New Keyboard, Who This?

Edit: I learnt the hard way that although "regular" MX-style switches are all compatible, low-profile ones are not. This means that the Cherry low-profile switches that came with this board don't have the same pin layout as the Gateron low-profile switches I was planing to use. I did hack the Gateron switches for a temporary fix, but eventually ended up replacing them with TTC KS32 low-profile blue switches, as Cherry does not offer clicky low-profile switches.

My old Thinkpad X220 has been slowly dying¹ and as much as it makes me sad, it is also showing its age in terms of computational power. As such, I've pre-ordered a Framework 13 (the AMD version) and plan to retire my X220 when I get it.

One thing I will miss from that laptop is the keyboard. At work, I dock it (on the amazing Thinkpad dock), which lets me use the keyboard while working on a larger monitor.

I could probably replicate this setup with the Framework, but I'm not a fan of trackpads. So I built a keyboard. A nice one. One with a trackpoint.

If you follow Debian Planet, you may have seen the Tex Shinobi when Jonathan Dowland featured it on his blog back in January. It is a Tenkeyless board (saving me precious space at work) and is everything you would want from a old-school Thinkpad keyboard replacement.

Since I had no previous experience with "Cherry MX"-style keyboard switches², I decided to go full-bore and buy the "DIY" model that came unpopulated.

To know what model of switches I wanted, I bought a nice switch tester and played with it for a few days. After having thoroughly annoyed my SO (turns out 35 different switches on a little board is an incredible fidget toy), I decided to go with the Gateron Aliaz 70g. They are silent tactile switches, similar to the classic Cherry MX Browns, but with a much nicer sound profile and a much stronger actuation force (55g VS 70g). The end result is somewhat "stiff" keyboard that has a nice "THOCC", while still being relatively silent: perfect for a shared office.

The only thing left to do on this keyboard is to replace the three soldered switches that came pre-installed for the mouse buttons. They are Cherry MX Red low-profile switches and are genuinely terrible³. I will be swapping them for Gateron KS-33 low-profile Blue switches when I get the ones I ordered online.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this keyboard and I look forward using it daily when schools starts again in September.