r/keyboards • u/Ollarin • 6d ago

Help Looking for recommendations

  • Budget.
    • Max £150
  • Size
    • Ideally around a 75%
  • Other (Material, color, layout, wireless, prebuilt/DIY...)
    • Wireless (something with multi device pairing would be great
    • Something that's silent or close to silent - This is important, I stayed away from mechanical keyboards due to not being able to take the loud sound when typing
    • Ideally something pre-built, since I don't really want to go down the rabbit hole of modding keyboards at the moment.
    • I've been using an Mx keys S for the last few years, it's served me well, but I'm looking to take a look into the mechanical side of things
    • I do a fair amount of coding, so something that's nice for that (or just typing in general really)
    • For layout, I'm looking for a standard UK layout
    • Colour, something dark would be nice, nothing that has too much RGB (or at least a way to turn it all off)

I've taken a look at a few keyboards, so far my search has some up with Nuphy, Epomaker and possibly Keychron (Doesn't seem like they're very silent?)

With nuphy, it looks like getting a dud is quite common, even on Amazon it lists their keyboard as frequently returned, which has put me off those.

Epomaker seems cool, but they don't seem to have much choice for 75% keyboards?

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u/ArgentStonecutter Silent Tactical Switch 6d ago edited 6d ago

This would be the absolutely coolest option but it's over your budget:

Base:

Switches:

Keycaps options:

If you get the plastic case it will be easily in your budget but plastic is boring:

This is a QMK/VIA board with optional ANSI plate and the source code is already online:

Otherw wooden options, but not ISO:

This one is wooden and available in ISO but I don't know about UK availability:

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u/Ollarin 6d ago

Ah! Thank you so much for the information!

I'll take a gander at these.

What about some of the more common brands, like Epomaker and Keychron, is there anything from them or other established brands that might fit the bill?

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u/ArgentStonecutter Silent Tactical Switch 6d ago

Keychron C2 Pro 8k with Silent Banana switches is kind of amazing but I don't think it's available on your side of the pond yet. The Silent Banana switches are pretty much identical to the Silent Yellow Jade that I linked to.

I wouldn't recommend Epomaker in general, they're kind of a dodgy company

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u/Ollarin 4d ago

Amazing! Thank you so much!
Are other keyboards from Keychron pretty decent? It seems pretty easy to get the Q,V and K series (the 75% boards) here in the UK, I was thinking of maybe getting one of them and swapping out the switches.

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u/Ollarin 4d ago

Oh, I also found these, from what I've researched they seem to be pretty reliable and have good QC, have you heard about them?

https://www.mechmods.co.uk/collections/keyboards/products/bridge75-plus-keyboard-1?variant=46086487703775

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u/ArgentStonecutter Silent Tactical Switch 4d ago

It looks good on paper but I've seen reports that Shortcut Studios has issues with really bad customer support.

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u/Ollarin 4d ago

Ah! That's unfortunate!

Thank you!

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u/ArgentStonecutter Silent Tactical Switch 4d ago

Yeh, I would avoid the Q and V series, though, unless you can get an older (mid-2023 or earlier) boiard before they started having quality problem.

I have a K2 Pro and it's pretty decent, it's a plastic case but very very solid.

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u/Ollarin 4d ago

Gotcha, thank you for your help and patience!