deskthority

I'm really sorry that my first post here is something as stupid as to ask which keyboard I could buy, but I'm running out of ideas. Maybe you could help me.
I'm searching for some 60% keyboard with arrow keys or a compact 75% and would like to pay something under 200 €, since I'm also have to pay the shipping and customs in Germany.
It's ok to do some solder-work, but if possible on a PCB, since I'm not really experienced in soldering.


IMPORTANT

• compact layout, as small as possible, no TKL or Leopold
• Cherry- or at least Cherry-compatible switches
• arrow keys
• regular stock caps (no spacey future fonts)

WOULD BE NICE

• plate mounted
• easy to find keycap sizes
• case without bezel and floating keys (like the POKER)

NICE BONUS, BUT NOT IMPORTANT

• detachable USB cable
• programmable (I can reprogramm it using Controllermate)
• ISO

THINGS I DON'T NEED BUT DOESN'T BOTHER ME

• LED backlight
• F-Keys

possible keyboards:

• KBT Race / Race II small bezel / out of stock
• KBT Pure Pro small bezel / out of stock
• POK3R / KC60 Missing arrow-keys, otherwise great
• Smart68 too expensive
• Octagon small bezel / too expensive
• 22mini too expensive
• Neutrino out of stock
• Happy Hacking Professional Japanese small bezel / too expensive
• Noopoo Choc Mini small bezel / out of stock / ugly caps
• Noppoo Nano small bezel / out of stock / awful caps
• MK84 small bezel / awful caps
• Keycool 84-Key small bezel
• Whitefox out of stock

Sorry for the long list of dos and don'ts. I heard the WhiteFox will maybe be available again at the end of the year, but it doesn't sound like it will be for sure. And then I had to wait 4-5 month again. Other favorites would be the Smart68 or the 22mini which I can't afford or the Neutrino, which doesn't seem to be available at the moment. Does someone has another idea ?

Without reading the post I say HHKB!

Edit: Okay after reading the post I'd say that I'd recommend a custom project for your needs, there are some decent pbc's out there wich are not that pricey and programmable!

The other thing with 60% cherry boards is this: You will either have to say good bye to dedicated arrow keys or have massive trouble finding keycaps for your custom layout. Believe me, it is difficult enough to get good ISO caps but if you squeeze some arrows inside, say goodbye to proper caps!

If arrows are absolutely necessary for you, I'd go with something bigger than 60% but keep the keys as standard as possible.
I'd also go for blank caps because they look better on mixed sets and you have to worry less about letters.

Edit2: I can tell you one thing, I came from german ISO layout and I've switched to an HHKB Pro2. This was a good decision for many reasons (I really love the HHKB layout, especially Control and Backspace). I think that the US layout is superior for programming, it is just so on point with all the special characters especially if you are developing C/Java. The hardest thing for me though were the missing arrow keys, this actually took quite some time but it started to feel very natural after some time. If you are considering the HHKB I'd go for the US-Layout not the JP one.
The other great benefit of ANSI is that the available keycaps suddenly quadruples if you are used to it. See all these awesome pokers? Yes you are right, most of them have ANSI layout, some come with additional kits to get them on a ISO layout but that is wasted casherino

Edit3: Ohh jeah, welcome to DT!

Correct. TKL and 60% are the sweet spots. In between them lies a world of compromise. Either learn to love a sixty, or go TKL. As fully standard sizes, they both have everything over the betweeners.

With the newest firmware you get kinda arrow-keys on a POK3R! Just press LWin+RAlt+Spacebar and FN, PN, RCtrl and RShift become your arrow keys.
There useless for me anyway since I do all my caps with the LShift.

It's not like real arrow keys though, since one is not used to having switching modes for this. But you can eat pizza and play pacman with one hand

If you can wait: take a look at the Ducky Air Bluetooth!

