Mechanical Keyboards: A Quick FAQ & Top 5 Models | Articles | Computer technology

Mechan­i­cal key­boards are more expen­sive than sim­ple ones (mem­brane), but their man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty is a bonus for gamers and typ­ists. Beau­ti­ful LED light­ing brings a bright touch to the sur­round­ings of the work or play space. We tell you how mechan­i­cal key­boards dif­fer, what switch­es (switch­es in the keys) affect, which mod­els are includ­ed in the TOP‑5.

Fea­tures and ben­e­fits of mechan­i­cal key­boards
Switch­es: types, tech­ni­cal details
Steelseries Apex Pro
Moto­speed CK108
Steelseries Apex 5
Log­itech G413
MSI VIGOR GK30
con­clu­sions

Mechan­i­cal key­boards are periph­er­als for com­fort­able work and visu­al enjoy­ment. Pho­to: indianexpress.com

Features and benefits of mechanical keyboards

Each key is with a mechan­i­cal­ly opened con­tact and a felt tac­tile con­nec­tion. The user feels the stroke of the key with his fin­gers. You don’t need to push the plas­tic all the way in. The mech­a­nism is acti­vat­ed until the key is com­plete­ly low­ered onto the sub­strate. This improves the com­fort when typ­ing. The key has not yet been pressed, and the let­ters have already appeared on the screen.

Increas­es the speed of work. You can lit­er­al­ly slide across the key­board. After a cou­ple of hours, the user, with his eyes closed, under­stands how much effort is need­ed to “acti­vate” the key with a spe­cif­ic switch (more on that lat­er). In games, this is impor­tant: a missed action bound to a key is a waste of pre­cious time in dynam­ic scenes.

On mechan­i­cal mod­els, the keys are raised above the plat­form. Each one has its own mech­a­nism. Pho­to: windowsreport.com

Oth­er ben­e­fits of mechan­i­cal key­boards:

• Long ser­vice life. The mech­a­nism of each key is designed for mil­lions of clicks. In the event of a break­down, it can be eas­i­ly replaced in 1–2 min­utes. There is no sin­gle sub­strate with con­tacts that, if dam­aged, can­not be repaired. The aver­age life of a good mechan­i­cal key­board is 5 years.
• Sim­ple care. The keys are easy and quick to remove. You can wipe and clean the mech­a­nisms, the key­board case.
• Respon­sive­ness (speed of response). On the “mechan­ics” the speed of print­ing and reac­tion to game episodes is grow­ing.
• Sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Due to the impres­sive weight of the key­board is very dif­fi­cult to budge by acci­den­tal move­ment of the hand.
• Mechan­i­cal key­boards sup­port simul­ta­ne­ous press­ing of two or more keys. You can bind game com­bi­na­tions to them, which is very use­ful for online bat­tles on the net­work.

Switches: types, technical details

Under each key there is a mech­a­nism that deter­mines the force of press­ing, the stroke of the but­ton, the sound when it is trig­gered. The name switch (Eng­lish “switch”) means a switch. Mech­a­nisms with dif­fer­ent para­me­ters are installed in mechan­i­cal key­boards. Some are com­fort­able for gam­ing, oth­ers for work, oth­ers are bal­anced for any task.

The switch is locat­ed under the key­cap — the cov­er of the key. The mech­a­nism is easy to clean or com­plete­ly replace. Pho­to: furiouspaul.com

The most pop­u­lar switch type is Cher­ry MX. They and sim­i­lar mod­els are marked and col­or-cod­ed for con­ve­nience.

The pur­pose of the switch­es does not make them high­ly spe­cial­ized for all users! On blue, peo­ple play com­fort­ably, and on red, they make reports. A mat­ter of habit, typ­ing skills, fea­tures and wish­es of a par­tic­u­lar user.

Steelseries Apex Pro

Pre­mi­um, full-size wired key­board with no weak points. The keys are con­fig­ured for instant response with a light touch, small or full pres­sure. On Steelseries Apex Pro, games and work are com­fort­able even with­out switch­ing switch­es. The main thing is to find and set the opti­mal val­ues ​​\u200b\u200bfor your­self.

Pro­files are pro­grammed in the SteelSeries Engine and tied to the sit­u­a­tion. If you open a shoot­er or RPG, the key­board acti­vates the X mode. If you close it, the basic Y mode is back. This is con­ve­nient: once you set it up, you don’t have to waste time any­more.

