Best Keyboards for Programming 2021

hey everybody how's it going my name is mayuko and welcome back to my channel where we talk about tech career and life today we are finally gonna be talking about keyboards a lot of y'all watching are probably gonna be software engineers or aspiring software engineers or maybe you just appreciate a good keyboard and want to know what i think so whether you're coding or studying or doing other kinds of work or chatting or whatever today i wanted to recommend my favorite keyboards i'm actually going to be listing a few of them because i don't actually think there's like a perfect keyboard that fits everybody's needs because people like what they like and our preferences are different but i'm going to be covering my top favorite and be talking about the pros and cons of each i've been using each for about a month or two some for like a year so i feel like i have some pretty good like developed thoughts about each keyboard now that i wanted to share quick disclaimer though i've been gifted three of the four keyboards that i'm going to be talking about so thank you to logitech and kikron for doing so i honestly probably would have bought them in my own even if they hadn't gifted me them but thank you also i should note that my use of each keyboard has been suited to my needs so i might not be using like all of the features that are listed of a keyboard so i recommend checking out each of them i'll leave links in the description box down below so that you can look at the technical specifications and see the capabilities of each anyways shall we get started the first keyboard is gonna come at no surprise to anybody because it's the logitech mx keys i've talked about this in multiple videos specifically a lot of my desk setup related videos but it's a fan favorite y'all so i actually have two of these keyboards one is the regular mx keys that has the windows layout but you can also still use it for mac and then this one specifically was designed for mac this is the mx keys for mac and it has the mac layout for the keyboard and the color corresponds to the gray that the macs come in i use the mac one because i mostly do all of my work on a mac computer and it's most similar to the apple keyboard but i like this one more because it has way more functionality the mx keys can connect to up to three devices using bluetooth or the logitech unifying the receiver which is great because i have multiple computers one for work one for streaming and one for personal use and so it's nice to not have to switch between multiple keyboards to use all three the other thing that makes this keyboard super powerful is the ability to program specific keys to do different things both at the system level and at the app level so it's really useful if you have common workflows for heavy duty apps i use it for editing in premiere pro and it's made my editing workflow just so much faster it's actually most powerful when you use the mx keys with the mx master 3 mouse which i also use which you can also program all the keys on here as well also the fact that this keyboard is wireless keeps my desk looking clean and not cluttered i like that it's a full layout keyboard as well and it's not that bulky and it looks super sleek on your desk as far as cons go i don't actually think there's that many cons like maybe a con is that the keys aren't mechanical and they're kind of like those like chiclet keys but i feel like that's more of like a stylistic thing than a con and the other thing is that should you choose to connect via bluetooth it can be a little bit unreliable but i think that's more the fault of the bluetooth technology than the keyboard itself i also have the wrist rest that corresponds to this keyboard but do you really need it i mean the profile of this thing is really slim so i don't think it's completely necessary but a nice to have next on the list of standard keyboards is my keychron keyboard the model that i have is the k2 and i chose the white backlight one because rainbow colors are not really my vibe i chose also to get the brown switches over other ones because they tend to be a little bit more quiet as you'll notice this isn't like a full-size keyboard it's got 84 keys i thought i would miss the numpad more because i really like full layout keyboards but it's been fine without it honestly so the things that i like about this keyboard i mean it's a mechanical keyboard it's just like super fun to type on i'm really glad that i got the brown switches because they're clicky but not too loud so if you're sharing your space with someone then these are probably one of the quieter keys to get i also really like that on the kikron website for this product you can see videos and hear the sounds of all the different key switches that they offer so you can choose the one that works for you the other thing that i like that i alluded to in my previous video is the key cap set i got the retro mac layout one and it's just so cute the colors are really clean it looks great on my desk this key cap right here says hello and it's just cute i think it's also really nice because it's just like an out of the box mechanical keyboard that works from the get-go the whole mechanical keyboard world is like a pandora's box to me and i'm afraid of opening it because that means i'll spend so much time and money on it and so this was like a nice gentle intro that got me into the world but it doesn't make me hungry to buy like thousands of keycap sets like i mentioned this is the k2 but they have multiple kinds of kikron keyboards and so you can find the size and style that you like i also have the wrist rest for this which it's just so pretty i love this natural wood finish the keyboard itself is a little bit taller than something like the mx keys and so being able to pair a wrist rest with it make sure that my wrists don't hurt after a full day of typing this keyboard you can connect through a wired connection with usbc or you can do bluetooth which brings me to my cons the major con of this keyboard is that the bluetooth kind of sucks first of all the keyboard kind of just goes to sleep easily and so if i'm in a meeting or something and i don't type for a while then it takes kind of a long time for the keyboard to reconnect to my mac i want to say it takes like anywhere from like 5 to 15 seconds to do so versus something like