I found the Perfect Keyboard for programming (170 wpm typing speed)

welcome back tech late here now what we're doing today is a classic showdown for the top keyboard for programmers in 2020 and so while you've been gone i've been compiling all of these keyboards for us here i have about 800 worth of keyboards here and it's a six of the top rated keyboards that i've found let me show you what we've got here and what we'll be comparing today first up we have the logitech g915 keyboard 10 keyless version it is using tactile switches very nice then we also have the razer huntsman tournament edition keyboard right over here and this is also the tenkeyless version using linear switches and then over here in the back we have the respectable steel series apex pro using linear switches we've got the classic razer huntsman which has been my personal daily driver over the past few weeks and then we also have here the logitech mx keys which is a wireless keyboard well known for office usage and then as kind of a base as a control we also have the apple magic keyboard which is commonly used across a lot of facebook google engineers so we've got an exciting lineup here and keyboards should be something that every self-respecting developer should be paying close attention to because the keyboard is the way in which we interact with the world it is what we use to go out to do battle every day and where our fortunes are made with and so especially in areas like competitive programming or online interview questions in which people are doing these days your choice of keyboard will determine your fate and by the way none of this is sponsored i bought all of these keyboards with my own money in order to give a fair and true comparison so make sure to give the video a like in order to support this type of content so without further ado let's get into the keyboards and i'll let you know my thoughts on each one first up i know a lot of people maybe 80 to 90 of facebook google engineers they're using a standard apple magic keyboard and i just want you to understand that this one although it works fine okay it's not going to offer the proper support for your fingers and it's going to slow down your ability to type not to mention when i was using this i was starting to develop carpal tunnel because the key presses they're so shallow that you're essentially bending your fingers against the desk each time you type on it and there's no slant so it's really just not offering enough support the key presses are so shallow not to mention in terms of style it's really quite plain and important to look at isn't it there's not even backlit keys you don't have rgb coloring it's just a standard keyboard and even though it's functional it doesn't really excite you when you go sit at your desk each morning some of the keys they're a little bit mushy once you start typing on them too long because the key travel distance is just not sufficient now the fastest i was able to type with this keyboard and i measured my typing speeds across all of these the maximum speed i had on this was about 150 watts per minute and while that's good it's not a speed that i can maintain because if i start typing too long my fingers are going to start to hurt because this keyboard offers little to nothing in terms of support and i'll start getting carpal tunnel syndrome and then i'll be out for a few days to let my fingers rest and recuperate from that and so long term in terms of productivity you could be wanting something with a little bit more support so moving on let's take a look at our next keyboard here which is the razer huntsman so the razer huntsman is a classic mechanical keyboard and this has been my daily driver over the past few weeks i find i can type about 157 words per minute on this very fast keyboard and very ergonomically good the keyboard lights up at night in stylish rgb colors and the keys are very clicky the keys actuate at just 50 gram forces compared to the apple keyboard which requires 65 gram forces and so these keys they're actually easier and lighter to press resulting in less strain on your fingers and so using this keyboard my fingers just feel comfortable all the time i don't think i've ever developed carpal tunnel typing on this keyboard even for long periods of time so part of the comfort of this keyboard also has to do with the travel height of each key which is 3.4 millimeters that's about three times more than the apple magic keyboard so your fingers have a little bit of cushioning a little bit of travel distance before they hit so what do i like about the keyboard well number one you should know that it is extremely noisy which means that if you're working in an office environment if there's people around you if you're working from home or if you're teleconferencing into calls then this keyboard is just it's not going to be all that practical and even if you're the type of person who maybe you like to work in silence you like to think then the noisiness of the keys can throw you off a little bit also if you're using this on the mac then the lighting capabilities they're going to be limited because razer doesn't fully support mac computers and then i have to use a program to remap the out and windows keys to command and option for macs and that program is called carabiner elements i'll link it in the description if you're interested in also getting this set up and one more thing to note this keyboard it tends to be pretty high so you're going to need the wrist pad to really be able to use it comfortably so overall i like this keyboard quite a bit the razer huntsman normally retails for about 150 dollars but recently it's been on sale for like 90 bucks which makes it a great overall value and my budget pick for top keyboard but moving on let's take a look at what other keyboards we've got here alright so the next keyboard we have here is the logitech mx keys so this keyboard it does light up unlike the standard macbook pro and this is essentially logitech's take on the apple magic keyboard the keys have a little more travel distance you have slight indents in each key and the overall just feels less mushy when you're typing compared to the apple magic keyboard not to mention on the back you have a bit of an incline to help your fingers more easily reach the back rows you've got backlight and there are function keys for switching among various devices if you have like a phone or tablet that you want to connect this keyboard to so when i first got this keyboard i switched out the razer huntsman for it because i like how this keyboard was slimmer it's a wireless whereas the huntsman the mechanical keyboard it just feels big and clunky right not to mention the huntsman is wired and so for the first two weeks i was really happy about the mx keys and i thought i had found the perfect keyboard until my fingers started to hurt a little bit and then i started looking into the actuation force necessary for each key it is 60 gram forces and so compared to the razer huntsman is only 50 on this one and then the apple magic keyboard is 65 and so you could say that compared to the huntsman these keys require 20 more force on your fingers to press and so the keys were starting to feel pretty heavy and hard for me after a while and so especially if you're a programmer you're using your pinky to press the shift key in order to access these odd symbols to capitalize the letters and function names variable names then your fingers are going to start to feel tired after a while and these keys after a while they just started feeling very hard to me and my fingers began to hurt again so i swapped this out back for the razer huntsman and so that's why the huntsman had been my daily driver the other thing is in terms of styling this keyboard it's not rgb it's backlit but you don't get those rainbow colors and i know that some people out there they're going to say well rgb come on do you really need it it's just a gimmick isn't it well you know think about it when you go to your desk every single day doing your daily grind and you've got some crazy bugs you got to work on maybe it's late at night and you're tired and you just need that little bit of extra boost of inspiration that confidence that's going to make you feel like a rockstar programmer well that's really where rgb comes in isn't it and so the question is how much are you willing to pay for inspiration for confidence which brings us to our next keyboard the razer huntsman tournament edition so the razer huntsman tournament edition it is very similar to the classic razer huntsman only with this one you get linear keys instead of the clicky keys and so whereas the clicky keys tend to be