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jblagden

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 16, 2013
1,162
641
Is there such thing as a Quiet Mechanical Wired Ten-Keyless Mac Keyboard?

I’m looking for a wired keyboard because I don’t want to have to change the batteries every two weeks, and I don’t want to deal with pairing issues, including having to push a button to wake the keyboard and how long it takes to connect to my Mac. The quiet part is pretty self-explanatory. It’s also rather important that the keyboard has a Mac keyboard layout, particularly due to function keys for things like media playback, Mission Control, and Launchpad.

I’ve checked out a few different companies, and it seems like none of them meet all five of my criteria.

Is there a keyboard which fits all five of my criteria?
 
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I guess I'm kinda confused, I have a quiet keyboard, it's the Apple Magic Keyboard, there's no batteries to change because it's recharged via lightning cable that's always connected. I didn't have to pair it even though it uses Bluetooth because as soon as I connected the lightning cable it was paired. It doesn't have a 10 key either. And I don't have it do anything to wake my computer, I just start using it. Sorry I don't have an exact solution, but perhaps what I'm suggesting might work for you given that your battery and wired criteria might be alleviated with new information.
 
I guess I'm kinda confused, I have a quiet keyboard, it's the Apple Magic Keyboard, there's no batteries to change because it's recharged via lightning cable that's always connected. I didn't have to pair it even though it uses Bluetooth because as soon as I connected the lightning cable it was paired. It doesn't have a 10 key either. And I don't have it do anything to wake my computer, I just start using it. Sorry I don't have an exact solution, but perhaps what I'm suggesting might work for you given that your battery and wired criteria might be alleviated with new information.
It took me a while to realize I forgot to include mechanical as one of the criteria. Mechanical keyboards are a lot better for typing. Apple’s scissor switches are nice, but they’re not the same as a mechanical keyboard. Scissor switches are essentially dome switches, just significantly better. But mechanical switches are significantly better than scissor switches. By the way, the most commonly used switches for mechanical keyboards are made by a company called Cherry.There are four main types of Cherry key switches: black, blue, brown and red. The four different types differ in feedback types and actuation force. The blue switches provide auditory (click) and tactile (bump) feedback so you’ll know when the key has been depressed. The brown switches provide tactile feedback. The red and black switches do not provide feedback. The brown and red switches both require 45 grams of activation force. The blue switches require 50 grams of activation force and the black switches require 60 grams of activation force.

While I like the Apple keyboards, and the Apple Magic Keyboard fits four of my five criteria, I’m still interested in a mechanical keyboard.

Unfortunately, most mechanical keyboards are made for gaming. As an almost direct result, most of them use Cherry MX Blue switches, which are very loud. Matias, Logitech, Razer, and Das Keyboard offer options for Brown switches. Also, Das Keyboard and Matias each have keyboards which have the five things I’m looking for but not in the same keyboard - one keyboard might be wired mechanical, ten-keyless with a Windows layout and another might be wireless, ten-keyless with a Mac layout. I guess I could overlook the Mac layout criterion if the keyboard at least had controls for volume and media playback.

If you’d like to read more about mechanical switches, here’s a link to an article I wrote about them: http://www.jbmachelp.x10host.com/mac/mac-index/hardware/types-of-keyboards-by-josh.html

This is certainly proving a more difficult research task than I first anticipated.

But, thanks for trying. I’ll keep the Apple Magic Keyboard in mind in case I give up on the mechanical requirement.

I apologize for the length of this post.
 
Mechanical keyboards are a lot better for typing. Apple’s scissor switches are nice, but they’re not the same as a mechanical keyboard.
I think the very nature and design of mechanical keyboards are such they they'll be louder then apple's chiclet keyboards.
 
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