If you’re shopping for a new laptop, you may be so worried about the key specifications that you forget to consider the keyboard specs. And that’s a damn shame because you’re going to shake hands with the keyboard more than almost any other laptop part. It’s the face of your laptop; it’s the bridge between human command and computer processing. A strong keyboard is vital for your comfort and performance.
So, what makes a good keyboard? Well, the answer is a backlit keyboard!
What is a backlit keyboard?
Backlit keyboards are keyboards that have a light behind the keys. The backlight reflects the letters and symbols on the keys to make them visible in low-light conditions. The print on the keys is semi-transparent, so the lights below shine like a window. Quite often, the backlight illuminates the tiny area surrounding the key, which further increases the keyboard’s illumination. Most backlit keyboards allow you to change the level of brightness. Some of the backlights emit white light. Though there are backlights that emit other colors, these backlights are mainly used in gaming laptops.
Backlit keyboards, LED lights are used more frequently than not to illuminate the keyboard. LED lamps have an energy-consuming light source and are ideally suited to this role. They are going on to how these keyboards function, they are designed to glow as they are pressed. After being pressed, most backlit boards turn off to save the battery. Besides, each backlit keyboard comes with adjustments where you can change the brightness speed, the delay, and whether or not you want it to stay all the time.
However, for those of you who can’t care about going into the settings all the time, laptops with backlit keyboards and external backlit keyboards appear to have special keys that help you control certain settings. In some high-end keyboards, the versatility provided by these keys is incredible to see.
What is the difference between a backlit keyboard and a regular keyboard?
There is little difference between a backlit keyboard and a regular keyboard except that it can light up in the dark. Keyboards do come in all sorts of sizes, models, and builds, but these don’t affect whether the keyboard has a backlight. Both membrane keyboards and mechanical keyboards can be equipped with backlights. Backlights are also built into all desktop keyboards and laptop keyboards. The reliability of the keyboard design is not measured by whether or not it has a backlight. There are various keyboard types, for example, and they are designed like mechanical keyboards for particular applications or activities.
Advantages of a backlit keyboard
A backlit keyboard is an important feature on a laptop because of the mobile nature of a laptop. If you want to use your laptop outside an office area, you can instantly lose access to the light, which may make the backlight needed. Hence, below are some essential purposes for a backlit keyboard:
1. Home use
Perhaps it’s a lovely late summer night; the blissful sun is gone, but the breeze is snuggly covering you at 71 degrees. The crickets are chirping, and the family’s roasting on a bonfire in the backyard. Probably you’ve got a lot of things to do on your desktop all the time. Meanwhile, maybe you’re trying to stay ahead of work coming weeks; it’s too good to stay inside, so you can bring your laptop out with you to enjoy the festivities. But sad to say, it’s dark outside. You don’t want to ruin the bonfire by turning on the lamp on the porch. But the bonfire doesn’t help as your laptop screen is blocking all the incoming lights. Hence, you need a backlit keyboard.
Fortunately, all the images above have buttered you up a bit. But, aside from summer fun, there are many home purposes for the backlit keyboard that you might never think of. If there’s a power outage and you lose electrical light, you’ll always be able to type your laptop keyboard when it’s backlit. If you’re in bed watching a Netflix movie, the backlight will help you type the title you want in the search bar. Over everything else, the backlight is a comfort. And sometimes it’s worth spending on luxury alone.
2. Public transit
You’re going on a red-eye ride, and everyone’s sleeping, including the little boy who’s right behind you. About time, He’s been kicking your chair since the outset. Unfortunately, you won’t sleep any time soon because the coffee at the airport was strong-you’re wired. So, you plan to spend your time playing a PC game, and you’re going to hit your laptop.
Now the issue is, how are you going to try an Anthem demo when you can’t see a single key?
What you do is to switch on the overhead light first, right? But that isn’t cool as the little boy is stirring. In this case, you’d rather do nothing for seven straight hours than spend the entire night bored. Well, the anthem is going to have to wait.
