if you ever tried reading explainers on various keyboard types you probably saw one of three types of articles written by retard tech reviewers:
1 - laptop vs desktop keyboard
2 - membrane vs mechanical keyboard
3 - linear, vs clicky vs tactile mechanical keyboards
what they all have in common is none of these people have any idea of what actually makes a keyboard good. if they did - their entire industry would be dead.
so what makes a keyboard good ? two things:
1 - the key must have approximately 4 millimeters of travel and actuation point should be approximately 1.5 millimeters from the top. anywhere from 1.0 to 2.5 mm is good - it isn’t the actual number that matters but rather the actuation point should be roughly in the middle of the overall key travel range. all mechanical keyboards have that feature while all membrane keyboards actuate at the very end of the travel range and in fact a little bit past the end of the range, which is why they are shit.
2 - actuation mechanism must be instant, accurate and reliable. ( this is where 90% of mechanical keyboards struggle )
most keyboards including ones costing over $300 do NOT meet both of these criteria. the cheap membrane keyboards fail criteria 1 while the expensive mechanical ones fail criteria 2. however MY keyboards pass both tests and if you keep reading you will know how to be cool like me.
both laptop and basic $10 desktop keyboards are membrane keyboards which basically means the key has to be fully bottomed out to register a key press. this is what makes them trash because this forces an inherent compromise between comfort, tactile feedback and speed.
to be comfortable and fast a key has to actuate early and then offer generous over-travel to give your finger space to slow down. all mechanical keyboards have that feature and is the reason why mechanical keyboards are premium yet amazingly NOT A SINGLE TECH REVIEWER in any of the articles i have read over the DECADE of reading about keyboards was able to identify this reason for why mechanical keyboards are superior to membrane. YES THEY ARE THIS STUPID.
mechanical keyboard have their own problem though - namely debounce delay. essentially when a metal contact is hit in a mechanical keyboard it vibrates and the keyboard has to wait for vibration to end before registering key press or else it will register multiple key presses. as bad as that is for gaming that isn’t even the worst part. the worst part is overtime the contact may get looser and the vibration period may get longer and the keyboard will begin registering false double presses. this happened to my Logitech Keyboard that was their flagship unit at the time i got it and i was forced to throw it in the trash !
is there a solution to this ? actually there are THREE ! ! !
these are:
1 - optical-mechanical or optomechanical switches ( Razer, Asus )
2 - electro-capacitive or EC switches ( Topre, Niz, Varmilo )
3 - hall effect / lekker ( magnet based ) switches ( Wooting, Steelseries )
those three are the ONLY ones i even consider for my own keyboards !
i currently have two Optical keyboards and one Electro-Capacitive and i have previously had a Hall Effect keyboard ( Steel Series ) but that keeb had other issues ( wireless didn’t work etc. )
between these three the Optical tech strikes me as the one that makes the most sense for a basic keyboard in that it should make for a compact and accurate switch. most new high-end mice for example now use optical switches and i would not buy a mouse that used any other type of switch.
but Capacitive and Magnet based switches have an ace up their sleeve - they can be analog. That is to say they can measure key position ( depth ) rather than simply detect on or off states. Keyboards such as Steelseries or Realforce for example allow you to set your preferred actuation depth in software while the Wooting has even more advanced features such as Rapid Trigger which dynamically adjusts the actuation depth on every single keystroke to allow you to fire at maximum rate in games which is actually a competitive advantage so large that most Esports athletes are switching to the Wooting keyboard regardless of who is sponsoring them.
so on one keystroke the key may actuate at 1 millimeter deep while on the next at 3 millimeters and the next at 2 and so on - the keyboard will adjust it in real time to keep you firing at maximum rate and ensure you don’t miss a single key press by mis-judging the actuation depth - it will simply retroactively adjust the actuation depth to whatever your key press was - essentially recognizing you missed a key press and then pressing it for you to save your ass !
the Wooting keyboard is of course impossible to get. last time i checked the scalpers wanted $600 for it, which is several times the MSRP.
now Razer has figured out a way to make optical switches behave as analog but the analog range of adjustment of optical switches is limited as the optical tech really isn’t meant for analog operation.
on the other hand unless you have the right software like what the Wooting has and / or are going to actually adjust the activation depth manually on your RealForce or SteelSeries then you may as well get the more common Optical keyboard which is likely to be cheaper and just as fast and potentially better in other ways due to being from a bigger manufacturer and using a more compact switch that allows for better RGB LED placement for example.
one reason didn’t get the Topre RealForce RGB keyboard for example is because the EC ( Electrocapacitive ) switch design of Topre puts the RGB in an awkward spot where it doesn’t shine through the key cap very well.
on the other hand the most recent addition to my Keyboard collection that i’m actually going to keep and use places the RGB LED right in the center of the key which Asus is able to do with the optical switch and the benefit is brightly lit legends with little light spill to reflect off the TV screen …
if you don’t understand anything i written above feel free to ask.
i may also update the text later with some illustrations, thou you don’t really need to know how these things work. you only need to know the disadvantages of some of the commonly used keyboard types.