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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Is this linked because the switches reached $6 each?

I am not surprised. The mechanical keyboard community has a good contingent of people that have a lot of money and nothing to spend it on. People post their keyboard pictures to reddit with a Rolex Submariner or a $750 bottle of scotch in the background. I don't mean this as a criticism in any way, but there is very much that element to it. People pay $600 for a set of keyswitches to get a $600 set of keyswitches, not because of the incremental value over a $0.10 keyswitch.

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So, I'm a bit of a cheapskate, so my soul wants to agree 100%.

But I also spend something in the neighborhood of half my waking life using a keyboard, so I could see choosing to spend money there even if you're happy with a $10 wristwatch. Assuming it really is that good, of course. I'd perhaps rather that than spend $1000 on a nice sofa when one of the $300 Ikea models will do.

Well...the point was marginal utility. My keyboards are on the expensive side for the same reason, but the functional difference between a $100 keyboard and a $10000 keyboard will be minimal.

You may not believe me, but Holy Panda switches feel amazing to type on, even among mechanical switches.

There certainly is the aspect of exclusivity and collection, but there's a reason it became so notoriously desirable in the first place, and that's the feel: zero wobble, and an unusual tactility profile.

I'll agree with that - I have a board that I built with Clear-minded Pandas (basically the same thing, but a Halo Clear stem instead of a Halo True), and it is so amazingly satisfying as a tactile board. Like you said - basically zero wobble, and an almost instant tactile bump that no other switch really has.

> Weight: 67g bottom out if using Panda springs, 100gf bottom out if using Halo True springs

That means they require more force than Model M? Too much I think.

Bottom-out, not actuation.

I thought the halo clear + true had the same stem with different springs

I built a zanda (panda housing, zelios stems) board when halo stems were impossible to find. Everyone who has tried it loves it.

I use mechanical key switches and definitely do have other things I’d rather be spending the money on, but I find that they do substantially increase my typing comfort (I didn’t spend $600, but did spend over $300 on my keyboard) so do personally find they’re much better for me than $0.10 key switches.

Oh, I'm talking about mechanical keyswitches when I cite 10 cents. That is approximately what the Cherry clones run for in quantity. (They are about 30 cents at retail.)

You may cringe at "clone" but the reality is that after the MX patent expired, the Chinese manufacturers are making way better switches than Cherry ever did. Cherry got so bad that the competition forced them to retool; they would have been perfectly happy selling you scratchy switches from decades-old tools if it weren't for the innovation that is happening in China.

In my experience of Red and Brown switches, Gateron ones have always been more pleasant to use than Cherry ones. On my desk at home I have a Cherry MX Brown board (Cooler Master Masterkeys Pro L) that I am seriously considering taking apart in order to replace the switches because a cheap mech I got years ago with Gateron browns is probably the most plesant switch I have ever used.

Edit: Having said that - I admit my sample size is small and I did enjoy the two Cherry MX Blue boards I have used.

I'm pretty impressed with Gateron's switches, at least in the form of the Healios switch that they manufacture. Very smooth. Very quiet. Tighter tolerances than the Kailh switches I've used.

From the switches I have used it does appear that Gateron QC is more consistent than Outemu or Kailh - but I have handled 10 different mechs at most so the sample size certainly isn't large enough to draw any meaningful conclusions!

I'm saving up for an Ergodox split keyboard with Kailh Copper switches. Now I'm wondering if I should try to find Gateron switches instead.

The Ergodox EZ has "hot-swappable" switches; you just pull them out and snap new ones in. So you can get the keyboard now and experiment with switches forever.

Edit to add: I have two EZs. I also ordered my first one with Kailh's copper speed switches and found them TERRIBLE. Speed switches are very hard to type on. (Imagine pressing Enter when you mean Backspace. It's stressful!) The hair-trigger on the switches combined with not knowing where backspace was on that keyboard made learning a very difficult experience. I now run Healios (linear) and Box Navy (clicky) on my Ergodoxen.

