Classification – or how to sabotage your comprehension

First of all we need to state that in 2022 any keyboard is all right. You can head into a shop and pick up a decent, perhaps even silent keyboard. There are a lot of terms going around the internet and they can become confusing – there are mechanical keyboards, regular keyboards, gaming keyboards, chiclet keyboards, and so on and so forth.

Attempting a classification of everything keyboards may lead to intolerable migraines as some things really can not be defined properly. A mechanical keyboard can not be defined correctly because at the end of the day almost all keyboards are mechanical – there are outliers like a laser projected keyboard – yes it exists, no, you do not want to use it.

Fine. So we do not define a keyboard as being mechanical and we go with defining a mechanical keyboard as a keyboard that uses switches. So what do we do with Topre? Which are in fact switches albeit they partially use the same membrane tech found on 10-20$ keyboards.

Where do we place buckle spring? How about Hall Effect switches? Optoelectronic? Membrane over spring? Scissor over membrane?

I would like to propose a more humane classification – one that we can use as a guide when it comes to hardware in general:

– Entry level;
– Mainstream;
– Performance;
– High end;
– Custom – which can also be entry level, mainstream, performance and high end.

Following this amateurish classification we can begin to make sense of the spaghetti bowl that is the information pertaining to these ubiquitous peripherals. It is taking into account first of all the price of the product and only then the technology behind it. And this is because in some cases the prices may seem hard to justify just by looking at them through technology-tinted glasses. It is also the practical way as there are a lot of products punching way above their weight – decent keyboards with a decent price. What I can promise you my dear reader is that you will develop a whole new understanding regarding what “decent price” really means by the end of our journey.

Our methodology of organising the information will follow another classification – one that is concerned with how an electrical contact is closed to generate a letter on the screen. This means we are going to go through membrane/rubber dome keyboards and then have a look at switches present in mechanical keyboards.

One thing we should agree on is that there is no “best keyboard”. There is no best keyboard for a certain activity either (e.g. “best gaming keyboard”). A keyboard is as personal as the desire to dip French Fries into a milkshake or put pineapple on pizza, having your coffee black or with diabetes-inducing quantities of sugar and milk. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the keyboard in front of you. It does not have to be expensive and it does not have to have pink keycaps to be special. It is special because it is yours.

I would also like to set a standard methodology to evaluate a keyboard:

• aesthetics – subjective to personal preferences;
• materials used – analysing objectively the quality of the materials, the quality of the finish, the quality of how it all comes together, the overall feeling of either top quality or dumpster-grade keyboard;
• functionality – do you have to adapt to your keyboard or are you able to adapt your keyboard to your preferences? This is obviously a subjective way of analysis since it depends on personal preference and expectations;
• availability – do you have to perform a questionable ritual akin to summoning beings from a different dimension to get one or do you find it in any shop?
• price VS quality – using knowledge of what it entails to manufacture an item – either limited run or mass production – to appreciate a product together regardless of price or whether we can afford it or not or expose a shameless cash grab.

What the current article wants to do is offer information on how different types of keyboards work, why some are better than other, why performance is actually something entirely subjective, and why it doesn’t really matter and red keyboards are the best.