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Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

nickjanetakis.com

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Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#31

Post by [deleted] »

nickjj wrote: post #25
SwetDrems wrote: post #5

This is blatant advertising on the front-page of HN. How did a post about a generic keyboard rise so high in such a short period of time?

How is it advertising? I'm the author of the post. I've used this keyboard for half a decade before I decided to write about it. If you read a few paragraphs of the article you'll see I am using this "generic" keyboard because it's great. Typing is also a pretty important thing for programmers and I've seen plenty of like/dislike posts about various keyboards. It very much applies to developers.

[deleted]

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#32

Post by visarga »

I switched to Input Club WhiteFox with heavy buttons (Hako Trues) and after getting accustomed to it I find it the best keyboard I ever had. It's sturdy, small (tenkeyless) and I learned not to bottom out. That makes the typing experience smooth. The noise is OK with my colleagues. Hard to describe the feeling of these keys - it's as if you're floating on a bouncy and precise spring. Used to get tired after a full day in the beginning, but this problem disappeared in a few weeks. Now I miss it when I am travelling, that's how great it is.

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#33

Post by lewisflude »

I'm a keyboard enthusiast, I have a collection of ~15 mechanical keyboards with various switches, hand lubed, modded (spring swapped, stem swapped) various materials and sizes from the plastic HHKB to the monstrous TX1800 (fits the keys you'd find in a full size keyboard into the frame of a TKL).

I'm happy the writer has found a keyboard that works for them. Although I think that they'd be able to get a better typing experience by building a custom keyboard, it would cost easily $300+ and take a lot of time/research/etc.

Even though keyboards is one of my biggest hobbies, I still have a lot of respect for OEM keyboards that maintain a good typing feel at a relatively low cost.

I especially like the Apple Magic Keyboard, although many of my mechanical keyboard-using friends may not agree with me.

Anyone interested in typing, I strongly encourage to check out /r/MechanicalKeyboards on reddit.

You can customise anything!

- Switch feel/tactility/sound

- Case material, colour, size

- Keycaps, feel, sound, look, legends

- Custom software, macro keys

- Talk to friendly people who love keyboards

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#34

Post by nickjj »

somedrag wrote: post #21
vladharbuz wrote: post #3

> Jokes aside, I totally understand the appeal of mechanical keyboards. I’ve used them and it is satisfying to hear that clickity-click sound and the keys do feel amazing but that just doesn’t work for me due to being on so many pair programming calls and recording video courses. I don't like it when people equate mechanical keyboards to loudness. They don't have to be loud! My keyboard has MX Clear switches which ar…

I was surprised by this point - I have the same keyboard as the author but when I'm on video calls I tend to use the keyboard on my MacBook because I've gotten numerous comments about how loud my keyboard is. I use the MacBook built in speaker (not a detached microphone like he does in the video). My keyboard is on a wooden desk directly in front of the the laptop (with an open screen for even worse acoustics). Maybe…

This would be a problem with any keyboard that's resting on the same surface as your microphone stand.

So in your case, it's not because the keyboard is loud. It's because you have huge rumble vibrations getting through to your mic, and this is masked with your laptop's keyboard since it's absorbing some of that.

If you look at the link in the post it has a sample of what the keyboard sounds in a typical screencast scenario when you have a proper microphone stand.

No standalone keyboard is going to prevent rumbles if you have it sitting on the same surface as your mic. Especially if your desk or microphone stand is wobbly (but it would still happen on a heavy stable desk too).

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#35

Post by veidr »

The striking thing to me about this is that is is purportedly a "mechanical keyboard" and yet it failed after only 5 years.

I have purchased, or somehow gotten, at least 15 mechanical keyboards (and 10+ membrane-or-whatever keyboards) over the past 25 years.

Most of the cheap rubber-membrane-or-whatever keyboards failed within a few years, although there are some that kept on working.

But none of the mechanical ones did: Apple Extended Keyboard II (two of them) lasted 20+ years, IBM Model M, Unicomp Model M clone, Das Keyboard somethin something with Cherry MX blue/brown, 3 or 4 chinese knockoffs with cherry knockoff switches, two or three Mattias mechanical keyboards, 4 Filcos, 3 Code Keyboards (the WASM + Jeff Atwood venture) a couple Japanese hackety hacker boards... plus like 5-10 more at least.

None of them ever failed. I gave them away or whatever eventually but probably the average time span of which I was aware of them being in use is 15+ years.

So what Amazon may have innovated here is a mechanical keyboard that can fail as fast as the new rubber membrane inferior crap that came later?

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#37

Post by daguil68367 »

veidr wrote: post #35

The striking thing to me about this is that is is purportedly a "mechanical keyboard" and yet it failed after only 5 years. I have purchased, or somehow gotten, at least 15 mechanical keyboards (and 10+ membrane-or-whatever keyboards) over the past 25 years. Most of the cheap rubber-membrane-or-whatever keyboards failed within a few years, although there are some that kept on working. But none of the mechanical ones…

Nothing in the article indicated that this is a mechanical keyboard.

This is some generic rubber-dome over membrane keyboard.

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#38

Post by daguil68367 »

lewisflude wrote: post #33

I'm a keyboard enthusiast, I have a collection of ~15 mechanical keyboards with various switches, hand lubed, modded (spring swapped, stem swapped) various materials and sizes from the plastic HHKB to the monstrous TX1800 (fits the keys you'd find in a full size keyboard into the frame of a TKL). I'm happy the writer has found a keyboard that works for them. Although I think that they'd be able to get a better typing…

I've heard keyboards that use dome with slider designs, like Packard Bell keyboards, are about as cheap as generic non-mechanical keyboards, but avoid the mushy bottom-out, making the typing experience infinitely better.

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#39

Post by simonsarris »

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #9
vladharbuz wrote: post #3

> Jokes aside, I totally understand the appeal of mechanical keyboards. I’ve used them and it is satisfying to hear that clickity-click sound and the keys do feel amazing but that just doesn’t work for me due to being on so many pair programming calls and recording video courses. I don't like it when people equate mechanical keyboards to loudness. They don't have to be loud! My keyboard has MX Clear switches which ar…

That's what I was thinking. Any decent mechanical keyboard has all of these features and more, and the sound the keys make depends on the switches, of which there are many different types. Some switches are designed to be loud (like the MX Blues) but you don't have to use them. I usually find that people who disparage mechanical keyboards do not actually know a lot about mechanical keyboards...

Which decent mechanical keyboard has the feature of being $14.50?

Re: Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

#40

Post by notus »

vladharbuz wrote: post #3

> Jokes aside, I totally understand the appeal of mechanical keyboards. I’ve used them and it is satisfying to hear that clickity-click sound and the keys do feel amazing but that just doesn’t work for me due to being on so many pair programming calls and recording video courses. I don't like it when people equate mechanical keyboards to loudness. They don't have to be loud! My keyboard has MX Clear switches which ar…

Well the author also thinks pair programming is a good idea so I'd take what they say with a grain of salt. Also I get the impression this article is just a thinly veiled ad for their courses.
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