What makes mechanical keyboards better

The freedom to easily give my keyboard a different feel intrigues me. A few days ago I pre-ordered one of these keyboards from a small company called Input Club. If my first attempts at making my own turn out OK, I could see myself making keyboards for friends and presenting them as gifts. After all, friends don't let friends type on weak keyboards. Marcin Wichary, a designer at design software start-up Figma, got curious about keyboards in after seeing the typewriters around the headquarters of his former employer, blogging company Medium, and the conference rooms that were named after typewriters.

He now has a collection of over 30 keyboards and four typewriters, but not because he wants to type on them — in fact, he still types on standard-issue Apple keyboards — nor to display them for others to admire. Rather, he finds keyboards to be an intellectual and emotional pursuit that involves history, design, engineering and other elements, and is particularly interested in keyboards "with interesting stories behind them.

For example, he owns a wireless chiclet keyboard that shipped with IBM's PCjr home computer from The keyboard was widely panned — the New York Times called it "uncomfortable for extended typing" — and IBM wound up offering to replace it with a model resembling its well-liked Selectric typewriters. Jacob Alexander, a co-founder of Input Club, helped him reverse-engineer it so that it could be used with modern devices like an Android phone. Other people are more concerned with sound and feel.

Cal Henderson, co-founder and chief technology officer of Slack , has amassed 30 to 40 keyboards, which he keeps in a cupboard in his home office alongside spare keycaps and cables. Henderson prefers keyboards with clicky keys, those that require more force to push them down and have a tactile bump you can feel with each keystroke. His belief is that each key press should be "rewarding.

I type very thoughtfully," he said. The channel has more than 80 members, Henderson said. There has even been discussion of people's matching keyboards and sneakers. That level of coordination is not for me, but I appreciate the commitment. Scott told me that when he was a Ph.

Comfort is the main reason you get a Kinesis, even if it looks peculiar and has a learning curve. It has two cereal bowl-like indentations, one for each hand to sit on top of. Scott has sworn by the Kinesis for more than two decades, and has multiple backups in case the company goes out of business.

Mechanical keyboards also offer special features that are of interest to gamers, such as "rollover. Mechanical keyboards can do this easily, while membrane keyboards aren't especially good at it, and will often cancel simultaneous presses.

If a key or switch on your mechanical keyboard breaks, you can almost always replace them. Keycaps can be removed with a key puller, a simple tong-like tool that will likely be included with the keyboard. Many gamers replace their keycaps as they age, or replace them with custom keycaps such as special WASD keys. And because keycaps can be easily removed, it's also easy to clean a mechanical keyboard.

Not everyone appreciates mechanical keyboards, though. As mentioned, they can be loud, which is distracting if you're sharing a room with other people. In general, they're also more expensive than membrane keyboards, though there are exceptions.

That said, if you're looking to improve your typing speed or accuracy, you might want to check out a mechanical keyboard. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options.

Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. PCGamer has a fantastic explanation of most of these switches. To learn which switches you like, we recommend buying a switch tester.

That said, some features are more useful than others for certain tasks. Build quality: Cheap keyboards with plastic cases and backplates feel and sound hollow when you type and can flex when you press too hard on them. Keycaps made of PBT tend to be more durable and have a grittier texture. Keycap profiles determine how the keycaps in each row are shaped. Many pre-built keyboards come with keycaps that are sculpted to cup your fingers and feel comfortable to type on.

You simply connect them to your computer and they do the normal keyboard stuff. But a good chunk of mechanical keyboards can be customized. Other keyboards offer onboard programming, where you press certain keys to record macros and customize backlighting. Yet others come with software you can use to record macros, remap or customize certain keys, and futz with backlighting. Off the deep end involves entirely customizable layouts you have to build and flash to the keyboard.

If a keyboard does come with backlighting, we prefer it to be either a tasteful white or programmable—though customizable backlighting almost always costs more. Hot-swap switches: Swapping out switches on most mechanical keyboards requires the equipment, expertise, and time to desolder the existing switches and solder in new ones. On a hot-swappable board, you can simply pull the switches out and snap new ones into place.

This is a newer feature typically found only in expensive, high-end mechanical keyboards, but the ability to try out switches anytime without having to break out a soldering iron is a nice bonus. Plus mechanical keyboards make more sound than membrane keyboards because of the clicky switches. However, this is not true for all switches. Blue switches, the most common mechanical keyboard switches are notorious for their loud clicky sound, which can quickly get annoying for you and also co-workers sitting nearby.

However, you can consider brown or red switches for lesser sound also at the cost of lesser tactile feedback. Mechanical keyboards are great, but they may not be for everyone. Everyone from journalists to copywriters and even gamers prefer mechanical keyboards due to their tactile feel and superior build quality. At the end of the day, whether you need to get a keyboard upgrade will come down to personal preference. But if you do make the switch to mechanical keyboards, remember that going back to membrane keyboards will be hard.

Click here to join our channel indianexpress and stay updated with the latest headlines. Chetan Nayak Chetan Nayak is a tech journalist working with indianexpress. Home Technology Tech Mechanical keyboards: What are they and should you upgrade? Mechanical keyboards: What are they and should you upgrade?