Product Description
Choose the Key Tronic KT800 keyboard with Windows keys and youll not only get a great keyboard at a great price, you will get the experience and commitment to excellence thats made Key Tronic Corporation the worlds leading manufacturer of computer keyboards and input devices. The KT800P1 and KT800P2 keyboards meet the European Union RoHS initiatives.
Product Description
Choose the KeyTronic KT800 Series keyboard with Windows keys and you’ll not only get a great keyboard at a great price, you will get the experience and commitment to excellence that’s made Key Tronic Corporation the world’s leading manufacturer of computer keyboards and input devices.
I’ve been using a KeyTronic KT800 (KT800PS2US-C) that was bought with my first Linux-only system in 1998 almost exclusively since 1998. The other two keyboards I’ve used frequently in that time were an HP K US 0133 and an original IBM 104 mechanical (yes, *that* one). The HP was decent, but after a few years of heavy report writing the keys were completely slick (which felt better, actually) and the membranes were flat (which sucked horribly). I tossed it. The IBM keyboard is still exactly the way I’d bought it and is the only other keyboard I care for — but its in storage in another country. So I’m back to the KT800. And its awesome.
I do software development now and everything is typing. Spending all day in vim, posting to mailing lists, meetings in IRC, writing documentation, etc. are all keyboard centric tasks. I am still not sure what key mechanism underlies this keyboard, but at this point it doesn’t really matter: if its a membrane then its the most amazing one ever. Each key still has the exact same resistance it did when I started using it, tens of millions of strokes ago (as in, F3 is rarely pressed, but feels the same as the “T” key, amazingly).
I’ve never had any serious coffee accidents on this keyboard and keep it fairly clean, so that probably had something to do with its longevity. For customers (I do IT support) I recommend, in order:
– The original IBM (almost impossible to find now)
– This one
– Any Cherry MX blues or browns from Filco, Owl/OwlTech or Leopold (I know there is Das Keyboard but not in my area/language)
– Fujitsu 108/109s in PS/2 (also becoming rare and probably Japan-only)
– Any high-resistance Logitecs if the customer *must* have wireless
Any of the above can’t do you wrong, but the top three are really in a special class on feel. I hope this gives people some idea of how an extremely heavy keyboard user feels about this particular model — and yes, at this point keyboards are important enough to me and my customers to write a review on.