I am someone who has not used mechanical keyboards before, but I am curious about them since I read everywhere that they are great. The issue I have is that I obviously don’t know which things I will like or not. For example the switches, there are a lot of brands, and they produce different switches. When I read about them, I see the familiar terms: “clicky”, “tactile”, but I have no idea what that actually means.

However, just starting to buy stuff to test it out will become very expensive, very quickly.

How do you start with this without spending hundreds and hundreds of Euro’s at the start (and without knowing if you like it or not)

  • SuperLogica@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    You can buy tester switch packs so that you can test how you like the feel of different switches. It’s probably worth the investment if you have no idea what you like. But to be honest, I’m a n00b (been active for 2 years now but at a very basic level) and I chose my first switches based on an assessment of how I’d rated different keyboards over the years. (Possibly easier if you’re older and opinionated - I’m a millennial, I have several decades experience using different home, school and office keyboards and have always had strong keyboard opinions). I knew I liked clicky keyboards and proceeded accordingly; I looked at which clicky switches were well-regarded by the community and watched YouTube reviews, and started from there.

    Having said that, I recently built a keyboard with silent switches for the first time to see if I liked them too, and it turns out I do. So I guess my main thought is that building the perfect keyboard (=endgame) for you is a journey, and kind of the whole point of the hobby. The experimenting is part of the fun.

    • The one and onlyOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      I get the hobby-remark, which is very true. But like I said, I’m hesitant to pour in hundreds of Euro’s before I actually know if I like it (a keyboard or the hobby around it).

      Any hints on where to buy these testers?

      • SuperLogica@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        I’m in the UK so I don’t really recommend you shopping with a UK store since you’ll be hit with customs 🙄 There are good EU keyboard shops, so it’s worth just doing a search for “switch tester” and limiting your results to Europe. But if you get stuck, UK Keycaps stocks testers, as does The Keyboard Company. Worth looking on Etsy too, as there are traders on there who sell keyboard parts.