I’m genuinely just confused what the hype is with HHKB. It sounds just like a membrane but for 250 dollars. What the hell is the hype about?
I’m genuinely just confused what the hype is with HHKB. It sounds just like a membrane but for 250 dollars. What the hell is the hype about?
Why do people make judgments on keyboards based on sound alone? I mean… this post is basically someone’s incredulity that a $250 board doesn’t sound “thocky”.
You judge a board by how it feels to type one, and if you use your board professionally, that becomes doubly important. Topre boards are very nice to type on.
I think the layout is not great though, I have to admit. Not a popular opinion I’m sure, but there you are :)
Wait, there are other qualities to a keyboard?
I don’t have much feeling in my fingers/hands, so sound is way more important to me than feel
I mean, it’s apparently the board where the word thock comes from lol
Yeah I don’t think the OP meant sound as in literal sound he meant “from what I’ve heard people say about it”
I know, but the word seems to have been appropriated these days. It now means that foam filled, dull sound that the Jelly Epoch made fashionable.
I’ve had my HHKB for almost a decade now and haven’t been around this sub in a while but I feel my age when people say topre isn’t thocky. It was the only type of board with that description for so long and the main reason I love the board. At least from my experience, it is indeed where the word came from.
Because they can judge sound online, not the rest.
Which is kinda funny, since topre is the original keyswitch people called “thock”
I like to say topre is more “plop”
Maybe you would, but thock == topre back in the day.
I’m typing this on a topre clone though, so I have no idea if it sounds anything like the real
forcething. It doesn’t particularly sound like anything other than “keyboard” to me.you definitely cannot, in an objective manner.
For topre? It gives you a really good estimate
Because that’s a big factor a lot of people buy mechs/customs for. I personally place a ton of value on sound, looks, uniqueness, and price (as im sure many do with price). Typing feel is actually quite low on my list although it is considered. Because sound is something I value a lot in a keyboard, topre or EC isn’t something I’ve considered buying.
That being said I know a lot of people actually do like Topre for the sound, and that coupled with the typing feel makes it valuable for a good chunk of people. I just know its not for me and another chunk of people.
I just can’t get my head around that. You type on it. That’s the whole purpose of it. You sit there for long periods of time … typing on it :) It’s like saying the driving experience is low on your list of priorities when buying a car. Sure, you may have other requirements such as size, economy, looks etc, but if you hate driving it, what’s the point?
That’s not even unusual.
In fact, we are the weirdos.
A large, large part of the population uses a keyboard literally every day, be that at home or work. The vast majority of those don’t give a crap about anything. Does it work? Then it’s sufficient.
Lots of people don’t care about the driving experience. Lots of people drop a lot of cash on cars because it’s a status symbol, that’s the top priority.
Enthusiasts are the exception, not the norm. And even enthusiast can like crappy cars, or keyboards.
That’s a great analogy! The driving exp is low on my list of priorities when buying a car (serious). I fucking hate driving ALL cars. I don’t give a shit about the driving exp I just want something that isn’t gonna bankrupt me from gas usage.
The worst driving exp is like a 2/10 for me. The absolute best driving exp is gonna be a 2.1/10.
But you still want comfortable seats, and heating and AC that works well, even if you do hate driving. You spend hours in it everyday. It would be like buying uncomfortable clothes just because you don’t care about fashion. Despite your lack of sartorial elegance, you still don’t want itchy clothes, or underwear that chafes your balls do you?
Sorry… just can’t get my head around this… LOL.
Not really. Most car seats are pretty terrible imo.
That analogy is categorically terrible tbh. A better analogy would be buying both comfortable and uncomfortable clothes cuz you don’t care about fashion. I’m not saying comfortability isn’t a factor, it is, but if another factor like price is a high priority, you would wear something that is maybe less comfortable than a $1000 Supreme T-Shirt just so you could buy it for less.
Low priority doesn’t mean I don’t care about it, it means I care about other factors more.
I get what you’re saying, but I think its because all my mechanical boards I’ve typed on has felt perfectly fine for long periods of time. Since I haven’t had a bad experience on one yet, its feeling for me that whatever board I get is going to have a perfectly fine typing feel. Maybe it is because I haven’t found one thats over the top better. Also for the ones im getting ik the designer has taken into account typing feel and they usually outline it on the geekhack page or wherever the IC is. And since I haven’t found a preference, im usually fine if everything else is what im looking for.
They all feel different to me. You could blindfold me, and and put noise cancelling headphones on me and I could tell you which of my boards I was typing on.
Oh yeah absolutely, each one of my boards feels different. But they all feel fine to type on for even longer periods of time whether its my softest or stiffest one I have. My fingers haven’t felt any sort of fatigue or discomfort one way or the other, they all feel good yet different. Because of this, ive become less particular with feel, compared to other criteria.
In my experience, it’s because the best type feel I’ve tried and the worst type feel I’ve tried are just negligibly close together in my personal opinion.
