The key travel distance is still rather long for most modern laptop designs. There's possibly a market for them as they stand in the desktop replacement and fairly chunky high end gaming segment where such a key travel depth won't be a detriment in engineering a thinner computer. They'll need to develop something with an even shorter travel depth and make mechanical switches thinner in general before they'll have a chance to find their way into mainstream offerings. Still, options are good and this is a step toward more keyboard options for mobile users.
it won't be going in normal laptops though. Just the subset of gaming (or workstation????) laptops thick enough due to massive cooling that their designers don't care about adding even taller conventional switches.
It's nice to see them being downsized. How do these smaller mech keys compare to the rubber dome switches in a regular laptop right now? I assume they're still much bigger? Or is it theoretically possible to get a mechanical keyboard into a laptop without compromising too much on size now?
These look quite similar to the Cherry's ML switch, although this has an extra millimeter of travel compared to the ML, and is slightly larger in all three dimensions. The key fastening mechanism also looks very similar, although I doubt the keys from an ML keyboard would be compatible with these switches.
I kind of wish Cherry ML made a comeback now that mechanical keyboards are in vogue.
whilst at IFA I saw a fair few keyboard manufacturers using Kailh low-profile switches, not sure if they were PG1232 or PG1350 either way, i know I want a keyboard with them, simple as, they felt great to type on.
50g of activation force? Surely you can't meant grams because that's mass, do you must mean that you have to subject this keyboard to 50 times the acceleration of gravity to activate the keys?
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Cliff34 - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
I look forward the day when keys like these are found in laptops.BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
The key travel distance is still rather long for most modern laptop designs. There's possibly a market for them as they stand in the desktop replacement and fairly chunky high end gaming segment where such a key travel depth won't be a detriment in engineering a thinner computer. They'll need to develop something with an even shorter travel depth and make mechanical switches thinner in general before they'll have a chance to find their way into mainstream offerings. Still, options are good and this is a step toward more keyboard options for mobile users.DanNeely - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
it won't be going in normal laptops though. Just the subset of gaming (or workstation????) laptops thick enough due to massive cooling that their designers don't care about adding even taller conventional switches.Drumsticks - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
It's nice to see them being downsized. How do these smaller mech keys compare to the rubber dome switches in a regular laptop right now? I assume they're still much bigger? Or is it theoretically possible to get a mechanical keyboard into a laptop without compromising too much on size now?Inteli - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
These look quite similar to the Cherry's ML switch, although this has an extra millimeter of travel compared to the ML, and is slightly larger in all three dimensions. The key fastening mechanism also looks very similar, although I doubt the keys from an ML keyboard would be compatible with these switches.I kind of wish Cherry ML made a comeback now that mechanical keyboards are in vogue.
Mobile-Dom - Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - link
whilst at IFA I saw a fair few keyboard manufacturers using Kailh low-profile switches, not sure if they were PG1232 or PG1350 either way, i know I want a keyboard with them, simple as, they felt great to type on.speculatrix - Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - link
50g of activation force? Surely you can't meant grams because that's mass, do you must mean that you have to subject this keyboard to 50 times the acceleration of gravity to activate the keys?AnnonymousCoward - Sunday, October 1, 2017 - link
It's the force applied from 50 grams toward Earth. The CAD drawing more accurately says "gf" for gram-force.