I would also recommend getting comfy with QMK before your keyboard arrives. Install the build tools, make a Github fork for your configuration, and make sure you can build images easily. You will want to tweak stuff extensively when you are just getting started, as the default layout is pretty garbage. (So are the online configuration tools.)

good to know, thank you for saving me from a lot of potential hassle!

Really? I'm the opposite thought I'm not comparing apples-to-apples. I have both a Gateron Brown (one of those Kickstarter Keychron keyboards), and a regular mx-browns on an Drop Alt. The Keychron with Gateron's feel like I'm playing with Fischer Price toys. I'm not sure if it's the switches or plastic base vs aluminum, but I prefer my MX browns on my other keyboard Any thoughts on this? (I'd happily get a keychron with browns on an al base if I can expect the typing experience to be better.

Well I have a KC60 with Gateron Browns which I have used with both a plastic case and an alu one, and whilst this does change the typing experience quite a lot I do enjoy both. The feeling is consistently a nice, clean and snappy typing experience.

One thing which could contribute to why I don't enjoy the Cooler Master board is that the switches sit on a plastic plate which does cause the keypresses to feel a little mushy. That and the fact that the keypresses themself feel coarse, so the combination of the coarse feel of the brown switch and the flex in the plate ruin the experience. Perhaps if I had MX Browns in a different board I would feel differently but I must admit the experience has put me off, moreso considering the premium you often pay for Cherry. I would probably want to spend a week using any MX Brown mech in future before committing to a purchase (which I probably should have done before buying the CM mech, but it can be hard to find shops near me to experience a wide range of mechs).

I say all of this knowing that I could disassemble the MX Brown switches and lube them, as well as changing the springs. However the 1 Gateron Brown and two Gateron Red mechs have been really enjoyable to use 'out of the box'.

Blue and green fan, and I agree, prefer Gateron's blues and greens over Cherry, although my keyboard atm uses 'official cherrys' because it isn't a 'budget' keyboard :/

Ah, ok, I see!

My point was more that I don’t see a problem with spending a lot of money on better tools, while yours seems to be that people are spending more as a status symbol, when substantially cheaper options exist of the same (or very similar) quality. So we weren’t really commenting in the same thing, sorry about that :)

There are so many dirt cheap (even the cheapest Gaterons are actually 20 cents) key switches that this is like saying "I find blue handled pens write better for me than green handled pens". Maybe it's true of the pens you tried, but there's little correlation.

I have everything from Topres to Zealios... my current daily is using switches that cost 30 cents.

The quality to price ratio in mechanical keyboards is completely and totally non-existent since other manufacturers came to the scene, and honestly we'd be seeing even better values if mechanical keyboard users weren't so hellbent on shoving money into things and assuming it makes them better.

I overheard someone saying they wish there was a more expensive version of a certain budget keyboard the other day.

When asked why, the person didn't really have a reason. They just wish it wasn't a budget keyboard so they could like it (read: show it off).

Yes, I see I misunderstood the comment a little bit. I completely agree. Sometimes people spend more money on things simply so they don’t feel cheap, even if the end experience is otherwise exactly the same.

> not because of the incremental value over a $0.10 keyswitch

Things like that never have "incremental" value - in my experience, it's almost always something along the logarithmic scale. Same with whisky: a limited Ardbeg release or a record-breaking Octomore is 2-3 times as expensive as a standard 10 year Laphroaig, but the difference in quality is much less than between latter and a typical cheap blend like Black Label.

If somebody can drop in excess of USD 1k on a phone why not drop couple hundred on a device somebody is spending most of the day touching.

This is different from a gadget you might put in a drawer and maybe use it occasionally. I have been using my trusty mechanical keyboard every day for around half a day for the past 15 years.

If it makes me feel good (ie. it has satisfying mechanics and is not irritating) then I have no problem paying couple hundred for it.

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