Over the past couple of years, I've been on the hunt for
The best keyboard for designers and creatives.
This is no easy feat, because there are thousands of
keyboards out there, and they all do different things.
But also the same thing. They helped you write.
And a keyboard is very personal thing.
There's a community online which I would love to be a part of
The Mechanical Keyboard Modeling Community.
I love watching their videos.
Today is sort of me paying homage to that
Which keyboard is the best for designers.
So in this video, sponsored by Freshbooks. I'm going to be
Showing you my favorite keyboards, which ones I'd recommend to you and why.
My first mechanical keyboard I ever bought I'm not testing it today.
It's awful.
It was like $20 on Amazon.
It was one of those blue switches.
But knockoff blue switches.
The second one I bought was a razor keyboard, and
That was for like gaming when I'm at home.
And also, I did a lot of work within that. I've a multimedia controls.
Again, I'm not showing that because it's a terrible
keyboard for what we're doing. After these keyboards, I knew that
I didn't want just any other ordinary keyboard.
I wanted one that could help me with productivity with work, get things faster.
So I found the Keychron K3.
The Keychron K6 is a mechanical but optical switch keyboards.
That means that the switches don't have any bumps in them,
and it uses light for the actuation.
When you actually press it, it will register the key through optical light.
I kinda liked it because of the sound.
But then I realize, you know, it was really easy to make mistakes.
Here, have a listen to the keychron K6.
First thing I like about the Keychron is obviously the switches there.
They're very nice. I like the linear patterns on them, or the linear feel.
You don't feel much.
This is great for your gaming, because if you're anything like me
You're playing Lost Ark, and you don't want to be
pressing the switches and finding too many bumps.
It's just really simple, easy, quick to actuate.
But it is terrible for writing.
And I do a lot of emailing.
I do a lot of design work.
It is terrible.
I keep making mistakes because you'll be surprised when you can't feel the switch.
There is an issue with sort of like your hand-eye coordination.
When typing, you need a switch.
You need something bumpy tactile, something that you can feel when working.
Other than that, it's a 70% or 65% or 60% or 75% or 60% keyboard.
That means it's missing the function row.
Designer at myself listen to music.
We want to be able to pause that music.
We don't want to be clicking on everything.
We want the function in keys in there, especially if you're
someone who does code need the escape key, the function keys.
It's really important.
But other than that, I like the profile of it.
The sound was okay is a bit not clicky enough for myself.
It didn't have the nice thuds that I like, but for designer I wouldn't
I wouldn't just recommend it.
This brings me on to the sponsorship that I did a while back with Logitech.
They sent me the MX Mouse and the MX keys to test out and to make a video on.
And I genuinely enjoy them, and I still use them today.
The thing about the MX keys is that it's kind of Apple S.
So if it's really nice on your workstation, I also like the actual keys.
They've got dimples in them.
So when you're writing, it's easy to set your hand correctly
on that keyboard. It is a huge keyboard though, it's very long
And it's got a great battery life.
It's USBC, just like the rest of these. They're all bluetooth for Mac and PC and USB.
All of these keyboards.
What I loved about this is the fact that it's got the number pad
on the right.
So every time, which is a small amount of time, I could use the number pad.
But it also has features like when I put my hand over the keyboard
It will register.
It will know that my hands over it and it will light up.
It's like an extreme Apple keyboard.
It is really nice.
If you're wanting something like an Apple magic keyboard,
Something better than that.
Go for the Logitech MX Keys.
These are great for designers, coders.
Anyone who spends a lot of time designing or coding, this is for you.
And it doesn't matter if you're on Mac or PC either because
It's got a same size control button, it's got a command and ALT button option.
Everything in that. Doesn't matter if you're on Mac or PC
Let's have a listen to the Logitech MX key to see what they sound like
And feel like, and to see how fast I can type.
As you can see, I can type pretty fast with it. 120 words per minutes.
This website is called Monkeytype that I'm using, and
It's just show you guys what it sounds and feels like in person.
For design work.
I love this keyboard.
It doesn't have like the huge nature that a mechanical keyboard has.
That's the problem.
Mechanical keyboards have a really tall surface area
So you have to really press down.
And it also can hurt your wrist.
So you'll need a wrist rest after a while
In thinner board you don't particularly need them.
So if you think a lot of typing or a lot of designing
This keyboard is perfect for you. I'd highly recommend the Logitech.
The story goes after a while, I'd go ahead and find another keyboard on Amazon.
And the one that you guys keep asking about is this one.
It's the Anne Pro 2. This one was a relatively cheap keyboard.
I'm going to link all of them down below also, but
This keyboard was £100 that isn't cheap. And I think
This quite expensive for what it actually is as well.
Well, I got this keyboard with Cherry MX Browns.
Which if you don't know what that means
it's kind of like a less clicky switch.
But it has a bigger bump.
So you can feel it.
So it's not so loud.
The problems that we have with mechanical keyboards is that they're quiet loud.
And if you don't want to be that loud, this one is better for you.
I love this key.
It was great.
It felt good. The key's caps were good.
There were so many lights
It looks good in videos as well.
And I genuinely did enjoy using this.
This to me was the best mechanical keyboard for the price out there.
I don't want to spend too much money, but I wanted to spend a little bit.
So I bought two.
I bought one for home. If you realized that these were got
The same switch as the Keychron or the same keycaps even
Because I took the ones off at home on the first Anne Pro 2
And put them on Keychron because I like the light coming though
You can see all the lights working. They're really bright, really vivid.
You can change the key caps.
