My initial thoughts on this ranged from "why should I wish to do this?" to "why not?", though it was never going to be something I really wanted to spend a lot of money on. Of course "a lot" is very relative to computer peripherals but it's for certain that I fancied the idea of upgrading on the keyboard at some time, from the more menial rubber membrane type to something a little more, shall we say, professional. To that end I found myself perusing the mechanical keyboard pages of many a website, and had settled on two choices - the Corsair K63 and the Coolermaster Masterkeys Pro S White (Coolermaster always love tangling customers in long winded names..).
Now before anyone says "hang on.. that's not a K63", let me explain the accident I had with my cash card. It's through a sad and lamentable state of affairs that we see Maplin closing their doors, but it's been a well known fact to me that they are purveyors of Corsair hardware. I didn't hold out much hope for their stock levels or availability, but after a few efforts to find a K63 elsewhere I felt it was probably only right that I at least pay my final respects to our local store and see if it might be possible to bestow one final gesture, one last consumer salute to this bastion of high street electronics retail (yes I know they were overpriced, but to mention that is really just peeing on the tragedy isn't it?). Anyway I worked my way around the store and was saddened to see that the computer hardware section had been laid waste.. nothing. Not even shelves. Undeterred by over forty five years of stubbornness in the face of ridiculous odds I did find some keyboards - heartsinkingly they were only budget models, not dissimilar to the unit I was already using. All hope seemed gone until, just as I was about to leave the store, I glanced over to where the routers and hard drives used to be, to find a last batch of mid-range and higher end hardware. My elevated heart sank a little once more when the eye cast a rapid glance over the range and found no sign of a hoped for K63. What it did find however is this little beast as seen below - the K65 LUX.
I still wasn't convinced. The K63, with its "budget" spec of mono backlit cherry MX red keys and (very robust) plastic housing was already looking to tip the scales at a piece of useless change short of £70. This monster before me was an aluminium chassis filled with glorious but ostentatious full RGB cherry MX red keys, and sporting an RRP of £129 on both shelf and internet.
Except not today..
Today was one of those last gasp days for Maplin, and there it sat on the shelf at a noticeably less unreasonable £90. Could I stomach the idea of dropping an extra £20 on this behemoth?
in a word, for reasons of both momentum and potential buggering about, yes.
The construction and simplicity of this thing is wonderful. It has a reassuring weight to it, combined with a visual aesthetic both in body and typeface which is really quite apart from other designs out there. Out are the subtle Helvetica and Trebuchet style keyfaces, in exchange for a Norse warrior looking f**ker of a typeface regaling this splendid monstrosity with a thoroughly positive purpose behind every keystroke. When mind moves finger neither are left doubting your ability to damn well get that letter, number or symbol of choice.
Unpacking the innocuous cardboard innards reveals its glory, along with a detachable wrist rest (one presumes most are), a set of key caps (not really my thing, but nice all the same) and the conventionally useless manual/warranty card. You will notice that it's also fitted with not one but two USB plugs. It seems that if you are cursed with a PC with only USB 2.0 sockets then you will be needing two of these little gateways to get your keyboard up and running, since not only is there the keyboard itself to power in the traditional fashion, but also a matrix of RGB LED's and something of a computer within it to control all the various silly functions which they can perform. Fortunately my dearest little LAIN comes complete with mainly USB 3.1, so just the one plug for me thank you very much (the other left hanging rather unceremoniously).
So what is it like!???
Well here it is in-situ, in all its splendour. I have it set to a rather delicate shade of purple at present, and can at will change this and many other functions far too numerous to list here, via the Corsair CUE utility engine (pop on You Tube if you really want to go that far under the hood). I'm even giving it a good workout in this very blog!
I went for the "tenkeyless" design as it's referred to (no keypad) in order to promote a little space on the desktop. Not that I'm really lacking space but it does make for a more compact and satisfying arrangement for my tastes, particularly when I have the tenancy rights of this and a graphics tablet to balance when working artistically. Would I recommend a mechanical keyboard over a budget creature? Am I happy with it? Yes! Thus far I can say both I and my fingers are in a state of relative ecstasy. One of the more problematic aspects of buying a better keyboard is the matter of those Cherry MX keys, which come in a variety of shades - not LED wise, but grade wise. Black, blue, green, clear, red and brown, all various weights under the finger, with and without click action. It's quite a bewildering array of options for something as simple as text input and PC control. I haven't really played with the full available array, which on first thought might seem like a silly thing to have not done when laying out this many beer tokens on such a peripheral, but I can say that I have experienced this and many other keyboards over the years. Between this catalogue of experiences and the many videos and reviews poured over beforehand I was pretty confident that I knew what I was getting myself into.
Sorry Coolermaster.
Whatever might be next for this lovely little (ahem.. expensive) hobby I've found?
