What physically makes a keyboard quiet?

What physically makes a keyboard quiet?

Microsoft Surface Pro 2 said something along the lines of the typing cover is a quiet keyboard and that is important for students.

What physically makes a keyboard quiet? And yet still very nice to type on?

People have said mechanical keyboards are the best - why? If a mechanical keyboard is best to type on, then it must mean that to get a quieter keyboard you have to sacrifice tactile feel. Am I wrong?

 

Most of the noise from a keyboard is from the keycaps hitting the base of the keyboard itself, if you cushion that you won't have much noise aside from whatever comes from the mechanical links inside the switch (for Mechanicak boards) or what keeps the key on/in the board itself (usually plastic on plastic).

 

If you want a quiet yet tactile typing experience, get a Cherry MX Brown mechanical and then put some O-rings on it to dampen the clacking noise from bottoming out the keys. You will still get the tactile bump and premium build quality of mechanical, sans annoying click/clack noise.

This being said, every laptop has rubber domes. They use switches like these, called scissor switches:



This being said, some laptops such as Macbooks use variants:

 

You can get good scissor switches by the way, sometimes it's not the switch type, it's the implementation that can make it both great and quiet. Mechs aren't what I should call quiet. Scissors are your best bet at something quiet, but some can still be noisy and others just don't have good tactile feedback.

 

Personally, i prefer my laptop's keyboard for typing (quiet, short keys that i can bottom out quickly + concave shape for less typing errors) and my desktop's mechanical keyboard for gaming (feedback for movement and rapid trigger motion, more durable keys that can take more of a beating during intense gameplay, no need to bottom out for firing, etc).

To each their own, i suppose.

 

Eh, I like my mechs, but no matter whether I bottom them out or not, they are still rather loud. Ok, not my MX Red kb, but not bottoming those out takes some rather good precision, the suckers are just so easy to press down all the way. Also, no matter what I do, I always end bottoming out a few keys once in a while, I like to hit that Enter key hard lol. The OP asked for quiet, and mech certainly isn't that compared to a good and quiet scissors keyboard.

 

The Touch Cover is quiet because it has no moving parts. It's literally just a piece of fabric. You get as much tactile feel as you would if you were to type on a t-shirt or (if it's easier to imagine) a smartphone screen - in other words, absolutely none.

The Type Cover on the other hand is a traditional keyboard with moving parts, but despite the extremely shallow key depth, I wouldn't necessarily call it the quietest keyboard I've ever used...

 

So if you wanted a quiet wireless keyboard for your laptop and tablet what would be some of your top picks?

 

Wouldn't get a wireless keyboard lol.

 

Why? I've used one before they seem okay. What is the disadvantage of wireless?

 

Wrong! You'll not only screw up the feel of the keyboard, but also won't account for return noise which is a significant factor in key noise.

What makes keyboards noisy? Simple - mechanical noise. The more travel, the more contact and friction between parts with either downward or upward stroke, the more noise.

Scissors are quietest by far. Short-travel domes are next. Mechs are dead last, no matter what mods you stick on them.

 

Logitech K800 is great. And it s backlit which can be quite useful at times.