Hence, it doesn’t have to be that way. A backlit keyboard is useful if you’re on a red-eye flight or if you’re traveling by car or train at night. It only gives you enough light to do what you need to do without upsetting other passengers.
3. Fieldwork
Backlit keyboards are helpful if you’re working in the field, especially if you’re working at night. Astronomers, for instance, will spend the night observing the stars at dark observation sites. Astronomers use their laptops to record measurements or to run devices. A backlit keyboard may be a must-have for their job.
4. Darkrooms
Some of the rooms are darker than others. You may be using your laptop to take notes in class, but the professor darkened the lights to make the PowerPoint more noticeable. Or maybe you’re working in a coffee shop, and they’ve dimmed the lights to create an evening mood. If you’re working in a dark room or your visibility isn’t great in dimmer environments, a backlit keyboard could come in handy.
Backlit Gaming Mechanical Keyboards
Backlit Gaming mechanical keyboards provide a range of backlighting styles. The backlit keyboard looks cool, and it’s pretty handy when playing in the dark. But backlighting will often require customizable color so that you can illuminate the keys you use most frequently.
Many mechanical gaming keyboards often feature a reversible keycap. This helps you to delete keys and replace them with those you use more often or find more convenient. Additional features include dual-layer macro keys, macroinstructions, dedicated macro keys, statistical monitoring, and text and audio communication. Some gaming keyboards also allow users to sync custom settings and macros to the cloud.
Backlit Gaming Mechanical keyboards are widely used by gamers; most hardcore gamers frequently spend up to $150 on these keyboards. Backlit keyboards at their most simple level allow for improved illumination. Even more sophisticated backlit keyboards feature various color schemes. Multiple color schemes effectively encourage gamers to group off buttons that perform identical purposes under the same sun. Even the smallest variation in response time will make a world a difference in the world of professional games.
Apart from that, the keyboards look amazing with several interchangeable color schemes and can give gamers a chance to show their style with what they enjoy the most. Also, more advanced boards also make some pretty cool animations, with keyboards featuring lights that strobe and alter patterns.
Varmilo Backlit Mechanical Keyboard
If you spend much of your day typing or coding, a mechanical keyboard is worth upgrading over a cheaper, less convenient keyboard. After months of analyzing 19 of the most promising alternatives, we find that the Varmilo MA87M is the best tenkeyless mechanical keyboard thanks to its outstanding construction quality and lightweight, minimalist design.
The Varmilo MA87M with EC Switch V2 switches is easily one of the best mechanical keyboards accessible. It provides an outstanding typing experience, from its elegant and sturdy nature to its amazingly smooth feel and pleasing sound. The main ingredient is the company’s electrostatic capacitive switch, which operates by measuring the difference in electrostatic capacity instead of using physical interaction with most mechanical switches. The effect is a stable, fast, and extremely responsive transition with a potentially limitless lifespan, Varmilo says.
The keyboard is backlit, but since the company’s dye-sub printed PBT keycaps are strong, the light doesn’t glow through the key legends. With the light on, the keys are very backlit, making it impossible to read in the dark. However, because the model’s keys are mainly light gray and blue, you can quickly read them in dim lighting.
The EC switch V2 is currently available in three versions—Daisy, Sakura, and Rose—all of which are linear. And the EC V2s move so effortlessly that, even coming from another linear keyboard, it took some people time to adapt. In addition to the smooth actuation, the key does not wobble at all. Even the spacebar has a strong, shake-free feel about it. The keys also have the most satisfying clack sound to them. You’ll hear a spring sound of scratching on certain electronic keyboards, but it’s not here: it’s just a silent clack.
Final note
Backlit keyboards are not that different from regular keyboards; the only difference is that they are illuminated from underneath. Light tends to enhance the illumination of the keyboard in darkened conditions.
However, with laptop use growing as the world shifts toward a more digitized way of doing this, backlit keyboards become increasingly popular. Backlight keyboards are extremely popular with gamers because of their propensity to play in the long hours of the night. Besides these backlit keyboards, they still look very aesthetic, making them appeal to a broader audience.