I've been hovering about buying some of these Aukey's for a while, so thank you for having a go. I'm really pleased that you can get cheap mechanicals now, and twenty quid is just insane.
Are they more robust than normal keyboards? I mean are they less prone to sticky keys if you hold one key down a lot? e.g. the shift key to shift-left-click links instead of right-clicking them.
>>26437 Keep your keyboard clean and that won't be a problem on any keyboard. I can't speak for the Aukey, as I'm not OP, but the Model M has the most stable, least wobbly/sticky keys of any keyboard I've ever tried.
Cherry MX switches are designed and tested for industrial applications and have a rated lifespan of 20 million keypresses (50 million for the non-clicky linear variants). Cherry MX clones (Kailh, Gateron, Outemu) seem to be similarly durable, although their quality control probably isn't quite as tight. Normal membrane keyboards don't usually have a rated lifespan, but the few that do are usually rated for less than 5 million keypresses.
If a mechanical switch does ever fail, it can be replaced - they're commodity components that are individually soldered to a PCB. If your spacebar gets wobbly, you can buy a replacement stabiliser or keycap. Membrane keyboards are all-or-nothing - if one key fails, the whole keyboard is scrap. Decent mechanical keyboards are also much more durable than their membrane equivalents, with solid aluminium or steel backplates and keycaps made from resilient PBT plastic instead of the softer ABS.
Apologies for the necrobump and the messy desk, but I had to weigh in on these fuckers.
I bought one off the back of this thread, and it was great. I was very, very impressed with the Cherry clone switches, they're very consistent, which is usually not true of these things.
I ordered a second for various reasons, and it feels exactly the same. Either the factory making the switches really knows their stuff, or Aukey have great QC, either way, I can't recommend these things enough. One you stick some PBT keycaps on, it's a wonderful experience.
It's not particularly useful to compare with the £130 Ducky sat next to it because the Ducky has browns and the Aukey has blues, but other than the better plastics on the Ducky's case and keycaps, there's really no difference in terms of quality - there's no flex in either of them, and both have a solid metal plate. The one bad point is the shite stabs - they function well but aren't as strong as they should be, so be very careful removing the stabilised keys. but that's about it. I love my Ducky board but if Aukey start making a brown switched board I might have to sell the fucker.
Anyway if you've ever been remotely interested in mech boards and have yet to dip your toe in the water, you'd be silly not to start here.
Firewire is a miserable rabbit hole of compatibility issues that you're better off avoiding. Check the Behringer website for updated drivers; failing that, try ASIO4All. If that still doesn't work, stick it on eBay and buy a more modern interface.
Crashing in what way? I'd wager it being a PC problem rather than an interface one. I think you should still be able to use generic ASIO drivers for behringer gear.