> Things are "developed to be different, not better."
This is certainly true for the Apple keyboard. It is totally an-organic. Give me a cheap standard Logitec keyboard over an Apple keyboard anytime.
This is certainly true for the Apple keyboard. It is totally an-organic. Give me a cheap standard Logitec keyboard over an Apple keyboard anytime.
But their full size corded keyboard is brilliant. Haven't used anything that feels half as good. Haven't seen anything that looks half as good.
Oh, and their trackpads are brilliant too.
For the looks - it is a matter of personal taste, but I agree Apple keyboards are elegant.
But given the form factor limitation, the Apple ones are pretty good (better than the previous notebook keyboards, I don't know the name of the keyboard types)
Has anyone made a mechanical keyboard with short travel distance?
To celebrate, I fired up Borderlands to see how well it worked in a game. Started out great. Accurate and responsive, effortless to use.
Then I tried zooming in with a telescopic sight (right-click and hold), then shooting with a left-click at the same time. You can't. Because the top surface is a roicker, you can either right-click or left-click but not both at the same time. Fail!
But they were sooo close this time....
You can actually recover from this with a full power down and restart, OS X tries to detect this condition and turn Bluetooth back on. But sometimes it doesn't work and requires a PRAM reset.
* Friction of movement was higher and "stickier" regardless of surface. * Grip was less comfortable because I had to push my fingers against the top edge. * Cursor motion was noticeably lagged and jerky. Admittedly this is going from a corded gaming mouse to a bluetooth mouse, but I don't care. I didn't want cordless anyway.
My only problem with the DeathAdder is that the Mac drivers are horrifically bad and the third party alternatives (SteerMouse etc) aren't much better. I've found that I can configure some settings on a Windows box which configure firmware in the mouse itself (mostly DPI modes and disabling the lights). Get these settings right and it works pretty well plugged into a Mac with no third party mouse software.
When it comes to desktop keyboards, they're better than the typical cheapo rubber-domes but it's still not terribly ergonomic.
The problem is that there is no such thing as "better" when it comes to stuff like keyboards.
I used to prefer mechanical keyboards -- I grew up with electric typewriters and the Mac extended keyboard -- but I found that the aluminum Apple keyboard was actually fine for me. I recently switched to Windows, so the keyboard layout of the Apple keyboard didn't work for me.
I tried out a bunch of mechanical keyboards with Cherry switches, and just found that I now hated the mechanical feel (and yes, I tried all the Cherry colors), which totally surprised me, given what I thought my preferences were. I ended up getting a dome keyboard (a Steelseries Apex), because I preferred the feel.
Instead of taking advice from "keyboard experts", people should just try a bunch of keyboards and buy the one that feels "right" for them, whether it's an Apple keyboard, a cheap standard Logitech keyboard, or something else.
It's not just about subjective feel, though.
I typed on mechanical-switch keyboards for 15 years straight, and in July last year switched over to a laptop dome-membrane keyboard.
This week I had to plug a mechanical board back into the laptop because my fingers began to ache after just six months.
Mechanical keyboards cushion the impact on the fingers, other types transmit it into the joints.
> Mechanical keyboards cushion the impact on the fingers, other types transmit it into the joints.
That sounds to me like you're typing too hard. Short-travel keys definitely take a lighter touch than mechanical keyboards, and 15 years of finger-pounding on cushioned keys is probably a hard habit to break.
People sing the praises of mechanical keyboards, and I guess it's satisfying for them, but I don't want to have to punch the keys like I'm using an old typewriter. I just want my fingertips to dance across them. I think the preference for mechanical keyboards is half nostalgia and half machismo.
Personally, I always found "ergonomic" keyboarsd to be unusable and uncomfortable, especially the Microsoft split style. But lots of people swear by those.
He was surprised and their seemingly lack of durability as most of Apple's products are fairly robust. After switching back to an an old Dell keyboard, he hasn't gone through any more keyboards, and that was 3 years ago.
Though I am building an adaptor for my IBM Type F as my first Ardunio project and am activly looking at getting a proper mech keyboard at work - I havde just replaced the wirless moouse with an old ps2 Microsft one.