It is quite clear that, for some years now, the mechanical keyboards They are here to stay in the PC industry, and even more so when it comes to gaming. However, these keyboards usually have a longer key travel and require more effort to press their keys, which is why low profile keyboards have proliferated in the industry in recent times. However, in terms of typing, is it true that with a discreet keyboard you will gain speed? I know write faster with this type of keyboard? We will see it.
The original mechanical switches had no less than 4mm of travel and 2mm to their actuation point, needing to exert 50 grams of force to press them. But of course over time these switches have come a long way, and relatively recently low profile switches have proliferated, reducing not only the effort to press but the path that has to be taken for activation, reducing it even in some cases just 0.8 mm. . But does that mean you’ll type faster with them?
Does typing speed depend on the keyboard?
Before we start elucidating the types of mechanism or with which keyboard you can type faster, the first thing we need to do is to differentiate between typing speed for writing and pulsing speed. And it’s not the same thing to “press” the Q, W, E and R keys while playing League of Legends, than to write a text with the keyboard: for the first, the speed of the switches greatly influences , as well as their trip, but for the second not so much.
We have proof of this in keyboard typing speed records, such as the Guinness record held by Barbara Blackburn since 2005 and who managed to write 212 words per minute with a simple DVORAK keyboard, or the (unofficial) record of the era before the PC, held by Stella Pajunas-Garnand since 1946 with 216 words per minute, on a typewriter!
This goes to show that no matter what keyboard you have, what matters when it comes to having good typing speed is the skill of the person. However, we have given some extreme examples (these people type faster than a normal person speaks), and most of us are not capable of typing at such speeds. In our case, the type of keyboard can influence the typing speed, and we will explain it to you right away with empirical examples.
Low profile or not, how fast is your keyboard?
To show you a practical example of typing speed, we performed a test ourselves using the free 10 Fast Fingers tool. In this we have 60 seconds to write the words that appear on the screen as fast as possible, and the words per minute as well as keystrokes and errors are taken into account.
For this, a server performed several tests. You should know that I have never taken typing lessons and my skills are based entirely on many years of experience typing with PC keyboards. So it’s not like I have the speed of a pro, more like something like what you might have experienced. computer user.
The first test was performed with a CORSAIR K70 M.2 keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches, linear actuation and representing the “standard” for mechanical keyboards, with the following result.
As you can see, with this keyboard I reached 126 words per minute with 637 keystrokes in 60 seconds, although it is true that I was wrong 8 times and misspelled a word. Now let’s see what happens with a CORSAIR K70 MK.2 Rapidfire LP keyboard, a keyboard with Cherry MX Speed Low Profile switches that are low profile and have higher speed thanks to a much higher trigger point down.
In this second test, I managed to increase my speed considerably, being able to type 20 more words in a minute and, moreover, all correct. So is a low-profile keyboard faster? According to this test yes, but I must also admit one thing: I carried out this test with the keyboard to which I am accustomed and which I have been using for more than two years, so the customthe habit and the practice they also had a considerable influence on the success of the test.
Therefore, and this conclusion is already based on personal experience, a low-profile keyboard can help you write faster, and most importantly, suffer less fatigue after long typing sessions, but in the end, what is it? what is good for you? is practice and experience above all.