noisy and they have a click when you press them the linear keys just go down smoothly and tend to be quieter the keys just feel really good really premium and when i started looking more into it i realized it's because it's actually using a higher quality type of plastic known as pbt comparatively all of these other keyboards are using the cheaper type of plastic known as abs whereas pbt there's a slight texture to it and it just feels nice when you touch your finger against it so with the linear keys you get extremely fast actuations and so you would imagine that i would be able to type extremely fast on this so i did some typing tests and yes i could go very fast i think my top speed on this was just 149 words per minute which is very good but at the same time i was not able to beat my other speeds and the reason is because i was making so many typos on this because it's linear and also because the actuation distance is so low and so i found these keys to be perhaps too sensitive even dropping a lens cap on these keys would register multiple key presses and so while the high sensitivity of the board may be ideal for gamers for me i always felt a bit of fear with the board every time i entered the typing test or if i were to go coding on prod i could not afford to make a typo and perhaps i'm just not worthy of the board of the high sensitivity of it because with this great power with this great speed in its linear switches there's also the high chance of making typos as well and so that brings us to our next board here which is the steel series apex pro which is also linear board much like the huntsman tournament edition although this board it is not as sensitive so it solves some of those problems i found that i could tap on this much more reliably without making those typos that i was so scared of making in fact using the apex pro i measured my typing speed at a max of 160 watts per minute which has been a personal record for me so the apex pro it does come with a nice magnetic palm rest and i would say that of all the keyboards it is perhaps the most stylish because the rgb colors is just the most vibrant and most visible on this keyboard it literally lights up the whole keyboard and you have an oled screen at the corner that's customizable with any graphic that you like just to make it feel more your own the switches on the apex pro are known as omnipoint linear which means that they're linear switches but you can also customize at which point they begin to actuate so you can actually tune the sensitivity of it if you want it to be extremely sensitive like the huntsman tournament edition you can tune it to be like that or you can set it somewhere in the middle to decrease chances of typos and especially for mac users the apex pro is fully supported so you get full access to the rgb colors the animations the designs the customization on the keyboard and colors to make it really stylish as you like it and to personalize that unlike for example the razer huntsman which is not fully supported on mac and so you're just limited to a standard default cycling of colors there now obviously the huntsman uses clicky keys and the apex pro uses linear keys but other than that they're pretty similar boards and i would have a hard time making a choice between the two now if we take a look at pricing though the apex pro does cost 180 dollars compared to the huntsman which is like 90 bucks or so now so that's one big difference but with the apex pro you are getting the additional magnetic palm rest you are getting full support for mac users so you get full access to the range of colors making the apex pro perhaps the most stylish board out here so perhaps that's what you're paying for style so what do i like about the apex pro well i found that when i was typing and especially when i was getting to the higher speeds i could literally feel the amount of time it took for my fingers to lift off of each key to go to the next key and so that was slowing me down and so when i looked more deeply into this i found that the travel distance of each key on the apex pro is the highest at four millimeters you can compare that to the huntsman which is about 3.3 millimeter displacement and so on the apex pro your fingers have to travel 20 percent further compared to the huntsman keyboards and so this is kind of a trade-off that you need to make will the apex pro's superior rgb styling with its linear keys inspire your fingers to travel that additional further in order to make up for that it's a hard choice but at least for me i found that i was inspired to break my own personal typing records using the apex pro which brings us to our final contender and so this is the logitech g915 keyboard so there are a number of notable features about this let me introduce this board to you number one is to notice that it is quite a slim profile and actually the key travel distance compared to the apex pro which is about four millimeters this has a travel distance of 2.5 millimeters so the huntsman was 3.3 millimeter displacement and so the key travel distance is about half that of a standard mechanical keyboard and meanwhile the actuation force required for each key is 50 gram forces about equivalent to a standard huntsman keyboard and so as you might imagine with a low key travel distance and keys that aren't too hard to press you can type extremely fast on the board like this not to mention these keys they're neither linear nor clicky at least in this model i have they're known as tactile which is somewhere in between they're neither too loud while providing some tactile feedback the g915 also comes in clicky and linear variants and one interesting thing about this is that it is the only keyboard i have here which is actually wireless while being rgb and so compared to a standard mechanical keyboard which tends to feel heavier and clunkier the g915 especially the tenkeyless version like i have here which does not have the numpad it feels lightweight and portable something that you could pack in a backpack and go to a cafe if you wanted to you can also optionally plug in the keyboard and it connects by bluetooth as well as something known as lightspeed wireless but it's supposed to offer faster response times one of my favorite lighting effects is the lightning effect which makes it look like there's lightning coming down on your keyboard helping you code that much faster and so using this keyboard and the typing test i found i was actually able to achieve my highest speeds which was 171 words per minute and then my next high speed was 167 words per minute also on the same keyboard it's just whenever i started typing on this keyboard i felt that i could go faster on it and part of that has to do with the low travel distance in which after i press each key my fingers could glide on over to the next key and that becomes essential especially at higher speeds of typing stylistically there's a unique brushed metal look on the back you have a volume control knob a few media controls and it's otherwise a low profile keyboard which means that you don't necessarily even need a wrist pad for this in order to type comfortably on it if you don't want to clutter up your desk with additional stuff then you can just use this as is or if you want to add the slim wrist pad you can do that as well and on the back you have two adjustable heads for angles and otherwise the wiring is really clean you just have a single micro usb that you can plug in it would be better if this was usb-c but that's how it is and so there you have it the g915 mechanical keyboard it's kind of a hybrid between one of these flat keyboards with scissor switches and then the standard traditional mechanical keyboards with taller keys so what do i like about this keyboard well if you're to shake it there's a bit of rattling so it sounds like you're shaking a bag of jelly beans and then the price it comes in at the most expensive at 230 bucks it's not a keyboard that i really wanted to like and otherwise the logitech g915 keyboard does take it as my pick for the best keyboard for programmers in 2020. now that said it is very expensive and there may be other options here the razer huntsman is my overall best value budget pick keyboard for people out there it's currently on sale right now and there may be other excellent keyboards as well which i haven't quite looked at like the razer black widow line their tactile switches i think those could be very interesting as well so there you have it but let me know what some of your favorite keyboards are i hope you enjoyed the episode if you did please give a like and subscribe really appreciate that and i'll see you in the next one thanks bye

