Buying a new mechanical keyboard & confused

[belveder]

I'm buying a new mechanical keyboard next week and totally confused what to buy with market growing so much.

So far I have cut it down to either the Cougar 700K Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Cherry Red or Logitech G910 Orion Spark RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard or Das Keyboard 4 Professional Mechanical Keyboard Cherry Blue.

This is as far as I get cause they all have good reviews etc.

I can't afford to just jump in hence asking here. Any help appreciated

 

[Charlie98]

You need to try to go somewhere where they actually have, if not those specific keyboards out where you can try them, those specific switches in a keyboard. Seriously.

I probably test drove 20 keyboards before I found one that was acceptable (if not necessarily equivalent to the old IBM I used to type on.)

 

[belveder]

Thankyou but that's not possible, I have to order all except Logitech through internet

 

[shredz]

You can buy a small sampler that has the keys on it to try.... like this one http://www.amazon.com/Max-Keyboard-Keycap-Cherry-Sampler/dp/B00E71W4O8

In my experience, blue keys are pretty loud and clicky. Reds are liked by lots of people for gaming. Brown seem like the best for me.

 

[belveder]

I've used a Corsair mechanical keyboard before and the clicking didn't bother me after a bit of use

 

[postmortemIA]

what do you need it for? typing or gaming?
Cherry blue and brown switches are good for typists, red and black are more for gamers.
Probably safest choice is keyboard with cherry brown switches. It is noisy, but not too much, and pretty fast.
cherry blue - clicky when activated, more noise when key reaches plate.
cherry brown - you can feel the activation, but not hear it. sound only when key reaches plate, pretty fast
cheery red , black - linear, silent; red needs less force

BTW logitech and few others are starting to make their own switches. Be careful with these, as they are new and kind of knock-off.

 

[belveder]

Both, I game and type alot

 

[DSF]

I assume this means you aren't near a MicroCenter? At the MicroCenter near me they have a board that has samples of all the switches so you can try them out.

Just double-checking.

 

[corkyg]

It might be useful to review the Peripherals discussions on mech keyboards, That is really the proper forum for this thread.

 

[mfenn]

I agree that the most important thing is to figure out which kind of keyswitch you want. Once you know that, it's basically a matter of how much you are willing to pay for fancy features like individual key backlighting and custom remapping software.

As for keyswitch preference, I agree that the brown is the safest choice. It feels like a traditional key with a defined breakpoint, but doesn't have any extra clicking mechanism.