Comment by donatj
13 hours ago
My general experience with Cherry style mechanical key switches is disappointment. In my almost 40 years of computing they are the only type of key switch that have consistently given me issue. I've owned at least five boards at this point with them, and they all eventually have issues.
They're like owning a sports car, you have to get used to opening them up and cleaning the contacts, desoldering switches, oiling stems. They're just too high maintenance.
I gave that life up when the P key stopped working on my WhiteFox mid outage and I had to frantically switch keyboards.
My daily driver for the last five years has been a rubber dome Sun Type 7. It has given me zero problems, no one complains about the noise, it's got that so ugly it's cool "retro chic" thing going even though I bought it new direct from Oracle.
I still have multiple IBM buckling spring boards from when I was a kid and none of them have ever given me an issue.
That's pretty interesting. My first mechanical keyboard (Logitech G710+ with genuine Cherry Brown switches) withstood daily bashing of 7+ years, and it still types like the first day. Considering I wrote a Ph.D. on that incl. code and manuscript, it has been used relatively heavily, mixed with some gaming.
I have two other 75% mechanical keyboards, but they are not used as much, and I can't give any feedback on their longevity, but high quality switches do endure from my experience.
On the other hand, I had quite a few top of the line Microsoft keyboards, which were built very well, but their stems wear down after some time, even though their membranes survive. They become a workout instead of being a work enabler, then they are given away.