i felt into the the keeb rabbit hole 2 days ago and found my way to this page.
Im looking for a good entry level keyboard hot swappable, 65 to 75% for productivity & gaming.
The Problem seems to be, that im living in Germany and the market is small. Taxes are high when ordering from outside europe and sometimes even troublesome.
I wanna roughly 100€ and then upgrade from there. Is it even possible to get something good for that price?
I think i wanna go for optical switches…
Hello and welcome! For your budget, I’d definitely recommend a pre-built keyboard as they tend to be cheaper. You can absolutely get something that’s a good starting point for your budget. And then from there, you can experiment. What’s drawing you towards optical switches?
The Videos i watched everyone recommended them and said theyre much faster. But i have no mechanical keeb exp except maybe the c64 i had when i was a kid. i think they had mech keeb
Well, you know what form factor you want so that’s a good start! There are also mechanical switches that are fast as well; a couple examples are Cherry MX Silver and Gateron Speed Silver. Are you mainly interested in faster switches for gaming? Switches like this will be linear, meaning that there is no tactile feedback (bump) nor a click.
I can’t help with finding options in Germany, but I can offer some general info.
Opticals: technically “faster”, but on a scale of milliseconds. The real advantage is their longevity, lower part count, and maybe a higher ceiling for smoothness depending on the design. The down side is less support for customization, and a much smaller selection of compatible PCB’s.
My honest opinion is that a “traditional” metal contact switch with a short actuation will be plenty fast for gaming - and using those opens up a much bigger potential selection of boards.
If you can find a vendor carrying the GMMK Pro, Keychron Q1, KBD67L, or something similar I’d go for it - I know the “75% with knob” layout has gained some steam since the GMMK Pro came out, and there look to be some totally competent imitators out there - but again no clue what’s actually available in your area.
Fellow European here, you can use https://keebmap.xyz/ to see what vendors are located in the EU
my personal favorites are keygem.store and kyo.industries both located in the EU so you wont get taxed
I wouldn’t really call any switch “faster” than another, yes, you can actuate silver switches a little sooner, due to their higher point of actuation, but other than those, you can game on just about any switch. Evidence: I play FPS games every day on a 40% with boba U4s and sometimes U4Ts and have no issues clappin cheeks or swapping weapons, even in ranked apex.
i mean, like i said i dont even know what im talking about. i have no clue. just stuff i heard on videos. but now some things are a bit more clear. sadly the gmmk pro for example is with 200€ a bit to expensive for me as “just” pcb, case and plate. Thanks to gyllfred i have a place to look for some custom parts in Europe. Or im stating with something like a RK84 and mod it. Not sure yet. But thanks so much for all the input
That’s probably what I should’ve said and oversimplified in an attempt to not get too complicated at the outset. What’s also simple is that this man is out here with the best sounding cheek-clapping in Apex.
I’m not too sure about the German market, but given your price range and usage, you would likely be best served by the following keyboards:
Tecware B68
Keychron K6
Womier K66
Royal Kludge RK68 or RK71
LTC NB681
If hotswappability is not a must, these are very worthwhile to consider:
Ducky x Varmilo Miya Pro
Leopold FC660M
Ducky One 2 SF
Durgod Hades68
Qisan Magicforce 68
Also, I’d recommend the 65% form factor over the 75% if you really don’t need a dedicated function row for the aesthetics and keycap compatibility - a lot of F-row keycaps are designed with TKL in mind, rather than the more compact 75% layout
