****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I gotta admit, I thought the whole 'mechanical keyboard' hype was mostly rubbish: I've used an old IBM Model M like 25 years ago and back then it was nothing notable: but I was also about 10 years old.Years of membrane-styled keyboards and (worse) scissor-switches in whatever MacBook or Dell the office loaned me ruined me a bit for a good typing experience. Sure, I can crank out 95+ WPM on a piece of printer paper, probably, because I've been touch-typing for ages. I didn't realize what I was missing until this Qisan arrived this morning.I work from home so most of my day is spent surfing Reddit, watching my cats, and playing video games interspersed with occasional emails and conference calls: so your typical workday. The board arrived promptly this morning at 10AM and the unboxing experience was as straightforward as it gets; Qisan doesn't bother with nonsense you don't need. Amazon packaged it decently with air bags, and the board arrives pristine with its detacahble micro-USB cable, a keycap puller (nice call!), the board, and a booklet.Immediately I realized I was about to change my typing experience when I clicked a couple keys before it was plugged in. Yeah: it's louder than my old membrane Dell-whatever-the-hell, but the experience of clicking down on a key is utterly different and better in every way.I'm not here to tell you about Jesus (mechanical keyboards) however, either he lives in your heart or he doesn't, and that's up to you. What I will say is the board is insanely solid for its $40 cost: metal construction that hits things with a 'thunk', solid legs that fold out with an audible 'click', and keys that I can slam down with a 'clack' that make me feel like I'm guiding an Apollo mission down from the edges of space, but I'm really posting a photo of my cats on the internet, or reminding my boss about a project in-progress due tomorrow that I should really get to work on.They keycaps are a tad confusing, admittedly- but that's easy to change and the board itself is a very solid base to work from, so I can't dock points for that. Moreover- what do you expect when certain keys have 3 functions depending on their selection with the well-placed function key?My typing speed hasn't changed- yet. I imagine this will take a little bit of time to become proficient on, but that's not unreasonable or unusual moving from even one membrane/scissor-switch board to another. What's important is that typing has become a responsive, enjoyable experience again and all at a very attainable price. Qisan did a great job opting for a detachable cable: I may have mentioned I have cats and they're very fond of cables, so my old 40-pack of micro-USB cables is likely to get into heavy rotation sometime soon, and that's great: I'd rather swap a cable than worry about soldering and sheathing a cable to patch it because a little kitten got toothy.TL;DR? If you want to try a mechanical keyboard, snag the Qisan: there's no reason to regret it. Pick a switch you think you'll like, and go crazy. Downsides? I think I'm getting addicted to the 'mechanical keyboard thing' already, and I don't think typing while my girlfriend is sleeping two rooms and 20 feet away is going to be IDEAL; but she'll just have to deal with it- this is exactly what I expected.
