After Jeff Atwood blogged about <a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2013/08/the-code-keyboard.html">building a real coders keyboard</a>, my interest was piqued as to whether I'd see any notable difference in my typing between mechanical keyboards and my <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/wireless-comfort-desktop-5000">Microsoft Comfort Curve 5000</a>. I've always liked curved, ergonomic keyboards and vaguely remembered mechanical keyboards from my college days in the late 80s. I'd also started getting pretty ticked off about the impact of my wireless router on the performance of my wireless keyboard and mouse and was looking at going back to wired to solve it.

Sadly, the <a href=" http://codekeyboards.com/">CODE keyboard</a> (the one Jeff worked on) is out of stock as are (it seems) all of WASD keyboards so I've set out to look for an alternative that offers comparable features within a similar or less price range. Key things for me:

<ul>
	<li>This is a work keyboard not meant for gaming</li>
	<li>I know they're louder. I've been testing a Corsair K70 with Cherry MX Red swicthes and I'm ok with the noise since I work from home.</li>
	<li>I've settled on Cherry MX Brown switches since I want the tactile feel but just a tad quieter.</li>
</ul>

The Corsair I've been using is really nice and I'll keep it for my gaming rig but I'm a little picky about looks and would prefer to have nice clean white LEDs instead of the red ones on this KB. If it came with white or blue LEDs I would seriously consider using it for work as well.

With that said I've narrowed it down to the following:

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.duckychannel.com.tw/en/Shine_3_DK9008.html">Ducky Channel Shine 3</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://www.daskeyboard.com/product/model-s-professional/">Das Keyboard</a></li>
</ul>

I've heard lots of great things about the Das Keyboard but what's holding me back is the lack of LEDs and the glossy enclosure which looks like it would be a fingerprint/smudge magnet. The Ducky seems to match almost everything the CODE keyboard has but I just don't know who Ducky International is and don't want to invest $150 into someone I don't know.

And alternatively, I could just wait until the next batch of CODE keyboards come out but that could be awhile. Honestly, that's the keyboard I want but don't want to wait a couple of months to get one.

Would love your feedback on what you're using and on the choices I've narrowed it down to.
