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I used an MS ergonomic natural 4000 for a long time. I switched to a kinesis advantage a few years back and I will never go back.

Not all mechanical keyboard switches have the same feel. The advantage uses cherry brown, which is quiet and requires relatively low force.




I also recently switched to an orthonormal ergonomic keyboard and I'm having a very hard time going back to typing on non-aligned qwerties.


Are cherry browns less force than the MS Natural keyboard? or was that in comparison to other cherry switches?


My perception is that cherry browns require less force than the MS natural 4000. I say this after comparing the two side by side.

There is another advantage to the cherry browns (or mechanical keyboards in general)... they last a LOT longer. I've had my main work Kinesis for 4 years. The key strokes feel the same today as the day I got it. I would burn through an MS natural 4000 at a rate of 1/year; the spacebar & alt/ctrl keys would become too sticky after.


I have the UHK with Cherry MX Brown switches and my old MS Natural (105KB?) which I had purchased second hand.

I feel that my UHK keys require less force than the Natural.

My Natural has a bit more prominent click points (which require more bundled force at a certain point) but an overall "stickier/mushy" feeling (to be fair, I hadn't cleaned it a lot :)).

My UHK keys feel more springy and one might not particularly notice the click point but I still get good tactile and auditory feedback.

It took me about 2 days to get comfortable with the new keys. Overall the UHK feels smoother and less strenuous.

I hope you can make some sense out of the above, otherwise please feel free to ask for clarification :)




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