How much are you willing to pay for outstanding typing? Thirty dollars? One hundred dollars? More? If so, then there's a keyboard for you: the Das Keyboard Professional.
Yes, it costs $129 (there's also a similarly priced version, the Das Keyboard Ultimate, that is outfitted with blank keycaps to truly test your mettle). But if you type as much as we do, on the order of tens or hundreds of thousands of words per year, or you just want the keys on your keyboard to feel like extensions of your fingertips, you'll adore the Das Keyboard's construction. The gold-plated mechanical key switches offer comfortable springy action, immediate tactile feedback, and a satisfying “click” that makes typing more of a multisensory activity. You even get n-key rollover, so you can press up to 12 keys at once.
The Das Keyboard is as close as you'll get to the legendary IBM Model M keyboard without a time machine. It steps out of the 1980s, though, with its built-in two-port USB 2.0 hub. One can never have too many USB ports, and having a couple of additional ones at your fingertips is a definite plus.
When we reviewed the Das Keyboard II last year, it cost an extreme $89.95 without the USB ports. But now, that price is almost $40 higher. And since the Das Keyboard is frills-free—it's a standard 104-key model with no media controls or other fancy modern accoutrements—you could spend less on a fully decked-out model and a separate USB hub, while getting more ports and buttons in the bargain.
What you're paying for is the Das Keyboard's typing capability. Keyboards have become utterly ubiquitous, included free with every PC and dirt cheap if you actually need to go out and buy one. But you may have noticed that their quality has degraded even as their quantities have skyrocketed. The Das Keyboard Professional returns you to a time when typing comfort was paramount, and helping people do it safely and well was a science of its own. We think more people would take that trip if only the ticket didn't cost so much.
