Over the course of the day, many people type thousands of words onto a keyboard, whether it’s one physically built into a laptop or a standalone model. Alongside the mouse, they’re the most important peripherals for modern computers and have attracted a huge following of enthusiasts looking for the best typing experience. The Verge covers them all, from Apple’s latest wireless peripherals to clacky mechanical models with custom keycaps and switches designed by enthusiasts and sold through forums.
My colleague Antonio included several audio recordings of himself typing on various mechanical keyboards in his fall upgrades feature, and they’re delightfully therapeutic. Listen to this roundup below, or check out his article to listen to them individually.
That’s how much Atomic Keyboard is charging for its MDR Dasher keyboard, based on Apple TV’s Severance, though early adopters can save $300 with a $10 deposit. That gets you an aluminum keyboard with a trackball and swappable magnetic top sheet that enables three different layouts, depending on how show-accurate you feel like being.
If it’s a little steep for you, $197 gets you Signature Plastics’ Macrodata Refinement keycap set to upgrade an existing board.
Ryan Norbauer spent half a decade and several hundred thousand dollars reinventing the keyboard. It worked.
0An elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.
Serene Industries is following up on its massive wedge-shaped Icebreaker keyboard with a smaller, lighter alternative called the Cleaver. Available for preorder now for $850 it’s also cheaper, but by no means cheap.
Machined from a single block of aluminum, the Cleaver features Hall effect switches and swappable aluminum keycaps perforated with holes to allow LED backlighting to shine through. It’s USB-C only, and available with Windows or Mac layouts and clear or black anodized finishes.
This would be a mildly funny April Fools’ Day gag if it were a fake product announcement. But CYL Any Keys is a real keycap set you can buy today. And it’s from GMK, so it’s a high-quality mildly funny April Fools’ Day gag, with doubleshot legends and support for mAny different keyboard layouts.
I’m holding out for MTNU Any Keys, though.
The $199.99 Mini Gen 3 is sporting the same Hall effect OmniPoint 3.0 key switches as the larger model that was released in September, allowing gamers to adjust actuation points from 4mm down to just 0.1mm. The TKL (tenkeyless) version of the Apex Pro Gen 3 is also now available in white for $219.99.
I’ve spent the past week typing on an early unit of the Norbauer Seneca, a mechanical keyboard that’s entirely custom, from its Topre-like electrocapacitive switches to its astonishingly smooth stabilizers. I also spoke at length with its creator about the process of making the board and why it’s so damn expensive. Stay tuned next week, feel free to ask about it in the comments, and meanwhile: just look at this keyboard.
The mute key’s label now features a speaker with a strike through it so it more closely resembles the icon that appears in macOS when pressed, as spotted by iCulture. Apple made the change on the new iPad Air’s Magic Keyboard, too.
Feeling nostalgic for the Game Boy’s glossy purple buttons? The Key Boy is a custom wireless keyboard, designed and built by YouTube’s The Lesser The Besser, that swaps traditional keycaps for 3D-printed recreations of the Game Boy’s controls, as spotted by Retro Dodo.
The Key Boy may not offer an ideal typing experience, but it looks great, and was cleverly designed as a shell that simply wraps around a Logitech K380 wireless keyboard.
The Classic-GLO is an $89 glow-in-the-dark mechanical keyboard kit from Novelkeys. It’s just as fun to build and nice to type on as the Classic-TKL I tested and really liked last year, and now it glows in the dark. You know, just in case you need a little more joy on your desk. It comes in three colors, and I tried them all. Check it out:
The retrofuturistic computers used by Lumon employees in Severance are loosely based on the Data General Dasher terminals released in the late ‘70s. Signature Plastics, the same company responsible for the SA profile keycaps used on those terminals, is now selling a matching set of keycaps so you can upgrade your mechanical keyboard with Lumon aesthetics. The SA Macrodata Refinement set is available for preorder now for $197, and expected to ship in Q1 2025.
Art Lebedev’s expensive Optimus keyboards seemed like a footnote in tech blogging history until a small German company saw the potential for a new generation of content creators.
Mechanical keyboards were trending toward Hall effect switches, but at CES Epomaker is following recent announcements from Ducky and hyping induction as the next big thing.
Epomaker will debut its induction switches in its upcoming Magcore 87 tenkeyless board, which should cost under $200 when it launches at the end of January.
Dry Studio’s new mechanical keyboard is much more domesticated than its supercar-inspired one. The Petbrick 65 is a $239 small-format wireless board that comes in two color options: calico and “odd-eye” (like a black cat with heterochromia).
Each color includes a magnetic fluffy surround, so you can pet your cat-like board — with more colors coming later.
The SA X-Wing keycap set looks like it’s been through hell and patched up with whatever was on hand, just like a Rebel starfighter. It’s the rare Star Wars tie-in that feels like it understands the appeal of the universe.
The set isn’t new, but it’s on sale at Novelkeys for $75, from $225, which was enough to remind me how cool it is.
Angry Miao’s Neon 80 mechanical keyboard has:
⌨️ A tenkeyless layout
🕳️ 3,120 drilled holes for its light show
🌈 QMK / Vial support for customizing keys and lighting
🔊 A near-identical sound and typing feel to the RGB 65
💸 A starting price of $515 or $655 with keycaps and switches, launching November 5th on Indiegogo
I’ll let pictures do the rest of the talking.
