My solar-powered wireless USB keyboard kicked the bucket this week and I want to give the mechanical keyboard stuff a shot. My use case:
- don't give a shit about gameing
- primarily use OSX and sometimes linux
- programmer
- needs full num pad
- ideally no Bluetooth, wired is OK

I'm mostly interested in the tactile quality of it, and how maintainable/ easy to clean it is. Not so much power gaming optimizations and all that malarkey.

If anybody has good/bad experiences I would love to hear about them. I don't really know what to look for in a "good" mechanical keyboard.

@cooler_ranch Do you care about whether the legends match the OS you use?

How noisy can it be?

What country are you in (this affects my recommendations some)?

My preferred modern switches, for tactile quality reasons, are Matias Click (which can be found primarily on the Tactile Pro 4, which has a Mac-specific version) and buckling spring (Unicomp being the main source for that).

Unicomp's keyboards look dreadful, but feel good.

Matias is higher quality.

@bhtooefr these are good confederations!

I would prefer the legend to match the OS, but i used to work with a windows keyboard on OSX and it's totally fine.

I can tolerate some noise if it's the 'right' kind of noise, but overall I wouldn't want it very loud (working remote and often pair programming on video chat).

I live in the US, fwiw.

@cooler_ranch So that's a problem - by modern standards, both of my recommendations would be considered "very loud".

I'm really not a fan of the Matias "quiet click" switches, so the Quiet Pro isn't what I'd recommend - I honestly prefer average rubber domes over that keyboard.

Cherry MX blue (or a clone) may be a better bet, but the tactile quality is nowhere near as good as Alps (Matias) or buckling spring designs.

Do you have a Micro Center near you?

@bhtooefr i do have a micro center in the vicinity. I probably should test drive a few of them.