I need a good keyboard!

Posted by james on Feb 16, 10:52 AM

How hard is it to make a good keyboard? I've used so many, but never found my perfect one. I'm very particular about it, first because I use it so much (10-12 hours a day?), don't use my mouse much (keyboard shortcuts!), and it's my livelihood.

My favorite so far as been old-school <a href="http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/keyboards/001-gowlin/">Dell QuietKey</a> keyboards. It's very typical, except that it's quiet and has a very positive feedback without taking much force. You know when you've pressed a key for sure, which prevents typos and makes me faster/more accurate.

That keyboard was loaned out and never returned, along with my then favorite mouse (Intellimouse Optical). I've also had a Microsoft Natural Elite (slightly mushy keys, ok layout, horrible mangled pgup/pgdn keys); this one died when water spilled on it. My current is a <a href="http://www.dansdata.com/images/minipc/elite260.jpg">Logitech Elite</a>, which I bought solely for it's USB capability. It's fancy looking, actually has a nice layout, but has really soft/mushy keys. Horrible.

The last keyboard I bought (and returned) was the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Natural-Ergo-Keyboard-4000/dp/B000A6PPOK">Microsoft Natural Ergo 4000</a>. It has fantastic layout (best ergonomic yet), solid construction, really nice palm rest (leather-ish). But the keys are stiff (not good) and indefinite. The killer is that the space bar gets stuck and wont register. You can press it a few times and unless you're going slow and with more force than any of the other keys, your chances of making it work are about 60%. That's not good. Such an amazing product, crippled by such horrible flaws.

So now I'm on the lookout for a keyboard:
-quiet but definite key-feel, like the QuietKey.
-no mangled keypad like modern keyboards like to do... leave the keys where they are!
and hopefully:
-ergonomic, like the Natural Ergo 4000
-USB (no sense in having a PS/2 anymore)

This really isn't a long list. Are there any keyboards out there that fit? And are there any I can buy locally and return with no hassle? We'll see.

I've heard about the PowerBook/MacBook keyboards being good, also some laptop-type keyboards. I'll try some if I can find any locally. If not, I may have to take a risk and get one of the <a href="http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/directron_1935_303983862">newer Dell keyboards</a> to see if it's like the old ones.

<b>Update:</b> I went to 3 stores, and tried out about 30 keyboards, and finally came away with... a <a href="http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=329430">Microsoft Wired Keyboard 500</a>. It's one of the cheapest keyboards carried at any of the stores, and was the only semi-decent feel keyboard that wasn't a) mangled b) split in pieces non-ergonomically, or c) built like mush. It makes me sad to have purchased another Microsoft product (even if it is just low-end hardware), but so it goes. I'm still on the lookout for something better.