How to Choose The BEST Mechanical Keyboard For You!

let's face it choosing a mechanical keyboard is a really difficult process how do you find the perfect mechanical keyboard that's within your price range has all the features you want and is not a piece of junk and trust me there's a lot of junk out there i've built and reviewed more keyboards than i can count and we have a closet overflowing full of mechanical keyboards and customs it's a real problem with all that being said let me help you choose the perfect mechanical keyboard for you coming up hey guys this is betty from switch and click and here our goals provide thorough honest and straightforward tech information and reviews so that you can make purchasing decisions without any regrets so how to choose a mechanical keyboard we're going to start by looking at three different price ranges price tends to be a huge sticking point for people me included because that's usually the thing that's limiting your options and your purchases we'll break it into three categories we've got the budget range the mid-range and then the high-end range as well within that we'll look at what is characteristic of each category and then look at some recommendations that are pertinent to 2021 now of course these recommendations could change depending on what year it is and how far the mechanical keyboard hobby has really evolved as a whole since we live in america all these ranges are in usd and may vary depending on what country you're from and what's available as well let's get into that budget category for budget what we mean is 50 most keyboards that you'll find on amazon are going to fall within this range especially if they're from companies that you may not have ever heard of before they're not going to be from big companies such as logitech corsair or razer but rather you'll be looking at companies like red dragon have it bro clutch and all these other smaller companies the switches that you'll find within this 50 price range tend to feel very inconsistent and they may not be as stable and as nice feeling as these switches that you can find in more expensive keyboards you'll be looking at fairly mediocre build quality however there are some gems in this category a few options that i really like that are within this budget category would be the red dragon k552 the royal clutch rk 61 and for a little bit more the world clutch rk 68 which would be my ideal pick for this range actually but if you can avoid it i would recommend that you do so because the next price range tends to have the best bang for buck options for mid-range we're talking 70 dollars to 120 now this is going to be the ideal price range for most people don't listen to this if you are going into the enthusiast side of the hobby and plan on spending a lot more money this is for people that want to buy a pre-built a stock keyboard and be pretty happy with it once you go higher than 120 dollars expect very diminishing returns as the more you'll pay you're not going to get a lot of benefits after that in this price range we can find excellent starter keyboards as well as the kinds of keyboards that you can just buy at once and be pretty happy for multiple years to come in this price range we find very high quality switches that are well recognized within the mechanical keyboard world such as cherry mx switches of various kinds we can also expect a highly durable build with premium materials such as an aluminum top plate you also find special features in this category such as being wireless having bluetooth or a dongle being hot swappable which is where you can change the switches out and put new ones back in without having to desolder your keyboard we'll also talk about some custom mods that you can do if you do happen to get a hot swappable mechanical keyboard in this category some of my all-time favorites are the ducky mia pro the kikron k6 hot swappable edition and the nk65 entry edition although that is a bare bones kit that does not come with any switches or keycaps and you'll have to buy those separately all right and the last category we have is the high end category which is 120 and up now for many enthusiasts this isn't what they would consider a high-end category but for pre-built and stock keyboards it might as well be once you go up more and more in price range you'll find high-quality premium materials such as an all-aluminum board you can find higher quality keycaps and materials and profiles including pbt cherry profile keycaps in there as well which i highly do recommend and you also find a variety of different switches that are outside just cherry mx and gadaron and kale one thing to keep in mind is that higher price doesn't always mean higher quality it's going to depend on what product you're looking at in this price range you'll find a lot of the very recognized gaming mechanical keyboards that are flagships of big companies personally i tend to avoid those because they don't sound as nice and they don't exactly meet my needs because i'm not too focused into gaming if you are a gamer though there's a lot of nice keyboards that you can check out in this category such as the logitech tkl low profile you also have the steel series apex tkl or the pro depending on what you want in your switches and then of course you have other companies jumping into the mix such as the new asus optical keyboard or the rokat vulcan and then corsair has their very huge and packed full features k100 unless you really know what you're looking for already and you've tested plenty of keyboards and switches and sizes and you know exactly what you want i would actually recommend going a tier down into the mid-range category where you can experiment a little bit more without spending too much money now if you are dead set on buying something a little bit more expensive you can look at keyboards such as the gm mk pro this is a bare bones kit with no switches or keycaps you can check out the drop control alt or shift different sizes but pretty much the same features in each one and of course the logitech g915 tkl you can also look at the logitech g pro x wireless that's also a hot swappable keyboard so now that we've covered the basic price categories let's talk about how do you even choose a switch the switch is probably the most important part of the keyboard if it doesn't feel how you want it to or sound how you want it to you're probably not going to want to use it now a switch is what makes a mechanical keyboard significantly different than a membrane keyboard where it's mushy and more rubber dome feeling these switches give mechanical keyboards their consistent satisfying and reliable as well as nice sounding keystrokes this part is actually really difficult to navigate through because there are so many switches within this hobby and within this space new companies more companies even older ones are coming up with more and more switches the farther we jump into the hobby and the bigger this world grows if you're new to mechanical switches there are three main categories of them and there are a few more but these are the three main categories and this is linear clicky and tactile now i do have a video discussing all the differences as well as sound tests of each switch type right here if you want to check that out of course those are just the three basic categories after that we have low profile switches silent switches speed switches optical switches and electric capacitive switches along with many more such as beam spring and alps a lot of complicated names and the farther you jump into the hobby the more you'll learn about those but these are the basics another important aspect to consider is the distinction between normal switches and enthusiast switches normal switches are these switches that you're going to find already built into your keyboard or provided for you when you buy a