Lately I’ve been feeling empty, lonely, and a little cold, so I started spending money on stuff. Nothing fancy—just junk. A while back I bought a really good-looking mechanical keyboard, but for some reason I suddenly felt unsatisfied. It was too heavy. And then a question hit me: Why do I have to buy a mechanical keyboard? Isn’t a membrane one good enough? Somewhere along the way, mechanical keyboards became the so-called optimal solution for people who write for a living—even though membrane keyboards were invented to solve the problems mechanical keyboards had. So I turned my attention to “finding a cheap, easy-to-use membrane keyboard that feels good and is lightweight.” I can’t find the old BenQ Sea Shell anymore, and eventually the “A4Tech FBK11” caught my eye. The moment I saw “FBK” in the name, I ordered it before I’d even finished reading the description.

I’m not really sure why I bought this keyboard. Probably because it looks good. I kept seeing it pop up in videos and it just looked so nice. Add in the durable PBT keycaps, the low-profile feel that’s completely different from the Keychron K3 series, and the 618 discount, and I couldn’t resist anymore—ended up buying it with interest-free installments. After less than half a day with it, I already felt this keyboard was way better than the Keychron K3 I’d been using. The feel, the overall build quality, and most importantly the connection stability—all much better. NuPhy keyboards also support firmware updates. The latest firmware on the official site claims to fix compatibility issues with Linux, but weirdly, mine worked fine with Linux even without updating. Maybe mine already shipped with the new version.

I needed a keyboard, backed by various bullshit excuses. Requirements: Portable, small Bluetooth, multi-device support At least 84 keys; I’ve had enough of life without an F-row and arrow keys Good build quality In the end I settled on the Keychron K3 — which is also the 京造 K3 version. This keyboard stirs up a lot of controversy online: opinions are extremely polarized. Most KOLs give it the usual praise, and looking at it I couldn’t find any obvious problems; the specs are fine too. Sure, it’s low-profile, but I don’t see what’s wrong with low-profile switches. The funny thing is most negative reviews online just call it “garbage” without explaining where the garbage is. The positive reviews, on the other hand, are very detailed. That struck me as bizarre. Is the marketing just too strong, drowning out genuine impressions? Or is this thing really that good?

My workplace moved recently, and my old keyboard had developed double-press issues across half its keys. I soldered that one myself, so I figured it was time to buy a new one. But I’m too broke for a real budget, so I bought the cheapest thing I could find: this Dareu EK861 Bluetooth keyboard. 61 keys, Bluetooth 5.0, a big battery, PBT keycaps, under 300 yuan. What more could you ask for? I’ve been using it on and off for almost a month now, and I’ve got some pros and cons. Let me keep it short:

The GH60 project is a tutorial and process for letting users assemble their own mechanical keyboard. There’s a decent intro here, and you can dig into foreign sites for the details. For us users, though, all you really need to know is that GH60 is the process of assembling a mechanical keyboard yourself. GH60 itself is just a keyboard PCB. Once you have the PCB, all that’s left is soldering switches, adding a case, and deciding whether to throw in LEDs. At first I stuck to the principle of “if you’re gonna do it, do it big” when picking parts, and by the end I found that an original Cherry switch + aluminum case + steel plate + custom purple-black-orange three-color keycap combo had already shot the price past 900. Damn it, at that price why wouldn’t I just buy a Filco?

Stumbled onto a sale at a ThinkPad shop on Taobao — both the ThinkPad TrackPoint Bluetooth Keyboard and the 6-cell battery (72Wh) for the X250 were going for good prices. I’d just returned a bunch of stuff I bought for Spring Festival and had some money sitting in Alipay, so I bought them. Both shipped from Beijing, and fast enough… First, the keyboard:

As a weakling who can’t do anything but type, I’ve actually always wanted to use an iPad as a typewriter. The touchscreen is fine, but it’s just too much effort, and not having a physical keyboard always feels like something’s missing. So one day, while wandering around Tmall, I saw a Logitech Bluetooth iPad keyboard for 200-something yuan, down from an original price of 600-something, and bought it on the spot. After getting the keyboard, I immediately paired it with my iPad, of course over Bluetooth. The iPad paired with it easily, and after pairing once, all you need to do is flip the switch to use it again.