The spe­cial Apex Pro stand keeps your wrists at rest. Pho­to: tomshardware.com

The response time of the keys is only 0.7 ms (in con­ven­tion­al key­boards — from 3–4 ms). For pro­fes­sion­al gam­ing, this is a seri­ous advan­tage: the actions in the game will take place almost instant­ly after the user’s com­mand. Switch­es do not give a click — the key­board is incred­i­bly qui­et. On the built-in OLED screen, you can pro­gram pro­files, cre­ate macros (sequences of actions “wired” into one key), and dis­play GIFs.

The body of the mod­el is made of strong air­craft-grade alu­minum. All wires are laid in sep­a­rate chan­nels to pre­vent creas­es and dam­age.

Advan­tages:

• the first ever ultra-pre­cise switch adjust­ment sys­tem;
• OLED dis­play;
• pre­mi­um case and detach­able mag­net­ic palm rest.

What is impor­tant to know:

– Steelseries Apex Pro costs as good as a PC proces­sor. But the tech­nol­o­gy and appear­ance of the mod­el is unsur­passed in its class.

Motospeed CK108

Moto­speed CK108 is a nation­al hit, a pop­u­lar mod­el among lovers of “mechan­ics”. The key­board is pro­duced by a Chi­nese com­pa­ny and pleas­es with a rea­son­able price. Exter­nal­ly, the mod­el is not infe­ri­or to well-known ana­logues: beau­ti­ful and bright RGB back­light­ing, fash­ion­able design in the skele­ton style (switch­es are vis­i­ble under the keys), brushed alu­minum body.

The back­light­ing of the keys is cus­tomiz­able. Built-in col­or pro­files with dif­fer­ent effects — for every taste. Pho­to: cgmagonline.com

The mod­el works with Gateron switch­es, which are sim­i­lar in char­ac­ter­is­tics to Cher­ry MX blue. The char­ac­ter­is­tic click when pressed is rem­i­nis­cent of the sound of old type­writ­ers. Nos­tal­gia. At first, the vol­ume of the keys is unusu­al, but very soon you get used to it. The main thing is not to print in the same room with sleep­ing peo­ple.

On the Moto­speed CK108, first of all, it is com­fort­able to cre­ate text doc­u­ments. The nar­row lay­out of the keys allows touch typ­ing with hands spread wide over the body. The num­ber of acci­den­tal clicks is close to zero.

The build qual­i­ty is at the lev­el of key­boards for five or more thou­sand rubles. The man­u­fac­tur­er does not guar­an­tee water resis­tance, but the key­board with­stands a small flood with ordi­nary water.

Advan­tages:

• full size for­mat;
• low price;
• 18 RBG tun­ing pre­sets;
• switch­es are ide­al for print­ing;
• sol­id weight and ele­gant body.

What is impor­tant to know:

• switch­es are loud;
• there is no soft­ware for per­son­al­iza­tion.

Steelseries Apex 5

The Steelseries Apex 5 is a com­pro­mise solu­tion. Cheap­er than the pre­mi­um Pro mod­el, but with a sim­i­lar fea­ture set and high-strength con­struc­tion. Apex 5 does not have advanced switch set­tings, but macros, excel­lent soft­ware with tips and a con­ve­nient stand are enough bonus­es for work and play.

Apex 5 with an OLED screen and vari­able back­light­ing is a spec­tac­u­lar gam­ing attribute. Pho­to: ign.com

Laten­cy (key response time) for Apex 5 is 1.0 ms. For pro­fes­sion­als, the indi­ca­tor is sat­is­fac­to­ry, and for ordi­nary gamers — chic. Sig­nals and com­mands will reach the game shell very quick­ly. The switch­es of the mod­el are the Cher­ry MX Blue series. They click when pressed, but have a min­i­mum depth of trav­el before actu­a­tion. You don’t need to press hard.

Switch­es give com­fort when typ­ing — YouTu­bers, stream­ers and blog­gers will be pleased with the speed of work. For seri­ous game bat­tles, you will have to get used to the sound. In oth­er respects, Apex 5 is not infe­ri­or to gam­ing mechan­i­cal key­boards with red switch­es.

You can dis­play sim­ple graph­ics on the built-in OLED screen, from icons to GIFs. The but­ton next to the dis­play is respon­si­ble for set­ting, switch­ing tracks. In pro­pri­etary soft­ware, com­mands are “sewn up” into macros: one key — many sequen­tial actions asso­ci­at­ed with it. With ful­ly cus­tomiz­able RGB light­ing, night­time gam­ing will be beau­ti­ful and col­or­ful.

