate to increased overall
accuracy.
MX Blue: 60cN, MX Brown: 55cN, MX Clear: 65cN
The benefit of a more resistant actuator is that it can prevent typos
when your finger slips and you accidentally graze the wrong key. This
is also a potential boon for gamers who need the most precision possible
when blasting baddies out of the sky. This can also increase strain for
longer typing sessions, though, which means that if you mainly use your
keyboard for coding or data entry, you might want to stick to lighter
switches instead.
The second differentiator is the amount of audible or tactile
feedback you’ll get from the keyboard, which indicates when a key has
“registered”. Audible feedback works just as you’d imagine: the key
has a small piece of metal that “clicks” when the key has completed the
full travel distance necessary to register a strike. Similarly, tactile
feedback works off a small “bump”, one that pushes back on the key. That
way, you can “feel” when a keystroke has gone through.
MX Red: 45cN, MX Black: 60cN
Different styles of switches will offer different combinations of
this feedback. Cherry MX Blues come with a tactile bump and a loud
clicking noise, while Browns and Clears offer a bump with less noise.
Reds and Blacks, which are generally designed for gaming, have no
tactile bump, which makes them great for quick keypresses and
double-tapping. MX Browns fall more in the middle, offering a small
bump. And while it could be said that one switch is “better” than
another for a particular application, in the end which switch is right
for you will ultimately come down to personal preference. The best way
to know what’s going to be right for you is to get down to your local
electronics store and try a few different options out for yourself to
see what flows best.
Cherry MX switches aren’t the only options out there, though they are
the most popular across the largest number of boards. Both Logitech and Razer
manufacture their own proprietary switches in their products, all of
which still align with the same technical balance between actuation
force, audible feedback, and tactile bumps. So keep that in mind as you
shop as well.
The best thing about mechanical keyboards is that unlike their
membrane-based competition, there are several different types of keys
that cater to every kind of typist, gamer, or programmer out there. If
you require as much feedback as possible and like a loud keyboard that
tells everyone in a ten-mile radius that you’re getting your work done
at 85 words-per-minute, go ahead and pick up a board equipped with MX
Blue switches. If you want to keep decibel levels a bit stealthier
however, there are plenty of keyboards out there with MX Brown switches
instead.
No matter which style you eventually choose, it’s hard not to see the
many benefits and levels of personal customization that mechanical
keyboards can offer for every member of your office or household.
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