Six Colors
Six Colors

by Jason Snell & Dan Moren

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Clicky keyboards are back!

Ross Rubin writing at Fast company:

If you care about keyboard feel, what you really care about are the switches below the keyboard caps. Among modern mechanical keyboards, the most well-known switches are the MX Series switches from Cherry. The various models are named after colors such as blue, red, brown, clear, and white. Their names are merely shorthand for a range of factors such as how much force is required for them to be depressed, and whether they produce an audible click like classic mechanical keyboards.

Most people don’t care, but if you do care, there are a lot of amazing keyboard choices out there these days. I admit, I’ve got a growing collection of mechanical keyboards—this is a problem—but right now I’m back on my Leopold compact model with Cherry Brown switches. (I decided the chirpy sound of the Cherry Blue switches weren’t for me.) When I write on the iPad while standing at the bar in my kitchen, I use a Matias Laptop Pro.

If you’re interested, I also recommend checking out the Wirecutter guide to mechanical keyboards. I’ve ended up settling on “boutique” keyboards that are very small while still retaining traditional arrow keys, so I can keep my trackpad as close as possible to the right side of my keyboard for ergonomic reasons.

Then there are the custom keycaps… suffice it to say, this is a deep hole you can fall into if you want. Or you can just find a great keyboard and go about your business. Your decision.

—Linked by Jason Snell

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