60% mechanical keyboard

Minibiker · 16 Jul 2019 at 23:27

Evening all

I've been on the hunt lately for a new (smaller) keyboard and have looked at a fair few 60% mechanical keyboards... I'm only looking to spend upto £60 and have come across some made by Royal Kludge, Has anyone had experience with these boards or could anyone recommend a decent one in my price range...

Cheers

Oh Ed not again. · 16 Jul 2019 at 23:34

You could just about build one for that money if you wanted.

£25 PCB - GH60/XD60/DZ60. I went for the GH60 Satan, but I've got a DZ60 on the way for another build.
£25 switches - Kalih box switches are pretty cheap. Reds are nice, but the speed silvers are nice to type and game on.
£6 case - cheap plastic, but serviceable.
£3-6 stabilisers (plump for Cherry original PCB mount ones)
£10-20 set of caps. Or mental money if you want. £300 set of caps if you want (umm).

Would need to import most of that from China, but doable.

I've just built a wood cased GH60 with Kalih box switches and Carbon-clone caps for about £100.

dulcificum · 24 Jul 2019 at 16:35

If you've looked at the Royal Kludge RK61 what about Anne Pro 2, Vortex Pok3r or Tab60, Bazalia 8839?

Doobedoo · 24 Jul 2019 at 17:38

What I don’t understand is why are 60% sized keyboards not 60% of the cost?

I like some of the 60% keyboards but no way am I paying £100+ for a cabled small form keyboard.

dulcificum · 24 Jul 2019 at 17:43

I guess they are usually using much higher quality components. I haven't drunk the kool aid but an equivalent question would be why "gaming" keyboards have such high mark up.

dulcificum · 1 Aug 2019 at 12:16

I'd also consider a compact board with ten key and bluetooth as long as it's low-profile. Unfortunately there are only really two realistic candidates, the Hexgears X-1 and Drevo Joyeuse version 1. Unfortunately both are almost impossible to find and the X-1 has many flaws including very flaky bluetooth and faulty switches while the Drevo is even rarer in the bluetooth form, is a bit bulky and has that hideous gap. My endgame would probably be a bluetooth Vortex Tab 90M but without the bezel and with low profike keys instead of the massive ones it sports. A Red Scarf III or Vortex Race 3 colour scheme for keycaps would be great too.

UncleRhino · 5 Oct 2019 at 19:29

+1 for anne pro 2

mattpj · 7 Oct 2019 at 06:51

I have the pok3r. It’s amazing.
However there are now choices around that are cheaper.

glorious are bringing out our (or it might be out already)

And there’s another brand maybe Ducky doing one for about £109

I tried to get an Anne pro 2 but at the time it seemed I had to order from Hong Kong and couldn’t get them with my preferred brown switches.

Yaayuh! · 7 Oct 2019 at 08:37

Doobedoo said:
What I don’t understand is why are 60% sized keyboards not 60% of the cost?

I like some of the 60% keyboards but no way am I paying £100+ for a cabled small form keyboard.

There's far less demand for them, the build runs would be very small in comaprison.

dulcificum · 7 Oct 2019 at 13:24

I ended up trying a couple of keyboards and realised I need a numpad and probably F keys too.

So I guess my options are the Drevo Joyeuse, Hexgears X-1 and Vortex 9M. However these all only come in US layout and are hard to find anyway. Unfortunately US layout is a no go because if I remap my @ key to the correct place I am then unable to type many characters like \ ~ |