The Cherry G80-3000N TKL RGB Keyboard

There is little it would seem, that generates so much passion and enthusiasm among those who write for a living as the topic of keyboards. For programmers it is a topic of religious fervour second only to the editor they use. Programmers need accuracy first and speed second. Authors and journalists want speed first, and accuracy second. They want to belt out a draft and then let spellcheck take care of the typos.

I'm a programmer and a journalist. I greatly prefer mechanical keyboards. The keyboard on my daily use desktop computer is a Cherry mechanical keyboard, model G80-3000L SCGB-2. It is rock-solid, comfortable and fast to use. The big differences between a mechanical keyboard and a membrane keyboard---the modern 'chiclet' type of keyboard---are:

• The length of key travel
• You don't need to bottom out the key to register a stroke
• They're sculpted, not flat
• The sound

The longer length of key travel on a mechanical keyboard is what makes them comfortable. Your fingers can whizz between keys touching them lightly and still registering keystrokes. You don't need to bottom out the key to get a valid keypress. You don;'t need to click the key all the way to the bottom of its range of movement.

They key tops are slightly scalloped and the rows of keys are ranked. Once you get used to it you'll never want to go back to a flat keyboard ever again.

If the sound doesn't drive you nuts-it's not for everyone-it's really satisfying. To me, it's the sound of productivity.

I was looking for a travel-sized keyboard to go with my laptop. Not for use on-the-go, but to be used once I got to my destination, be that a hotel, holiday cottage or wherever. There's plenty of travel keyboards but none of them looked like they'd fit the bill. There's any number of them that are small enough, but they looked lightweight, flimsy, and hardly any of them are mechanical. On most of them the key pitch was reduced meaning typing on it wouldn't be the same as typing on a regular, full-size keyboard.

I wasn't after the smallest keyboard I could get, my criteria was just that it would fit into my laptop bag easily enough that the bag would close and zip up comfortably without strain on the bag or the keyboard. And I wanted a regular, wired keyboard with a plain old USB connection on it. I can't be bothered with wireless keyboards. Why messa bout with batteries or charging something like a keyboard. I just want to plug it in and know it'll work.

After some searching, I discovered the world of TKL keyboards. These are keyboards without a numeric keypad. TKL stands for "ten keyless". Even though there are more than ten keys in a numeric keypad. After some research I discovered Cherry make TKL keyboards along with their massive line of regular keyboards. The Cherry G80-3000N TKL RGB model looked perfect.

It has sculpted key, ranked rows, fits into my laptop bag with ease, and has the famous Cherry build quality and fabled Cherry typing feel. The great thing about Cherry keyboards is you can pick your switch types. Each key has a switch. These provide the feel of the keyboard itself. The different switch types require different amounts of pressure to trigger a keystroke. They also have a different feel and sound. You can mix and match how stiff and clicky the keys are and how noisy or quiet they are. Cherry distinguishes its keys by colour.

My daily driver keyboard has Cherry MX Blue keys in it. When I get going it sounds like a machine gun. That's fine when you're in a room on your own all day. I could use my laptop anywhere though, in a shared room, or in a library. To get close to the feel of my full size keyboard but without the sharp click noise, I chose Cherry MX Red Silent keys.

The keyboard is beautiful, it feels wonderful, and it's whisper-quiet.

And it fits into my laptop bag with room to spare.