Wow, I didn't expect answers in such a short time. Maybe I should introduce myself, to make sure what I need this keyboard for: I'm an art/design student, who does hand-drawn animation, some motion-graphics stuff and a little bit of coding. Cause I'm already using the arrow-keys in some basic shortcuts I guess it would become really annoying to do a four-key shortcut, if I want to move a layer in some graphic software.

cookie wrote: ↑ Edit: Okay after reading the post I'd say that I'd recommend a custom project for your needs, there are some decent pbc's out there wich are not that pricey and programmable!

Could you name some or tell me a place where I could search ? Sorry I'm fairly new to mechanical keyboards.

What you said about the keycaps is unfortunately exactly what I apprehended. And about the ANSI-layout: I sometimes worked somewhere where they used ANSI-keyboards and it was A LOT easier to use software, since most shortcuts are based on the ANSI-layout and much easier to write scripts, since you don't need to use a Alt Gr yoga exercise to do a square bracket. But don't you miss the umlaute if you're writing an email or something like that? I thought about saying goodbye to the ISO-enter and using either blank-caps, as you suggested or maybe german ISO-letters with ANSI-modifiers. On the second thought I guess this would be a nightmare to find some decent keycaps. Thank you a lot your post already helped me a lot.

Muirium wrote: ↑Correct. TKL and 60% are the sweet spots. In between them lies a world of compromise. Either learn to love a sixty, or go TKL. As fully standard sizes, they both have everything over the betweeners.

I've already bought a cheap TKL, a Lioncast LK20 (brown cherrys), which is some Noopoo Choc Mid with some labeling from a german gaming company. It's not great, but the cheapest TKL you can get in Germany without paying a lot of shipment or customs. I put some Vortex PBTs on it and I'm pretty happy with it, but I would love to have a 60 % board for my work.

face wrote: ↑With the newest firmware you get kinda arrow-keys on a POK3R! Just press LWin+RAlt+Spacebar and FN, PN, RCtrl and RShift become your arrow keys.
There useless for me anyway since I do all my caps with the LShift.

Hehe on first sight I thought you made a joke about the weird combinations you need to press to get an arrow-key, but you can switch to an arrow-key-setup by pressing LWin+RAlt+Spacebar. That's sounds acceptable, especially the pizza part.
Basically I don't even need a programmable keyboard, since I could use Controllermate to map all the function layers and stuff in software, but I guess it would be nice to have it.
I don't like the bezel of the ducky, even if it's not THAT big.

As I mentioned I'm pretty new to the whole mechanical keyboard world, I just read a lot of stuff in the last four weeks (cause I have to write my thesis and I'm the grandmaster of procrastination), but you already helped me a lot.

Qisan and Ajazz make two keyboards that would fit your bill- other than the fact that the stock keycaps suck. But they are a good deal.

https://www.amazon.com/Qisan-Mechanical ... 01ABUJ0FY/

https://www.amazon.com/Qisan-Keyboard-M ... 01B5PZ65W/

I have the first one, but in brown switches.

For the ajazz, you'd have to look at aliexpress, but it's dropped on MD before. I never used that one, so can't speak as to its quality, but the Qisan Magicforce is a really good deal.

There is also the Varmilo VA68M, same layout as the magic force but with a metal case and pbt keycaps.

If you are really that new to mech keyboards, then I won't do a custom project right away.
This can be quite time consuming and you need a solid thing to type on first

If you already have experience with ANSI and you'd like to keep your Ümläütß then I highly recommend the US-International layout which is pretty darn awesome! I grew up trilingual and also need slavic letters from time to time.



Once you get used to it you have maximum flexibility and you are not forced to swap layouts anymore, this fantastic thing does it all!

Beware of Apple though, they like to piss on standards. The US-International Layout is the same, everywhere.... Beside pesky Crapple!

I second cookies tip with the US-International layout. I use it with my ANSI boards and while it takes a little getting used to, it's sufficient for my needs. Granted, if you end up writing large word counts in German our default ISO layout will be faster. Most of the time I do profit more from the better selection of other special characters though. Of course AltGr should not happen to be your modifier.

