Comment by aptsurdist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aptsurdist | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused. Why do all of these "elite" keyboards still have oversized dome keys that wiggle around, have a lot of travel, and have big gaps in between them. I'm sorry if this just makes me seem like a mac snob, but how could these compare to a slim, minimal-movement keyboard like this one? http://www.apple.com/keyboard/ [edit: I am not normally an obnoxious snob about keyboards, but considering the subject at hand is keyboard connoisseurship, I have to admit my strong appreciation for the slim-key style which didn't seem well represented in the discussion. (Not about mac vs. pc - just about the key-style.)] Maybe I'm missing something as I've never even heard the term "mechanical keyboard" before - some of the nuances might be lost on me.. but I know what I like and I'm pretty sure I would never go back to a large dome key keyboard like the ones shown. ...Oh wait, there is one keyboard shown that has minimalist keys, but it's $2,400! This is ridiculous, maybe I should go into the PC keyboard making business.

(Yes, I know that mac keyboards only work on the mac, but if people care so much about these things, then that's not really an excuse for leaving it out of the discussion. Anyone else feel the same way about the slim-key keyboards being so much better?) edit: correction -I guess they do work on PCs http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1095349

Mechanical keyboards may have lots of travel, but you don't have to use it all. While a mechanical keyboard may have 4-6mm of travel and scissor switch keyboards (like Apple's) only have 2mm, on a mechanical keyboard you don't have to bottom out the keys. Topre switches activate around 2mm - the same as your Apple keyboard. The difference being that your fingers aren't slamming into a hard plastic stop after each activation (unless you choose to bottom out your keys). Furthermore, well made domes don't tend to wiggle much more than the keys on an Apple.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by big gaps - Apple's keyboard also has some pretty sizable gaps between keys. Unless you have tiny fingers I think you'd want those gaps.

More information here: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=START+HERE+--+The+Gee...

Cool, that's starting to make a little more sense. By gaps I don't just mean the distance between keys, I mean that your fingers actually feel like they get caught in the deep spaces as you slide over them. But maybe that only pertains to the PC keyboards that I have experience with - the ones with with wiggly keys.(Maybe none of them were mechanical keyboards.)

Are you talking about sliding up from home row to the keys above (e.g. J to U)? If so I believe I'm lifting my fingers up slightly (maybe 1mm) when moving between keys. I'm not actually sure if that is good or bad for my typing health, but it does keep me from getting caught in the gaps on an angled keyboard.

exactly - I think that lifting your fingers is the 'normal' way to type on a traditional keyboard with raised keys. But, I love that when I type on my low-profile keyboard I feel like my fingers are always in contact with the keyboard and just kind of slide over the tops of the keys to hit their target. On the occasion when I have to use a raised key keyboard, I have to re-remember how to lift my fingers to type. It takes me a minute to adjust before my fingers stop getting caught on all the key corners. Then again, it could just be personal style - anyways, while I am a pretty fast typist, I wouldn't say that I have the most pristine home row technique, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

I have a macbook, and a PC with a model M keyboard, so I'm familiar with both types and use both regularly. I hadn't noticed before reading this, but I do tend to type similarly to you do on the low-profile macbook keyboard. It's more "sliding" than lifting. I think the low profile necessitates it, because otherwise it's just a lot of wasted movement through thin air and leads to less accuracy.

This may also explain why I was extremely inaccurate when I first started typing on the macbook (until I learned to adjust and type as you do), and why I still find it to be not as comfortable to use as the model M. It is the best laptop keyboard I've ever used, but I don't find that style of typing to be as comfortable or natural.

I guess it's just personal preference, though. I learned on a model M back in high school.

The optimus isn't minimalist by any stretch; the keys are individually addressable screens.

And modern Apple keyboards work on anything with USB or Bluetooth.

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