I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
If I'm actually using my laptop, I just use the integrated keyboard (I've got a ThinkPad X1 Extreme, so it's got a decent keyboard).
On my main computer, and when using my laptop with the nice monitor and mouse I have at my desk, I use a Keychron K8 in a wired configuration. It's a nice full height mechanical 88-key keyboard with both Bluetooth and USB support (though I currently only use it wired, Bluetooth latency is a bit too high for my preference as it's mostly used for gaming, though this is mostly just an issue with Bluetooth, not the keyboard itself). Currently using Keychron's Optical Brown switches (similar feel to Gateron Browns with slightly shorter pre-travel), though the switches are hot-swappable, so I may experiment a bit in the future. Right now it just has the stock keycaps, but probably going to eventually get custom-made ones because it's for some reason damn near impossible to find backlit keycaps for a US-International layout (and if I do get them custom made, I can also overlay other layouts, which would be useful).
I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
If you get one with Gateron switches then yes, it's optional to have them hot swappable. The ones with the Keychron optical switches are always hot swappable (but limited to other Keychron optical switch varieties). There's also a couple of different backlight options (I've got one of the RGB ones, but they also have a white-only variety that's less expensive, and a slightly more expensive version of the RGB backlit one that has an aluminum frame instead of the standard plastic frame).
Thank you. Is the aluminium frame optional too? Seems that it (almost) flawlessly works under Linux, which is a point in favour of this model. There are so many things to take into account. As an aside, how is the X1 keyboard?
I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
Yes, the aluminum frame is optional too. This one does indeed work flawlessly under Linux given my own experience, but I have not tried it over Bluetooth on Linux so I can't comment on how well it works under those circumstances.
As far as the ThinkPad X1 Extreme keyboard, it's really good for a keyboard on such a thin laptop. My only real complaint is that a handful of the smallest keycaps don't always stay clipped onto the butterfly levers (in my case I mostly have this issue with the page-down key, but I've occasionally had it happen with others too). Not a big issue, but annoying at times. Other than that though it's one of the best keyboards I've ever used on a laptop, even compared to other ThinkPad keyboards (which have long been my standard of comparison for laptop keyboards). The switches appear to be a monoblock rubber membrane style with a rather solid plastic butterfly lever assembly to keep the keys moving linearly. They've got remarkably solid tactile feedback given their design and size (no pre-travel and consistent resistance on the way down, but you get a very strong 'click' feel right as they bottom out) and seem rather durable. Overall travel is somewhere in the 2.5-3mm range (not sure exactly where), and the keys are remarkably quiet as they bottom out (even compared to similar keyboards I've used on other laptops). Latency is also rather good, and while it doesn't have true n-key rollover, the rollover behavior is better than most keyboards I've come across (it accepts most adjacent two and three key combinations without issue as well as accepting all the 'normal' typing rollovers).
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Depends on what I'm doing.
If I'm actually using my laptop, I just use the integrated keyboard (I've got a ThinkPad X1 Extreme, so it's got a decent keyboard).
On my main computer, and when using my laptop with the nice monitor and mouse I have at my desk, I use a Keychron K8 in a wired configuration. It's a nice full height mechanical 88-key keyboard with both Bluetooth and USB support (though I currently only use it wired, Bluetooth latency is a bit too high for my preference as it's mostly used for gaming, though this is mostly just an issue with Bluetooth, not the keyboard itself). Currently using Keychron's Optical Brown switches (similar feel to Gateron Browns with slightly shorter pre-travel), though the switches are hot-swappable, so I may experiment a bit in the future. Right now it just has the stock keycaps, but probably going to eventually get custom-made ones because it's for some reason damn near impossible to find backlit keycaps for a US-International layout (and if I do get them custom made, I can also overlay other layouts, which would be useful).
Thank you for in-depth explanation. Is the hot-swappable feature optional, right?
If you get one with Gateron switches then yes, it's optional to have them hot swappable. The ones with the Keychron optical switches are always hot swappable (but limited to other Keychron optical switch varieties). There's also a couple of different backlight options (I've got one of the RGB ones, but they also have a white-only variety that's less expensive, and a slightly more expensive version of the RGB backlit one that has an aluminum frame instead of the standard plastic frame).
Thank you. Is the aluminium frame optional too? Seems that it (almost) flawlessly works under Linux, which is a point in favour of this model. There are so many things to take into account. As an aside, how is the X1 keyboard?
Yes, the aluminum frame is optional too. This one does indeed work flawlessly under Linux given my own experience, but I have not tried it over Bluetooth on Linux so I can't comment on how well it works under those circumstances.
As far as the ThinkPad X1 Extreme keyboard, it's really good for a keyboard on such a thin laptop. My only real complaint is that a handful of the smallest keycaps don't always stay clipped onto the butterfly levers (in my case I mostly have this issue with the page-down key, but I've occasionally had it happen with others too). Not a big issue, but annoying at times. Other than that though it's one of the best keyboards I've ever used on a laptop, even compared to other ThinkPad keyboards (which have long been my standard of comparison for laptop keyboards). The switches appear to be a monoblock rubber membrane style with a rather solid plastic butterfly lever assembly to keep the keys moving linearly. They've got remarkably solid tactile feedback given their design and size (no pre-travel and consistent resistance on the way down, but you get a very strong 'click' feel right as they bottom out) and seem rather durable. Overall travel is somewhere in the 2.5-3mm range (not sure exactly where), and the keys are remarkably quiet as they bottom out (even compared to similar keyboards I've used on other laptops). Latency is also rather good, and while it doesn't have true n-key rollover, the rollover behavior is better than most keyboards I've come across (it accepts most adjacent two and three key combinations without issue as well as accepting all the 'normal' typing rollovers).