Mechanical Keyboard: Life Side Quest

It began, as many things do, with failure. One day my keyboard started playing up. Maybe it needs a driver update, maybe there’s some dust caught under the keys, maybeeeeeeeeeeee – dammit, it’s happened again.

Basic typing had taken a turn and letters would randomly run on with a life of their own. Incidentally, if you have some troubleshooting ideas for this problem, please let me know. I cannot state enough how much I LOVE my Orée wooden keyboard and if I can solve this issue, I’ll happily put it back in rotation.

It seemed that a new keyboard was in order and buying a new Orée was out – the French company is defunct (which certainly explains the absence of driver updates).

My problems with hardware, aside from functional concerns, are all about the aesthetics. I gain great joy from things I find beautiful and I tend, like the decadent aesthete I am, to make arguments for building beauty into life. The quest for objects that bolster my aesthetic meant I spent a good deal of time looking for a new keyboooooooooooooard while spending a goooooooooooood deal of time being aggravated by typing. For a writer, this process was akin to discovering a lesser circle of hell missed by Dante.

Somehow in between the hazy shift of my gaming largely from PC to console, my dedication to the wooden keyboard aesthetic, and my penchant for open world over first-person shooters, I missed the ascendency of mechanical keyboards.

Oh boy. What a time to be alive!

Searching for a keyboard became a side quest in my life. I started as a mere human looking for a beautiful keyboard, I emerged a slightly bamboozled heroine with a slapping magical LED array. Typing is now my equivalent to creating a unicorn and I have a growing obsession for designer keyboards and keycaps.

Somewhere in all this, I’m sure I haven’t acquired the coolest, fastest clicky, gaming ensemble but I have discovered that AESTHETICS has reached keyboards in ways strange and beautiful.

My favourite new keyboard designer is RAMA WORKS based in Melbourne. I fell for their aesthetic hard.

Rama Works design complete set-ups but also components to build your own, and their keycaps tend towards subtly eye-catching. My budget doesn’t quite extend to bringing this level of keyboard beauty home just yet. But I have big dreams.

To be fair, I wasn’t sold on the mechanical keyboard as concept in the beginning. I write for a living. Did I really want to disturb the whole vibe with a clicky sound? Would I drive myself and my loved ones to the edge of madness? Reader, I’m fine, but whether my typing has compromised the sanity of others is not for me to say.

So I listened to all the levels of clicky-ness. I wondered – then researched – various switches. But function is interesting to me only in so much as to learn how much it might compromise the aesthetic. I won’t claim expertise in this field, but I will say I’m currently very happy with the board I bought (see below) which is entry level price but very very pretty.

For more a more technical look at mechanical keyboards, check out this review!