I recently purchased the 13th gen laptop 13 and while I love the machine overall, I find the operating force requirement on the keyboard to be higher than I’d prefer (measured at 66g by rtings). I presume that all the options in the marketplace are ultimately not going to change this. Does anyone have any ideas or options for helping reduce the force? For reference, I typically use Cherry MX speed silver (46g force) and Gateron Low-Profile Red (50g force) switches for regular keyboard and the standard chiclet stuff for prior laptops (coming from a Dell XPS13).
Interestingly, rtings says the framework has less activation force then XPS 13.
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That’s odd. I wonder if there’s different force depending on the XPS 13 model year. The keyboard on my (2 year-old) version doesn’t feel anywhere close to the same level of force. I wonder if that’s masked by the relative lack of travel in the keys.
It’s easy to measure. Find a small plastic container with a flat bottom that fits on the key without pressing the neighboring keys. Put screws or other small metal objects in the container to increase the weight until you have just enough to make the key actuate. Then measure the weight with a scale.
I designed a little cup for this purpose that can be 3D printed.
From doing this on multiple Apple keyboards (typically 60-70gf with the latest scissor switches), I find the force can vary quite a bit from machine to machine even if it’s the same exact model, presumably due to manufacturing variances, and it can even vary +/-10% from key to key on the same keyboard.
I’d also like a lighter keyboard option - I normally use a Steelseries Apex Pro rated at ~35g - so I’m curious what you find.
I put a lot of weight on keyboard and trackpad quality when choosing a laptop, so having more options for keyboards (and a haptic trackpad) would be really great.
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