discussion Recommendations for a 75%-ish Mechanical Keyboard

[Strato]

Hey everyone. I need to buy a new keyboard and am hoping someone can offer some good options. What I am looking for is:

• Mechanical keyboard
• Size: Either 75% or 65% (i.e. 84 or 68-key), with 75% likely the sweet spot. A TKL would likely be fine, too.
• Blue switches preferable (or something close in feel)
• White backlighting (or RGB that can be set to permanently show white)
• Primarily will be used with my Windows / Linux gaming computer but will get some light use for coding
• Something with good build quality / durable keys

Note: the white key backlighting is critical for me. I have eyesight problems and need the keys lit to help me position my fingers. I’m a touch typist but when gaming my hands are rarely in touch typing position and finding the right key can be a hassle without lighting. The brighter the lighting, the better.

Links to a Canadian retailer would be preferred. Would like to avoid Amazon if possible.

Recommendations?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[Marzipan]

calling @sswilson !!!

 

[sswilson]

Heh.... it doesn't sound like an ali-express mechanical keyboard is what he's looking for. It sounds like he'd be better served being pointed towards keychron canada.

Keychron | Custom Mechanical Keyboards for Mac, Windows and Phones

Keychron specializes in designing and building high-quality keyboards and mice. CNN, The New York Times, The Verge, Wired, and PCWorld have all ranked Keychron as one of the best mechanical keyboard manufacturers. AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok also listed Keychron as the best...

keychron.ca

 

[Marzipan]

Heh.... it doesn't sound like an ali-express mechanical keyboard is what he's looking for. It sounds like he'd be better served being pointed towards keychron canada.

Keychron | Custom Mechanical Keyboards for Mac, Windows and Phones

Keychron specializes in designing and building high-quality keyboards and mice. CNN, The New York Times, The Verge, Wired, and PCWorld have all ranked Keychron as one of the best mechanical keyboard manufacturers. AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok also listed Keychron as the best...

keychron.ca

you still answered his question, when I could not!

 

[Strato]

LOL. Thanks for the quick comments, @Marzipan and @sswilson. I looked at the Keychron website and it looks like everything suitable is sold out at the moment. The K3 Pro in particular looked promising but every variation I tried is sold out. The non-Pro K3 (v2) is available with brown switches, but blues are sold out. I've never used brown switches so am not sure how well I'd adjust to them. The price is good, though ($101), which would make it the cheapest keyboard I've bought in a while. Any other suggestions I should consider?

 

[sswilson]

You might find that you can't get the keyboard you want with blue switches. Is your preference for blues specifically the tactile click of the keys, or is it more about the weight? (I'm a bad reference for weight as I tend towards very heavy ).

You're also going to run into issues with wanting backlit shine-through keys which really aren't in vogue any more (switches these days have south facing leds while shine through keycaps require north facing ones). Most "backlit" keyboards these days don't have shine-through with the lighting being mostly cosmetic "glow" around the keypads. Even an expensive custom built will probably not suit you as all switches/keycaps sold these days do not really support shine-through. Maybe consider a high contrast keycap set instead?

For proper backlit shine-through you're going to be mostly stuck with the few keychron models that have it or possibly one of the off-the-shelf models at Staples or Best Buy.

 

[Strato]

Hi @sswilson. Thanks for the additional info.I just noticed that KeyChron does have the K3 Max available, including with blues. One of the configuration option is for a hot-swappable RGB version. What exactly does that offer? What are the practical benefits of it for my use case, if any? (while I generally use white for backlighting, having the ability to set some keys to a specific background colour can be useful sometimes). Alas, if I am reading their product page correctly, the keys are *not* shine-through. So far, I haven't noticed shine-through keys available on any of the keyboards I've looked at on their site. As you say, that seems to not be as common anymore (maybe it costs more to make those).

 

[Strato]

For the blue keys, I think my preference is a little bit both the clicky tactile aspect as well as the weight. Though I am finding myself increasing having 'heavy fingers' as I get older and as my fingers lose their dexterity, so maybe I'll need to transition to a heavier switch sooner or later. Out of curiosity, what switch do you use and why do you choose it (if anything beyond just weight)?

 

[Strato]

Huh! I just discovered that KeyChron has shine-through caps available as a separate product (and they seem to be in stock). It's an extra $40 but would be worth it in my case. The only issue remains that the only configuration of the K3 Max that they have in stock is the hot-swappable RGB version. That's $20 more than the white backlight version but I can deal with that if the RGB version will be bright enough when set to white - I've never used an RGB keyboard so am not sure if there will be any issues for me.

 

[sswilson]

Hi @sswilson. Thanks for the additional info.I just noticed that KeyChron does have the K3 Max available, including with blues. One of the configuration option is for a hot-swappable RGB version. What exactly does that offer? What are the practical benefits of it for my use case, if any? (while I generally use white for backlighting, having the ability to set some keys to a specific background colour can be useful sometimes). Alas, if I am reading their product page correctly, the keys are *not* shine-through. So far, I haven't noticed shine-through keys available on any of the keyboards I've looked at on their site. As you say, that seems to not be as common anymore (maybe it costs more to make those).

Do you have a link to the specific K3 you're looking at? I found one on the US site, but while it has rgb backlight, the keycaps aren't shine through so the RGB is mostly cosmetic.

As far as my switch preference goes, I dove off the deep end a little over a year ago and ultimately ended up prefering Oil Kings and/or Duhuk Lumia Matcha V4 (very similar weight) but would settle on yellows if I didn't want to pay a ton of money on switches.

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This was the full discussion on switch types....

Recommended replacement keyboard switches?

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Starting here was a bit of a discussion on shine-through.

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