For arrow keys I really like the modifier switch which turns the right win/ctrl/shift cluster into arrow keys in case you need them for... something. Most of the time the slightly weird HHKB Fn layer arrows are sufficient. I'm unsure which stock keyboards implement this. And it won't work with the HHKB for obvious reasons even when using a custom controller.

/e you said, no Leopold, but the 660 would fit your bill, wouldn't it? Besides the fact that it seems to use two ANSI left shift keys, which makes matching keysets a pain. (It's available as "M" with Cherry switches or "C" with Topre, iirc)

chuckdee wrote: ↑Qisan and Ajazz make two keyboards that would fit your bill- other than the fact that the stock keycaps suck. But they are a good deal.

I noticed them while browsing on Amazon, but I never heard about the ZORRO switches and the keycaps scared me away. But the price is unbeatable, so you can buy some keycaps from the rest of the money. But maybe it's the impression it can't be good at this price, which got me thinking too much.

I got the same problem with the Varmilo VA68M than with the Leopold 660, the design is nice, but I would love to have a board without blank space.

My problem is I only have use for one more keyboard at the moment so this one should fit as good as it can.
So I guess It will be either the Pure Pro, cause it seems to have a pretty "keycapable" layout, except for the tiny spacebar


Or the POK3R and I'll have to arrange with the missing arrows. Either way, thank you cookie and kekstee for suggesting the ANSI international layout, I never heard of it before.

Pure Pro (110 €)

• Arrow keys
• hard to find keycaps for the spacebar
• ABS-caps
• plastic case

POK3R (150 €)

• No arrow keys
• standard 60% layout
• alu case
• pbt caps

I guess I'll choose the POK3R, even if I like the layout of the Pure Pro more. I'll soon buy keycaps for the board anyways, so the ABS-caps doesn't matter that much, but buying the alu case of the POK3R for the Pure Pro will be too expensive (70 - 100?), even if I wait till I found something similar on Massdrop.

That was my choice too - nice to have a german layout after all and I think the bezel-less design is awesome. Also, they are easy to get with clears - if you're into this stuff.

I had one with clears, but it was to stiff for me so I sold it. Ordered one with browns now. Unfortunately they are out of stock at the moment, but I don't care to wait - I really really really like the Pok3r.

Be aware though that the letters on the caps are just printed and will fade very quickly. For me that wasn't enough to not buy it and I am looking forward to some SA keycaps anyway. If you see some nice keycaps with a ISO-DE for the Pok3r, please let me know, that would be more than kind Atm I am inclined to wait for the next Round 5/6/7 keycaps.

i have been working on something similar to what your talking about wanting. so i'll PM you to avoid hijacking the thread too badly

project hackdura

I went through the same troubled choice as you do Geist.
What ever I looked for there was something totally wrong with it according to my needs and wishes.

I settled on the Varmilo VA69M with ISO Nordic layout and caps in the end.
A bit pricy but had a lot of the others specs fulfilled.
The VA88M TKL is very nice too and far cheaper but more plastic.

This is like buying a tripod - choose two out of the three Strong, Lightweight and Cheap. But for keyboards it's with power of 5. At least.

Plum 84 might also be interesting. It comes with lasered PBT keycaps and is fully programmable. The switches are Topre clones with MX mounts. They are very light though at 35g and feel almost linear. You can exchange the rubber dome sheet with a 45g or 55g sheet from eBay.

Available on German amazon and cheaper on aliexpress.
https://www.amazon.de/NiZ-Elektrostatis ... 01N3S8Z5L/

The thread is over a year old, it might be that he already found the 60% or 75% board he needs

Yes indeed it is.
I take them blame although I shared the OP s initial problem.

cookie wrote: ↑The thread is over a year old, it might be that he already found the 60% or 75% board he needs