The right keyboard can make you more productive, improve your gaming, or save you from wrist pain. Here are our top recommendations.
Keyboards these days come in all shapes, sizes, and styles, and people’s preferences tend to be just as varied.
Do you want wired or wireless? Portable or bulky? Low-profile laptop-style keys or chunkier desktop versions? Does it need to be mechanical? Do you need a numpad? Do you want LEDs, custom hotkeys, USB pass-through, and other typical gaming features?
We break down the features you need to consider in our keyboard buying advice, but if you prefer you can skip straight to our keyboard reviews.
Keyboard buying advice
A lot of the considerations in buying a keyboard are pretty self-explanatory. Whether you prefer high or low-profile keys is mostly a matter of preference, how bulky you mind it being depends on desk space and if you need it to be portable, and dropping the numpad saves some space at the cost of a little functionality.
One major consideration is whether you want to go wired or wireless. The latter gives you less clutter and added portability, but does mean you suddenly have to start worrying about battery life. If you’re looking at wireless, you should also consider whether you want a Bluetooth keyboard that’s compatible with Android or iOS, so that you can also use it to turn your phone or tablet into a productive work device.
Mechanical or membrane?
The biggest decision in buying a keyboard is probably the choice between mechanical or membrane key-switches.
Membrane keyboards use a layer of conductive plastic underneath the keys which forms an electrical contact when pressed. Mechanical keyboards on the other hand use physical switches underneath each key, which are actuated when pressed.
Mechanical keyboards are generally said to be more crisp and responsive, and keyboards using the high-quality Cherry MX mechanical switches are a particular favourite. The principal downsides of mechanical keyboards are that they are generally more expensive, bulky, and noisy than their membrane counterparts.
Mechanical keyboards are especially popular among PC gamers because of their superior responsiveness, and are common in gaming keyboards. They also often include features like LED backlighting, pass-through USB ports, and customisable hotkeys and macros for more efficient gaming. If you like the sound of that, take a look at our full guide to the best gaming keyboards.
Read more at techadvisor.co.uk