I did some research on mechanical keyboards. Here's what I discovered:
A switch in a mechanical keyboard is thing that gets pressed when you press a key and triggers the keypress.
Surprisingly important: Cherry MX is a popular mechanical key manufacturer. They make a variety of keys with various characteristics. These keys are arbitrarily named after colours. These colours have nothing to do with the colour of the keyboards. Knowing this will make it much easier to shop for a mechanical keyboard.
Red switch - no tactile feedback, less pressure, non-clicky
Brown switch - tactile feedback, less pressure, non-clicky
Blue switch - tactile feedback, more pressure, clicky
Black switch - no tactile feedback, even more pressure, non-clicky
Noise Differences Between Switch Types
Mechanical keys are loud.Different switches result in varying levels of noise.
All of the keys are noisy when you press them down all the way. But if you don't press them all the way, they don't make as much noise and the keypress still registers.
Red and black are probably the quietest as they simply slide down and back up.
Brown has a very slight amount more noise.
Blue is extra noisy, and this is on purpose.
Video comparison between brown, blue, red here.
Video comparison between red, black, blue, brown here.
How to Reduce the Noise (O-Ring Mod)
You can modify the keys to reduce their volume. This is done by attaching small rubber rings under each key.Whenever you bottom-out a key, it no longer clashes plastic against plastic. The sound is greatly reduced. Video here.
Good comparison between blue, brown, black with the o-ring mod here.
Find expensive rings here. Video here.
Find cheap rings here. (these ones ship from Hong Kong and will take a while) Video here.
Compact Keyboards (TKL)
I wanted a compact keyboard (no numpad) but had some difficulty finding them until I found out what they're called: TKL keyboards.TKL = Tenkeyless = no numpad = smaller
This isn't as small as some laptop keyboards. There is still a dedicated section for the arrow keys, home, end, pageup, pagedown, delete, and insert.
Prioritizing red and brown switches (quieter and lighter pressure), these are the main TKL keyboards I found:
backlit - Ducky One (all switches)
backlit - Cool Mast QuickFire TK (all switchs)
backlit - Corsair K65 (red switch)
Ducky One (all)
Cool Mast QuickFire Rapid (all)
Corsair K65 (red switch)
Filco Majestouch 2 (red) (Filco)
Filco Majestouch 2 (brown) (Filco)
Razer Blackwidow Tournament Edition Stealth (non-Cherry switches)
