Most keyboards will come with inexpensive ABS keycaps that use thin, cheap, and inconsistent plastic. These keycaps aren’t horrible, but they aren’t ideal. They sound worse and more inconsistent than a nicer set and are more prone to crack or break over time.
PBT keycaps typically create a lower-pitched sound when typing, and are usually made from a thicker plastic than stock ABS keycaps. They are almost always dye-sublimated, which is a process where dye is absorbed into plastic using heat, though some manufacturers like PBTFans have started producing double-shot PBT keycaps, where the text on the keycaps is made with a second plastic and will never wear off. Dye sublimation is almost as durable as double-shot, and while it’s theoretically possible for dye-sub keycaps to fade or wear down, this will likely never happen in your lifetime.
Manufacturers like GMK make thick ABS keycaps using high-quality plastic, which many enthusiasts prefer to PBT. The main benefit of premium ABS is that the keycaps can more easily be double-shot. ABS plastic can have much brighter colors than what is possible with PBT, but will also begin to shine over time—something that rarely happens with PBT keycaps.
While dye-sublimation and double-shot keycaps are the most common, there are quite a few other ways to get text on a key. Some keycaps, both ABS and PBT, will use UV printing directly on top of the keycaps instead of impressing the legends into the plastic of the keycaps. Some sets, like GMK Cyrillic, incorporate both double-shot and UV printing. While UV-printed keycaps are the easiest to manufacture, they also last the shortest time, since the text sits directly on top of the plastic instead of being embedded into it.
Along with plastic keycaps, there has been a recent influx of metal and ceramic keycaps. While these can feel better to type on, they’re more expensive. The additional weight of these heavier materials could cause your switches to require less force to press down (or, for some ultra-light switches, the weight of a full metal spacebar could be too heavy for the switch to hold up). In my experience, ceramic keycaps are also at a greater risk of breaking, although Cerakeys has made improvements to its designs to limit this from happening.
Choosing a Keyboard Layout
Photograph: SteelSeries
The most immediately visible aspect of any keyboard is its layout, which describes how many keys the keyboard has and how those keys are organized. When deciding what layout you want, you’ll need to make trade-offs between keyboard size and ease of use. Since a smaller keyboard removes more keys and moves them to a secondary function layer, you’ll end up having to commit more of your keyboard’s layout to memory, but this also means you’ll have to move your hands around less when typing, which can be helpful to limit wrist strain and increase efficiency.
