A post about mechanical keyboards

Das Keyboard 4c professional review

It was a long way for me to get it, but finally I have it on my desktop. My first mechanical keyboard. I’ve started being currious about different ways of improving my working place a while ago and one obvious thing to check out first is keyboard. It’s pretty important thing in my daily work so I’ve decided to investigate what are the best available keyboards for typing exist at this point. I was looking for something really amazing, cause I was considering this as an investment for myself.

I found that best keyboards are mechanical. This means that they have a separate mechanical switch under each key. Those switches could be different types thus providing different typing experience. Compared to regular membrane keyboards mechanical ones are more reliable (in fact they shoul serve for many years if used properly) and (which is more important for me) provide better tactile response so it can improve accuracy and speed of typing.

But not all of them are so good for typing purposes. Some of them like Cherry MX Black or Cherry MX Red are better to use in games. They do not provide a “click moment”, instead they make a consistent resistance while you push them down. What I was looking for is eaither Cherry MX Blue (the most clickiest ones) or Cherry MX Brown (still clicky but less noisy) or Cherry MX White which is also a good choice for typing text on them.

You can read more about Cherry MX switches in this blog post.

I decided to buy from Amazon since everything my local dealers provides is gaming mechanical keyboards. Actually finding a way to get it was a pain. I even wrote several emails to foreign stores asking them to send me a keyboard via international post (no one actually wanter to do it). So I had to use one of those forwading companies that has a warehouse in US and can send you any goods from there. Finally, after several weeks of traveling it arrived:

Yeah, yeah, ladies and gentlemen please welcome - Das Keyboards 4c professional (cherry mx brown switches). Why this one? Initially I picked another keyboard - Vortex Pok3r - Poker 3 which I almost bought.

This one is pretty cool 60%-size one featuring keys programming, detachable usb cable and a normal US layout with a single line enter key (which I’ve used to).

Then I found this keyboard made by Ducky. You know guys it’s truly amazing! Body made of a piece of aluminum (just like mac laptops), backlit keys, detachable cable. According to reviews it must be quiet heavy and sit solid on the table. Unfortunately this keyboard was made in a limited quantity so all is left - Cherry MX Red switches versions.

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So I had to think again and finally stopped on Das Keyboard. I have to admit that even though it’s not so fancy as Ducky it still so much neat and robust. I was wondered when unpacked it - face panel is made of aluminum! Wow that’s really cool. I know that previous versions made by Das had glossy plastic everywhere around and fingerprints were making a lot of trouble. This one doesn’t have such problems. The face aluminum panel is matted and there is no chance to leave a noticable fingerprint on it.

Check out this:

Keyboard stands solid on the table thanks to it’s weight and rubber mountings on the back side:

Keayboard has two USB ports on the left side which I personally use as a connection place of my external mouse so that when I want to work on my sofa (that happens pretty often hehe) I can unplug a single wire and I’m all done.

The ruler. I don’t really know what was the intent making a ruler out of incline correction stick, but they did it :) It’s kept in place by magnets:

And last thing I have to say, guys it gives just amazing feel when you type! It so solid (I think it has a metal bar inside that carries switches so keyboard dosn’t bend when you press hard). It feels like a swiss watch. So precise work of mechanics, damn cool.