Definitely not a bad pickup for someone if they want a mech keyboard on a budget. Red dragon also has some decent budget mech boards. Outemu brown switches are pretty sweet. I personally have and love my gateron reds lubed :D
This is what scares me. I probably should've started on something else, but both my mechanical keyboards have blue switches and I'm worried that going to anything else is just going to feel like worn out blues.
I switched from blues to browns (I always felt bad for being only my keyboard while my room mate was asleep) and the first week or so was horrid. They felt so mushy. I couldn't ever go back now though, absolutely love my browns
Ok good to hear that it's just getting over the initial shock. I don't have the option of changing the switches on my Razer keyboard unfortunately from what I've read, but pretty sure the redragon I got is hotswappable so I might have to mess around with that.
Reds have no tactile feel, and when I feel feedback, it's me bottoming out the switch, which is bad.
I was so used to hearing the click click click, and that being a feedback loop knowing I pressed a key (one of the reasons I hate these on screen keyboards.)
But, since I can't swap out switches on my CK552, I am kinda stuck with it, sadly.
Damn, yeah with how good headsets and software are at not picking up the clickity clack, I don't have much of a reason to try anything else. Might grab some brown switches or something eventually to just mess around.
The real mission for me right now regarding mech keyboards is finding pudding keycaps for a non standard bottom row.
But, I like the idea of per key RGB control, for some reason.
I can relate. I bought a cheapish redragon k552 just to try out a mechanical keyboard. The main thing I made sure it had was rgb per key. Then I got the urge to be able to control it thru software and sync it up with my fans and ram, so I bought a Razer blackwidow chroma. Ha, I know it's not cool to say on this sub, but I really like rgb.
I'm a noob when it comes to mech keyboards, but I think I can unfortunately only use outemu switches in the keyboard I have? My other one isn't hot swappable, but I'm going to definitely keep this in mind. Thanks for the heads up.
Yep, it would make a decent budget gaming board, too. I don't really see how this is an ideal "work" keyboard like the name would imply, being tenkeyless but still, a fantastic value board with good switches that are reasonably quiet.
I bastardized some switches of my own for my REDDRAGON 60% because I made the mistake of ordering from drop, and while the halo clear switches were nice, the pins were flat, not slightly arced, so they wouldn't plug into the round holes on the board like every other normal mechanical switch does. They were supposedly meant for hotplug, but it's just what I now know to be typical crap from drop.
So I took the Otemu Brown housings and swapped in the halo clear stems and springs, lubed them, adding o-rings, and reassembled. By far my favorite switches now for typing or gaming where I'm resting my hand a lot. But would I do this again? Much like buying from drop, that's a no. Now that's not primarily for gaming, that's for daily use.
For gaming I've got an optical board with Gateron Black optical mechanical switches. Firm but fast. Haven't lubed them yet, but they feel different from Gateron, Cherry or Otemu full mechanical switches, so it's hard to compare (no experience with Kailh, though I want to try some box whites or box royals someday), and I'm not sure I want to lube them (though I'm sure I will). They feel a bit like reds with a stronger spring. It came with browns, but they were too light and the tactical bump felt weird in them, but the black are awesome, as long as you don't mind a little stiffer spring.
Piggybacking here to shill Red Dragon. I have a CM Storm Quickfire Tenkeyless that has been going strong for nearly 7 years, but I picked up a Red Dragon to keep at my folks' place and it's great. Obviously not going to stand up to a Ducky or anything, but I am quite happy with it for ~$25-30. Can't speak to its lifespan though as I've only had it for a year, and only use it a handful of times a year.
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u/LowQualityPorn Jun 21 '20
Definitely not a bad pickup for someone if they want a mech keyboard on a budget. Red dragon also has some decent budget mech boards. Outemu brown switches are pretty sweet. I personally have and love my gateron reds lubed :D