Why?
Does your boring membrane keyboard sound like sad rain droplets falling on cardboard? If it’s membrane, I bet it does. Well, no longer will be the days of your sad sounding keyboards, introducing the world of mechanical keyboards. Coming in all different colors, sounds and sizes to satisfy all your clickity clackity needs.
Size.
Let’s get started, first and most importantly is the size where you have the normal, full size including the numpad with arrow keys. Then, moving downwards we start removing things, if you want more desk-space and have no use for the numpad, you have my favorite, TKL (Ten-key-less) which removes the numpad from the keyboard length bringing it down to 80% original size. My personal favorite (not sponsored) is this SteelSeries TKL, the Apex Pro which have Omni point mechanical switches. From then on, it is just a matter of removing more and more keys like the arrows, functions, etc., but it pretty just drops by 5% in keyboard size each time with the smallest being 40%, with just the letters and basic functions, no numbers.
Switches.
Second, after size, comes the switch colors. To newcomers, this may be confusing but, the switch color does not only determine what the keyboard looks like but more importantly how it will sound like. Which keys you get may vary depending on your specific circumstances but it comes down to 1 of 2 things, do you want loud or quiet? There are 3 different types of switches, Clicky, Tactile and Linear. As the name suggests, Clicky Switches are loud and clicky, very satisfying to use but obnoxious for who may be around. Tactile switches are a little quieter than Clicky but they emphasize the press, there is a bump within the key which you can feel pressing down, it makes the keyboard feel very responsive. Finally, Linear switches, they are smoother to the press and are generally quieter than the other keys. Now, there are various custom made switches but they all pretty much fall under theses categories, the most popular switches for these categories are as follows, Clicky is Blue, Tactile is Brown and Linear is Red. This, is a switches sample pack you can buy to test out the sound and feeling of different switches before you make your final decision and purchase that switch for the whole keyboard.
In conclusion, these are the two main factors in which you have to consider when getting a Mechanical Keyboard. Now, if you truly want customization specifically yourself, there is always the option to make it yourself, you can get parts of a mechanical keyboard and build it the way you like it, perfect size, switch, keys, etc. If you haven’t the time or resources, however, you can still get a Hot-swappable prebuilt keyboard. This means that you have a perfectly functioning prebuilt keyboard, but you also have the option to take it apart and rebuild it in the future the way you want. This is an example.