the logitech mx keys which is pretty immediate and this is a tiny nitpick but you can tell that the keyboard is connected via bluetooth through the backlight indicator but if you're using the keyboard in broad daylight then it's kind of hard to tell what's going on so that's just kind of like a usability nitpick standpoint so i kind of have to just like make a little shadow with my hand to see what's going on one of the things i was really excited about in using the kikron is that this thing can also connect to up to three bluetooth devices but it's just really hard to do so i think because the response time in the bluetooth is like not very good switching between two devices just makes it even harder and so because it takes such a long time and you can't really tell what's going on because of the backlight i find myself switching between keyboards instead of trying to use this thing for all my devices so so long as i'm really only using like one main computer heavily and i'm willing to wait that 5 to 15 seconds to connect to bluetooth it's otherwise a very pleasant keyboard to use and it's fun to use it [Applause] next we're going to talk about my two favorite ergonomic keyboards and the first one is again my logitech this is the ergo k860 [Music] so this one as you can tell is not a split keyboard by any means but the keys are actually split in half here if you want to know the benefits of using an ergonomic keyboard then i made a video with my friend pat last year about ergonomic desk setup so make sure to check that out anyways i like this one because this is like the first like minimal cool not bulky looking ergonomic keyboard since basically the microsoft sculpt and i think i still like this one more because this does a lot of the same things that the logitech mx keys does in that you can connect up to three devices using bluetooth or the unifying receiver it's wireless and the keys are programmable the thing that i don't like about it is that the build quality i feel like is just okay the mx keys feels a little bit more high quality honestly this one just feels kind of like plasticky i guess so i don't love using it it's not like a great experience to use it but it does really help with my typing if my wrists are hurting and because it has a lot of the same features like the cons that i talked about for the mx keys also apply to this keyboard as well and the last keyword i want to talk about is a mechanical split ergonomic keyboard and that is this one goodness this one's just so much bulkier than the other ones this is a kinesis gaming freestyle edge split gaming keyboard and i have the model kb 950. this is the keyboard that i used during my entire time at netflix and i bought this one because wire cutter came out with an article about the best ergonomic keyboards and this was one of them for the model that i got i got the blue switches and it's not the rainbow one it's just blue backlit which again rainbow keyboards just not really my vibe i guess the thing that i like the most about this keyboard is that it's a mechanical and split keyboard i feel like those are kind of hard to come by and hard to find i actually built my own ergodox before which is also a mechanical split keyboard but the layout just took so long to get used to and my hands were too small to use it comfortably but this one is just a really kind of natural version of a keyboard except that it's split and has mechanical keys this keyboard comes with like a built-in wrist rest that you can attach to the bottom of the keyboard and you can set it to be at whatever angle you want so it's pretty customizable one of the things that i don't like about this keyboard is that it's wired which means that the connection is super reliable but it really clutters my desk because there's a wire that connects these two keyboards and then there's a wire that connects the keyboard to the computer and that's just like two more wires than i want on my desktop the other con which i think is really just more my mistake is that i got the blue switches which honestly are just like so dang loud and i say it's my mistake because this thing comes in different key switches and i just happen to choose the blue one when i was at netflix because this thing was so clacky my co-workers all thought i was like flexing my typing speed and like smashing my keyboard when in fact i was just typing normally it's just really loud the last con which is kind of more like a stylistic thing and kind of a nitpick is that it's really bulky it takes up a lot of space you can tell that it's a gaming keyboard just because of the backlit and the size of it all and that's just not really my vibe but functionally speaking i think this one's really great so those four are my favorite keyboards if i had to recommend one of them to everybody i think it would have to be the logitech mx keys and i think it's because it's kind of like a one-size-fits-all solution sure it's not ergonomic but there's no learning curve to try to adapt to an ergonomic layout and it's really familiar to the regular apple keyboard but with just way more functionality i think at the end of the day it's my favorite keyboard but i am a little bit addicted to mechanical keyboards right now so i've been using the keychron as my main i didn't start out as like a keyboard enthusiast by any means i use the apple keyboard like everybody else and just because you have a fancy keyboard doesn't mean that you're like a better software engineer or anything like that but it has been fun to explore different keyboards and try them out so i hope this was helpful and opened your eyes to the different keyboards out there and how fun typing could be at the end of the day a good keyboard is all based on personal preference as long as all the keys work and you can hit all the keys comfortably and the keyboard itself is not going to cause any discomfort it's probably okay if there's any keyboards that i missed or anything i should try out or any of your favorite that i didn't talk about then leave it in the comments down below make sure to subscribe to my channel so you can get notified about videos like this one and more and i will see you next time bye

Channel: mayuko

Views: 235,983

Rating: 4.8845987 out of 5

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Id: VZTsdI-hbpw

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021