I’m less interested in Unicomp/IBM’s novel buckling spring technology (as cool as it is) and more that they’re built well, are corded and not wireless, offer replacement parts on their website, and have a mail-in repair service.

Unicomp’s Model M keyboard was my first choice for a long-lasting keyboard, but now I want to lessen my dependence on American-made companies (especially since Unicomp is based in Kentucky) and wanted to see if any alternatives existed. I’ve heard good things about Cherry, but I don’t fully understand their business model or how to order their products.

  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netMEnglish
    2·
    16 hours ago

    EDIT: Somehow I missed the EU or Canadian requirement in the title, and thus wrote all this out despite the company I suggest being from China. Sorry about that!

    Personally, I’d suggest going with a cherry-mx compatible keyboard that offers a hot-swappable keyswitch mainboard. There are many, many manufacturers of various styles of MX style keyswitches, making replacing any switches that become faulty or die in the future quite easy to perform at home (no soldering).

    For brands, I’ve been impressed with Keychron keyboards. Most of their models are hot-swappable, and their build quality is quite good while remaining affordable. Another nice feature is that all of the customizable aspects like lighting settings and such are (or at least they were with my board from a few years ago) able to be changed just with key-combos on the keyboard without any additional software required, making it OS agnostic. They also offer 76 models that are wired.

    As for repairs, according to their FAQ, they will replace defective parts within the warranty period, and also offer a paid repair service outside of the warranty window.

    For in warranty:

    We will only replace the defective parts of the keyboard and not the whole keyboard, as its highly customisable and easy to be rebuilt.

    For out of warranty:

    We can offer paid service to replace the defective parts at your own cost (which includes the cost of parts, shipping fee and tax if applicable).

    The only downside is that they do not, as far as I can tell, offer replacement parts for sale outside of keycaps or switches. So if something like a main processing chip on the board were to fail (unlikely), you would have to send it in for repairs. They also are made in China, which may be a downside.