mechanical keyboard these include cherry mx switches gataron kale and maybe odamu as well if you jump into enthusiasts which is well the opportunities are pretty much endless you can combine switches together play around change the springs you can even go into franken switches which is where you just combine different parts of switches that you like together to see what you'll get there's a lot in that category if you want to learn more about enthusiasts which is make sure to join our discord i'll link that down below we have a lot of members who are experienced with a variety of different switches but the best way to try out whether you like a switch for yourself is to test them no amount of video watching or listening or any of or reading will help you determine whether switch is right for you or not the best way is to get a full keyboard with that switch so you can really type on it and see for yourself that's ideal but it's also really expensive so the next best way is to either borrow from a friend or buy a switch tester now having one singular switch to try and listen to and type isn't exactly a completely accurate representation of what it will feel like on a whole keyboard but it gets you closer than just watching videos some of the popular enthusiast switches that we recommend for tactiles we like glorious pandas drop holy pandas boba u4s or u4ts and t1s for popular enthusiasts linear switches we like novel keys cream switches gatron ink black switches and novel keys silk red or yellows and you can even go deeper into switches such as alpacas derock linears and h1s for enthusiast switches you do need to buy the switches separately and then install it onto a board so if you're interested in using these switches i highly recommend you get a hot swappable mechanical keyboard that accepts five pin switches that way you're pretty much open to accepting any of these switches and trying them out without having to buy any additional equipment some of our more beginner friendly hot swappable keyboards that we really like are the gm mk tkl the kikron k6 if you're interested in learning how to replace hot swappable switches check out this video right here alright next we have keyboard sizes there are so many ranging from 40 that's super small to a full size plus keyboard that has additional keys to put macros onto now which one do you pick there's two types of keyboard sizes there's the basic standard sizes and then there's the more unique sizes now the basic sizes include a full size where you get everything that you normally see including the number pad there's 10 keyless where you slash off the number pad and then there's 60 percent where you take off the function row the arrow keys nav cluster and the number pad the unique layouts are 65 where you have a 60 and you add on another column this does have arrow keys there's 75 where you have the 65 and you add the function row on top along with some nav keys there's also 96 where you get a full size you slash off a few keys and you compact it more to fit more space on your desk a lot of people lean towards these more unique sizes because they do end up saving space but they also have a little bit more function now i can't go into all these sizes super deeply but if you're interested in any of these size guide things check out the video that i made a while back discussing the different sizes and showcasing examples of each size personally i would recommend you get a 65 or a 75 mechanical keyboard you get more function and you save a lot more space on your desk if you need room for a cup of coffee to journal buy a separate number pad whatever it may be you get more space and you get the arrow keys and some nav functions as well so it's much more convenient earlier we said we would talk about some keyboard mods now keyboard mods are basically aftermarket things that you do to your keyboard to make it sound feel and look better have a video covering all that here if you want to check that out but basically there's a lot of things you can do you can change up the keycaps you can buy a bunch of custom keycaps now this could raise up the price a bunch depending on what type of keycap you want you can also mod your stabilizers which include lubing and clipping them now this works better if you have a hot swappable keyboard you can loop your switches which also works better if you have a hot swappable keyboard because you don't want to desolder anything all in all it's really beneficial to have a hot swappable keyboard when you're getting into this hobby you can also do things such as putting foam inside the case you can even venture into painting your cases or getting custom cases for your keyboards alright so we basically talked about all the pre-built stuff but now there's also a category called custom keyboards now in this category you can expect to spend a lot lot more money you got to buy all the equipment yourself and this can include things such as a soldering iron a desoldering gun a ventilator you can buy all the lube the modification stuff foam all of that and it really adds up but in the end if you do plan on diving deeper into the hobby and really loving all of these it is a nice thing to have all the supplies at the ready with custom keyboards you can wait until they have the perfect layout for you the perfect pcb you can buy the switches separately by your own stabilizers do all these mods and you can say that you built this thing yourself and you fully own everything but if you're new i really do recommend a hot swappable keyboard even within the custom space right now you can also find hot swappable kits unless you already know how to solder soldering isn't super hard but it can be a bit overwhelming if you've never done it before if you really do want a custom mechanical keyboard but you don't want to mess it up because you don't know how to solder there are build services out there where you can pay someone and provide all the parts and they'll build it for you and mail it back to you now many keyboards within this custom space they are in this thing called group by where you pay ahead of time and then you wait for the board to be manufactured then shipped to you and this could take up to a year depending on who you're buying from and how many units they have to produce there are sites that do sell custom kits at the ready such as kbd fans and other specialty stores but anyways i think this video is getting a little overwhelming for you and for me if you want to find out a lot more information about all this stuff check out our website down below at switchingclick.com and we have a lot of videos on our channel featuring custom builds as well i hope this video really helped you if you want to support us here at switch and click in providing high quality and thorough content be sure to check out our patreon page to find out what exclusive content you can get by supporting us for just a few dollars every month you also get a say in what content goes into the future as well as polls on different switch reviews or keycap reviews or keyboard reviews that we plan on doing and make sure to press the thumbs up button and subscribe anyways check out these videos here and thank you so much for watching [Music] bye

Channel: Switch and Click

Views: 86,756

Rating: 4.9456177 out of 5

Keywords: mechanical keyboard, how to choose a mechanical keyboard, choose a keyboard, pick a keyboard, gaming keyboard, mechanical switches, best keyboard, best mechanical keyboard, buyers guide, keyboard buying guide, keyboard sizes, keyboard switches, best switches, mechanical keyboard for mac, mechanical keyboard under 50, mechanical keyboard switches, cherry mx, best keyboards 2021, best keyboard and mouse, best keyboard for programming, best mechanical keyboard 2021, keyboard

Id: wimjq3SHmJA

Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021