Most keyboards will include cheap ABS keycaps that use skinny, low cost, and inconsistent plastic. These keycaps aren’t horrible, however they aren’t preferrred. They sound worse and extra inconsistent than a nicer set and are extra liable to crack or break over time.
PBT keycaps usually create a lower-pitched sound when typing, and are often constructed from a thicker plastic than inventory ABS keycaps. They’re virtually all the time dye-sublimated, which is a course of the place dye is absorbed into plastic utilizing warmth, although some producers like PBTFans have began producing double-shot PBT keycaps, the place the textual content on the keycaps is made with a second plastic and can by no means put on off. Dye sublimation is sort of as sturdy as double-shot, and whereas it’s theoretically doable for dye-sub keycaps to fade or put on down, it will seemingly by no means occur in your lifetime.
Producers like GMK make thick ABS keycaps utilizing high-quality plastic, which many fans choose to PBT. The primary good thing about premium ABS is that the keycaps can extra simply be double-shot. ABS plastic can have a lot brighter colours than what is feasible with PBT, however may even start to shine over time—one thing that not often occurs with PBT keycaps.
Whereas dye-sublimation and double-shot keycaps are the commonest, there are fairly just a few different methods to get textual content on a key. Some keycaps, each ABS and PBT, will use UV printing straight on prime of the keycaps as a substitute of impressing the legends into the plastic of the keycaps. Some units, like GMK Cyrillic, incorporate each double-shot and UV printing. Whereas UV-printed keycaps are the simplest to fabricate, additionally they final the shortest time, because the textual content sits straight on prime of the plastic as a substitute of being embedded into it.
Together with plastic keycaps, there was a current inflow of steel and ceramic keycaps. Whereas these can really feel higher to kind on, they’re costlier. The extra weight of those heavier supplies may trigger your switches to require much less power to press down (or, for some ultra-light switches, the burden of a full steel spacebar could possibly be too heavy for the change to carry up). In my expertise, ceramic keycaps are additionally at a better danger of breaking, though Cerakeys has made enhancements to its designs to restrict this from taking place.
Selecting a Keyboard Format
{Photograph}: SteelSeries
Essentially the most instantly seen side of any keyboard is its structure, which describes what number of keys the keyboard has and the way these keys are organized. When deciding what structure you need, you’ll have to make trade-offs between keyboard measurement and ease of use. Since a smaller keyboard removes extra keys and strikes them to a secondary operate layer, you’ll find yourself having to commit extra of your keyboard’s structure to reminiscence, however this additionally means you’ll have to maneuver your arms round much less when typing, which could be useful to restrict wrist pressure and enhance effectivity.