Advan­tages:

• build qual­i­ty is top notch. No gaps in the body, exem­plary sta­bil­i­ty, strong alu­minum that does not col­lect a lot of dust and dirt;
• switch­es with a guar­an­teed oper­at­ing time of up to 20 mil­lion clicks;
• super con­ve­nient typ­ing;
• pro­gram­ma­ble macros;
• A more afford­able, high-tech alter­na­tive to the Apex Pro with an OLED screen and beau­ti­ful RGB light­ing.

What is impor­tant to know:

• laten­cy is high for pro­fes­sion­al gam­ing;
• no trig­ger set­ting (stroke depth);
• no macro keys for MMO.

Logitech G413

Inex­pen­sive mechan­i­cal key­board Log­itech G413 — very smooth key trav­el and vir­tu­oso typ­ing. The mod­el does not have RBG light­ing, but its red glow will fit into most design con­cepts. The man­u­fac­tur­er has not for­got­ten about macros. With the G HUB soft­ware, actions are quick­ly assigned to the right keys.

The Log­itech G413 is a full-size key­board with a clas­sic design. Pho­to: windowscentral.com

The mod­el has brand­ed Romer‑G switch­es. Log­itech claims that the life of the mech­a­nism is 40% high­er than stan­dard ver­sions like MX Cher­ry. The Log­itech G413 fea­tures the Romer‑G Tac­ti­cal, which has a qui­et, light feel when pressed. Key sounds do not dis­tract from the game or movie. Key­caps with a flat sur­face increase the speed of work: fin­gers lit­er­al­ly glide with­out stop­ping due to con­vex edges.

The illu­mi­na­tion of each key is of the same type (red), but indi­vid­ual. Log­itech G413 has found fans among chat lovers, stream­ers and non-pro­fes­sion­al gamers. With Romer‑G soft switch­es, your hands can quick­ly type text or enter a com­mand in the con­sole with­out fatigue.

The Log­itech G413 does­n’t sur­prise with iri­des­cent glow, body geom­e­try, or screen inno­va­tion. But the mod­el has a pro­nounced con­ser­v­a­tive style and excel­lent mechan­ics — a joy for users who are look­ing for a key­board with­out unnec­es­sary quirks for lit­tle mon­ey.

Advan­tages:

• aver­age cost with icon­ic build qual­i­ty and switch­es;
• max­i­mum com­fort when typ­ing;
• hous­ing made of durable, light­weight alu­minum.

What is impor­tant to know:

• macros can only be writ­ten on indi­vid­ual keys;
• no RGB.

MSI VIGOR GK30

MSI’s VIGOR GK30 gam­ing mod­el fea­tures sim­ple design, low price, and water resis­tance. The key­board with mechan­i­cal switch­es is eas­i­ly con­fig­ured in the pro­pri­etary Drag­on Cen­ter soft­ware, and six-zone Mys­tic Light RGB back­light­ing cre­ates an image of a cyberde­vice.

The stand in front of the key­board block takes the pres­sure off your hands. Pho­to: techpowerup.com

In the mechan­i­cal key sys­tem — switch­es like MX Cher­ry Blue. The three-fre­quen­cy design gives a pleas­ant tac­tile sen­sa­tion and reduces noise. MSI VIGOR GK30 is adapt­ed for gam­ing adven­tures thanks to vari­able back­light­ing. RGB light­ing is cus­tomiz­able in 6 dif­fer­ent areas of the key­board. Pos­si­ble effects — 7, col­ors — mil­lions. Quick access to media or back­light set­tings is hard­wired into hotkeys.

The key­board is not afraid of mois­ture. 60 ml of liq­uid does not cause harm to the mod­el, leav­ing through the drainage hole. Do not dip the key­board in water and spill liters of water on it, but acci­den­tal­ly tip­ping the glass will not lead to break­age.

MSI VIGOR GK30 with an addi­tion­al base under the “space” key stands secure­ly on the table, does not bend dur­ing dif­fi­cult gam­ing ses­sions.

Advan­tages:

• low price for a key­board with mechan­i­cal switch­es;
• com­fort­able key trav­el and low noise lev­el;
• back­light set­ting;
• strong case with a drainage hole.

What is impor­tant to know:

• the design is expres­sive, but with­out frills;
• the key des­ig­na­tions are small — touch typ­ing skills are need­ed.

conclusions

After the mem­brane key­board, the mechan­i­cal key­board seems heavy, bulky, loud (if the switch­es are not red-type), use­less. But peo­ple work­ing with text note a high lev­el of com­fort, and gamers note an improve­ment in gam­ing per­for­mance. Mechan­i­cal key­boards do not imme­di­ate­ly reveal their best sides. Give them some time and they will bring the qual­i­ty of your work or game to a new lev­el.