(To kool-keys) You could say I haven’t experienced 10,000 boards to make the call and that would be fair. But I don’t think my priorities are gonna change, and that’s completely a subjective thing
This is a good way to say it and sums it up nicely.
I love the layout personally, and I live my HHKB, wish I had different keycaps though, I have the charcoal colored one and the keys are hard to read in the dark
I read “sounds like” as “reminds me of” in the post, I’m not sure they meant the literal sound it makes.
This hobby went from nice typing experience -> premium build -> custom build -> ASMR sound channels.
Y’all lost the plot.
That and the fact that it’s a race to the bottom, where all the nice things are hated on, and shit off AliExpress is celebrated.
Sad days.
Oh no, can you imagine not dropping $600+ on a keyboard? The sheer audacity of those poors.
I’m saying it’s the high end stuff that’s hated on, not the other way around. Stop being so insecure. Everyone seems to like the cheap stuff. No idea why you have a chip on your shoulder, you’re in the majority in here.
No you got it, it’s definitely the insecurity of the unwashed masses living in utter destitution that’s the problem. They are simply jealous of your wealth.
It definitely has nothing to do with the endless delays, unfinished products, big names starting to scam people and a sea of undelivered orders running rampant across the community or anything like that.
And the fact that AliExpress delivers, literally, has nothing to do with it either.
…and still you continue your rant.
It’s obvious you don’t use group buys, so why are you so bothered about them? I don’t understand why you hate something that has literally no affect on your enjoyment of the hobby. It’s just… weird. There are lots of aspects of this hobby I don’t like. I just ignore them.
Never saw anyone hating on Keymacs keycaps.
Probably because they’ve never heard of them. If they had, they would.
Because things of Ali express are readily available and the “nice things” have a 2 year wait and their quality has been slipping and is nowhere near the money and wait time they demand.
You speaking from experience of just repeating the usual diatribe by those who don’t even buy any of this stuff? Genuinely curious.
It is just reality. Having the community handle everything is both a blessing and a curse. Very original projects can be born, but in term of QA and delays it’s a shitshow.
I participated in multiple group-buys. Not a single one was on point on ETA. At least 50% higher delays than expected.
No wonder newcomers will go to aliexpress to get in 2 weeks, for 40 bucks, the clone of the GMK set resold at 250 on the mechmarket.
You can’t level that accusation at everyone. There are a ton of great vendors, designers and small manufacturers out there. You are doing the industry a disservice because there’s been three high profile examples of douchebaggery lately. You want shit QA and customer service? Try getting a return on your AliExpress keycaps if you have a warped space bar then, see how that pans out.
I don’t get this attitude though. It’s not as if GMK are the only keycap manufacturer in the world. There’s SO MUCH in stock readily available stuff these days that this argument no longer holds water. They go to AliExpress because it’s cheap, not because anyone is forcing them to. You speak as if there’s no other option… it’s either Ali or GMK, and there’s no other choice :) Why?
Ngl I ordered a set of keycaps back in 2020, and they were supposed to ship out last December. Just got another notice a week ago that they’d be delayed again into late December of this year so I get it
What keycaps are they?
They were an EVA-01 themed set of keycaps that I bought in tandem with the EV-01 linear switches, the original delay I understood because of COVID but at this point I’ve debated on just getting a refund
Have you asked the vendor for a refund? Mecha 01 is an instock item on Drop… just get a refund and but those.
Three-year-delayed keycaps.
Which ones?
Waited two years for a group buy, was not worth the wait and pretty much killed any further interest in keyboards. While waiting I got some Chinese SA caps that were great. Will never group buy ever again.
More stuff for the rest of us then. (shrug).
I mean, as usual, it’s the people who don’t/won’t/no longer use group buys that moan the loudest about them. I didn’t even mention group buys in the post you replied to. I mentioned cheap stuff off AliExpress. You assumed ‘nice things’ means group buy, not me.
It’s almost like different people care about different things.
I glad to see this comment with positive karma. Gives me hope.
For me the biggest plot line deviation is how $250 keyboards are considered budget/value/entry options, and “premium” models aren’t really better in terms of features or functionality. They’re still the same basic CNC aluminum chassis with decorative weight, three PCB options, and occasionally a novelty like encoder knob or LCD screen. Customers are paying for artificially generated exclusivity and hype. They have become collectors.
Keyboards, at the end of the day, are tech devices. Yet advancements like tri-mode connectivity are super hard to come by at the higher end. In the YouTube space around mechanical keyboards, there’s no discussion of gaming performance. Like, is there no overlap between people who game and people who are interested in cool keyboards? I don’t want or need the mech space to turn into the RGB infested hellscape that gaming gear has become, but right now the high-end peripherals discussion is either epilepsy-inducing spec-fest or ASMR shiny collectibles, with seemingly no middle ground.
From the moment you used the term “decorative” to describe the weights, I realised how south things will go.