Every stroke of the keys on a well-made keyboard should bring a unique joy: Each clack provides your ideal tactile feedback, and each key is styled to match your aesthetic. If you spend most of your day typing, coding, or gaming, a mechanical keyboard can be a comfortable, customizable upgrade over the shallow, drab keyboard that came with your computer. After spending months testing the most promising mechanical keyboards, we like the Varmilo VA87M for its excellent build quality and its compact, minimalist design. It’s available with plenty of switch options and colorful high-quality keycaps to match your preference, too.
Best Starter Mechanical Keyboards:
1. Leopold FC750R
If the Varmilo VA87M is unavailable when you’re shopping, we recommend the Leopold FC750R. It has equally excellent build quality, and its minimalist tenkeyless design is similarly compact. It’s also available with all the most popular switch types. Leopold offers a few different tasteful, high-quality keycap sets, though it doesn’t provide as much variety as Varmilo does and has no backlight options. Like the VA87M, the FC750R has a removable Mini-USB cable and works on both Windows and Mac. But the FC750R’s media controls aren’t labeled on the keycaps (or explained in the manual), so you’ll have to memorize them.
2. Leopold FC900R
If you do need a built-in number pad, the Leopold FC900R is the best option. It’s nearly identical to our runner-up, the Leopold FC750R, as it offers equally excellent build quality, it’s available with all the most popular switch types, and you can choose from a few different PBT keycap sets. Like the tenkeyless model, this keyboard has a removable Mini-USB cable and works on both Windows and Mac, but—also like the tenkeyless model—it has no labels on its media controls. (We don’t recommend the Varmilo VA108M, the full-size version of our top pick, because its case is significantly different and not as good as that of its tenkeyless sibling.)
3. Keychron C1
If I were getting into mechanical keyboards for the first time today, I’d buy the tenkeyless Keychron C1 or the full-size Keychron C2. Both models offer surprisingly good build quality, provide an enjoyable typing experience, and have an attractive minimalist design—all uncommon features in this price range. Their lower-quality ABS keycaps feel thinner and more brittle to type on and are likely to wear out faster than the thicker PBT keycaps on our top picks, but keycaps are easy to replace if you want to do so. Both models are compatible with Windows and Mac, and they come with replacement keycaps for both operating systems. Another benefit: Swapping out switches on most mechanical keyboards requires equipment, expertise, and time to desolder all the old switches and solder in new ones, but if you want to try new switch types without soldering, Keychron will upgrade the standard circuit board in the C1 or the C2 to a hot-swappable version for $10. With a hot-swappable board, you can simply pull the switches out and snap new ones into place. As of this writing, shipping from Keychron’s website starts at $20, but even with that added cost, the C1 and C2 are better than any similarly priced keyboards. (Certain models are also available from Amazon with Prime shipping.)