All of these, like colored keycaps on the Anne Pro 2 came with
the keyboard as well, which I thought was a nice little move.
It comes with a USBC again Mac or PC.
You can plug this into, and you can actually do custom things
through an app.
When you plug it in.
You can add your custom layout.
Again, this is a 60% keyboard. It hasn't got the directional arrows.
Which was a kind of a deal breaker for me.
Actually, you can still use the directional arrows, which is
the shift Ctrl and ALT on the side of the Anne pro 2.
But that's sort of like part of the program of this keyboard.
Essentially there's an app that you can use to make it.
So it will do the arrow keys when you just tap the shift key, for instance.
So although I love the form factor, the color of it
It was really clean white, and the keycaps were nice.
The sound of it was a bit tacky. It was plastic all the way through.
And I didn't know where to go really.
After that, it was kind of like, what else do I use?
I use my Magic keyboard.
I kind of like that I can type faster with it.
So that's essentially what I did.
I'd use my Logitech keyboard and my Apple magic keyboard
Depending on where I was working.
That was until the next keyboard that I was given by a company.
Before I go and talk about that keyboard.
I just want to thank the sponsor of this video.
The guys that make this happen, Freshbooks.
If you're a designer, you know that getting paid can be
sometimes a bit tedious, as well as doing your tax stuff
invoicing, gathering up all your expenses for others assets
that you get for your clients.
It's tedious.
Well, Freshbooks makes it super easy for you.
You can save hours of your time using Freshbooks
By automatically having your expenses recorded.
When you're purchasing, automatically sending reminders
to unpaid invoices to clients and having all your tax stuff
nearly done for you, it will comprise them and
You can connect them to your accountant.
There's so much stuff. It's a very clever app.
We've been using it for years for our small business.
So if you're a designer and you want to get the most out of your time
and not have to worry about the invoicing side, then
Go ahead and click the link down below.
You get 30 days free of Freshbooks just to test out, but
it's completely free, no credit card required so go ahead,
Click the link and try them out.
Speaking of clicking, I got a new keyboard from a company called Azio.
This is a cool company.
I've seen them before.
They create these like typewriter style mechanical keyboard
But they reached out.
And they said, we would love to give you a keyboard.
And of course, they gave it to me. Just so you know but
They didn't pay for what I'm saying about the keyboard.
These keyboards are going to be basically sold on Kickstarter
They're raising the funds for these keyboards.
And they said, they'd love to give me one to show you guys that.
This is the Azio Cascade slim. Before a talk anymore about the Azio.
Let's have a listen to see what it sounds like and is like when writing.
It sounds amazing, and that's because they've gone above and beyond on this.
It kind of looks different as well.
The reason behind that is because this keyboard is a 75%.
So you've got the function row, you've got your arrow keys.
It's not British standard.
That means if you're from America, you won't understand.
But the enter button or the return key
Should fit this up here as well.
That's the British stranded but doesn't really matter.
It sounds amazing.
It feels amazing.
And the reason why it sounds good is because the engineering
That they've put inside of it. There is a modeling community online that
You know, mods out.
These keyboards make them sound good.
So they kind of lube the switches and they do other things to the stabilizers.
I have no idea.
But this is a slimline mechanical keyboard.
Hence it sounds a bit different, and I love it.
I was a bit worried about it, because I was like
I could get a slimline one or a full mechanical one from Azio
Or a full tall one.
But opting for the slimline one was great because I really like it.
It is the best of both worlds.
If you like thin keyboards like the magic keyboard from Apple
Or you like the Logitech MX keys.
And you want a mechanical keyboard because you like the
mechanical feel that. This is the keyboard for you, it feels great.
It's a mechanical keyboard, and you can definitely tell it's mechanical.
Sounds good.
However, you don't have to push too far, and it feels like
A hybrid between a membrane keyboard and a mechanical one.
If that makes sense.
Like got the best of both worlds. So before
This is fully mechanical.
They've got special Gateron Brown switches in there.
So it still feels great when actually typing.
And the sound that you're hearing
basically the engineering that they've put into the keyboard
as far as I can tell.
Now, why do I like this keyboard the most?
Well, simply because sounds great, it's small, it's a 75%,
which means got the function rows.
It's Bluetooth.
It's got little light shows.
You can change the switches in the keycaps.
It's hot swappable, which means the switches can just come straight out.
You don't have to do any soldering.
And when I'm designing, it feels more like the magic keyboard
The Apple magic keyboard.
Then it does a mechanical keyboard.
But you get the feeling of the mechanical switch.
A mechanical switch feeling is one that is very unique, and
it's one of you guys is would enjoy.
I would guarantee.
So the keyboard I would recommend the most
To someone who's looking for just a standard keyboard
Something like an upgrade from the magic keyboard that you get from Apple themselves.
It's go for the Logitech MX keys.
If you're looking for a keyboard that is mechanical.
But you don't like how tall they are.
You don't like how some of them sound, and you don't know
Which ones to get, because you have to mod them out.
This Azio Cascade slim is amazing.
I've been loving it.
I take it home with me everyday to do my writing at home.
If you're some who does lots of writing like myself, it's a lifesaver.
So there you go.
That was a bit of a different video for you guys.
I thought it would be fun just to show you what I'm using.
If you have any other questions about what I use in the office
For designing or whatever, just let me know.
And I can make a video, even maybe a comparison for you as well.
Leave your comments down below.
If you're new to the channel subscribe if you enjoy the content.
Honestly, we don't do enough of this Tech content.
I love it so much.
Thanks for watching.
I'll see you in the next one. See you soon. Goodbye.