Das Keyboard

I have lost count. There are four Das Keyboards within sight of where I am typing this, another four or five at other locations, and I have bought a couple more as gifts. Every one of them is still in service.

That is the review, really. I have tried other keyboards, and I like a good mechanical keyboard from anyone who makes one. I always end up back here. Buy once, cry once — pay the higher price a single time instead of replacing a cheap one every couple of years, and stop thinking about it.

Two hundred dollars is a real price for a keyboard and I will not pretend otherwise. Set it against the years, though. These have given me years of enjoyable typing, and not one of them has been replaced because it wore out. Measured over that long, the purchase price stops being the interesting number.

The models I have owned are the 4 Professional, the 4 Professional for Mac, the 6 Professional, and the MacTigr.

Start with the switch, because it matters more than the model. Every Das board is sold with a choice, and that choice decides how the keyboard feels for the years you own it.

Cherry Brown is the one I reach for. It gives a soft bump partway down so your finger knows the key registered, without the noise of a clicky switch. For most of what I do it is the right answer nearly every time, and it is the safe recommendation if you are buying your first mechanical keyboard and cannot try one first.

Cherry Blue is the loud one. It clicks on purpose and I like the feel, but it is not a switch to put in a shared office without asking the people around you. I keep my Blue boards and fit them with O-ring dampeners, which is covered further down this page.

What keeps me buying them is not the switch, though. It is full size — a real number pad, real function keys, nothing folded onto a modifier. It has weight to it, so it stays where I put it instead of sliding around when I type. And the volume knob sits right there on the board. That last one sounds small until you have used it for a week and then sit down at a keyboard without one.

On the models themselves: the 4 Professional is the plain, long-running full-size board with an aluminum top, a volume knob and a two-port USB hub. The 4 Professional for Mac is the same idea with a Mac layout. The 6 Professional adds white backlighting and moves the hub to USB-C. The MacTigr is the outlier — all metal, low-profile Cherry MX Red, built for Mac desks specifically.

Two things a buyer should know before spending. First, on the day I checked, the 6 Professional was sold out in every switch and layout at Das Keyboard, and the MacTigr was sold out and had been dropped from their Mac collection entirely. Second, the 4 Professional now ships with Cherry MX2A switches rather than the original Cherry MX. Same model name, newer switch. If you are buying one because you tried an older one, that is worth knowing.