Channel: TechLead

Views: 881,272

Rating: 4.8216219 out of 5

Keywords: gaming keyboard, best mechanical keyboard, best keyboard, best gaming keyboard, mechanical keyboard, huntsman te, apex pro, logitech g915, logitech mx keys, programming, coding, software engineer, g915, g815, razer huntsman, mx keys, steelseries, engineer, technology, amazon, google, developer, apple, googler, tech, swe, software, facebook, computer science, cs, fb, software engineering, software engineer life, software engineer intern

Id: fxCYXA2zPc8

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/SphericalMicrowave]

Posting Tech Lead should be considered cheating (as a millionaire).

[u/KFCConspiracy]

Unjerk:

Tech lead is a wanker. But,

Your wrists and hands make your living. I learned the hard way that all keyboards aren't the same. It's a painful mistake and could be costly if you can't work, have shit insurance, or end up fighting for worker's comp. I got away with some physical therapy and switching to mechanical.

For fucks sake, get a good keyboard, you the thing 8 hours a day 5 days a week at least... Not joking. In other professions using good, more expensive tools to make you more productive and comfortable is normal, mechanics buy snap on, don't shit on people spending on that... It's smart.

[u/flexmuzik]

lol multiple image post

I know Tech Lead is a meme, but this one was particularly painful.

[u/32gbsd]

Cant jerk the tech lead. He jerks you

[u/fctorial]

Keyboard with 10x scope when?

[u/republitard_2]

My fingers are so inspired right now. Now I know which keyboard will protect me from carpal tunnel syndrome as I type if err != nil over and over and over again and re-implement the same functions with different types.

[u/l0gicgate]

Tech lead is in fact a fucknut but it’s hard not to get behind the slogan on his t-shirt.

All code is garbage

[u/grimonce]

The ex-dad guy.

[u/fp_weenie]

The best keyboard is dvorak, I can tell my zig is correct simply from the melodious sounds of natural typing.