I've yet to find a keyboard with which I'm really happy. Going back a few years, I started with a generic Model M-like tank of a keyboard, with buckling spring keys. I eventually became unsatisfied with the typing noise (it was distracting to me and my office-mate) and its sheer size. A large part of the footprint of the keyboard was its plastic border, which served no function. It also wasted space with its numeric keypad, which I never used. The problem with keyboard footprint is, while I try to keep my hands on the keyboard as much as possible, when I reach for the mouse or trackpad I don't want to swing my hand and arm too far to the right -- too slow, too much of a context switch, and too painful in the long run. Having to move past a numeric keypad was a pain.
Speaking of pain, I also worried about the position of my hands, so for my next keyboard I bought an ergonomic wireless model by Microsoft. It solved the footprint problem by having the numeric keypad be a separate wireless device (which I discarded). There was a bit of a having to retrain my muscle memory due to the key placement -- the split that provides the ergonomic qualities means you may have been using one hand to type keys that are now on the other side of the split -- but I stuck with it and was typing at speed again in a few days. My bigger problem was with the non-mechanical keys, which were chiclet-like and did not provide a satisfying typing experience. I find that typing and programming at speed require good feedback from the keys, and these were poor in that department. Another big problem was that, because it was wireless, every once in a while, it would miss a key or there would be a percetible delay. I think this was because the unregulated spectrum in which these devices operate is getting pretty crowded, and the receivers are fairly cheap and low-gain so are not able to quickly distinguish signal from noise. This was unacceptable behavior, so it had to go.
I knew that gamers had high expectations for keyboard performance, so I looked at some models targeted at that community. I was excited about the Cooler Master series of keyboards, especially the Quickfire Rapid model: it was tenkeyless, which is another way of saying it didn't have a numeric keypad, had mechanical switches, and was not wireless. I bought one with Cherry MX brown switches, which provided a satisfying keypress feedback while remaining quieter than most mechanical switches, and indeed, I was initially happy with the keyboard. However, after a few months of use, I began to observe that it would miss key inputs every once in a while. This was baffling to me, as it was wired and was designed to be a gaming keyboard, so you would expect it would have high fidelity on inputs. But I was able to reproduce the behavior consistently, and eventually had to conclude the keyboard was either defective or incompatible with my computer in some way I was not able to understand.
I'm typing these words on a Happy Hacker Keyboard Lite 2 (HHKB), which I've had sitting around collecting dust for a number of years. The keyboard has the ideal footprint -- extrememly compact, no numeric keypad, very little in the way of plastic casing to the right of the end of the keyboard. Unfortunately, it has some shortcomings. For one, the extreme compactness means some tradeoffs in key placement -- the tilde (~) key, normally in the top left of a keyboard, is in the top right. This forces the delete or backspace key down to a position right above the enter key. This is in many ways worse than having to retrain muscles due to a split like the ergonomic keyboards have -- you have to cope with a quite new model of layout for entry. The other problem which is the ultimate dealbreaker for the HHKB is the key switches themselves -- they are not mechanical but some kind of dome switch, which makes them mushy and not responsive in the way mechnical switches are at snapping back to position.
I don't know where this leaves me. Over the years I've determined that I prefer a keyboard that:
- has a relatively small desk footprint
- is wired (USB)
- has relatively quiet mechanical switches like the Cherry MX browns
- has no numeric keyboard
- does not make drastic sacrifices for key placement in service of other requirements
- costs not more than, say, $150
I feel as though these are a relatively simple set of constraints and yet it appears the market does not satisfy it.
I'm intrigued by the Keyboardio Model 01 and will be giving it a try, but it clearly violates the last 2 preferences I listed with respect to key placement and cost.
If anyone has experience with a keyboard that has the characteristics I listed above and is happy enough with it to recommend it, please, I'm all ears!
Follow-up: after a recommendation from a friend, I picked up a Leopold FC750, a tenkeyless model with Cherry Brown MX switches. I'm reasonably happy with it after typing on it for about 4 weeks so far. It's solidly built, the key action is fast and responsive, the footprint is compact, and I've had no misfiring issues like I had with the Quickfire Rapid. Until there is a more ergonomic -- i.e., split keyboard -- option that satisfies the other criteria I outlined, I'm content with this model.