Thanks for the input! I went with a k70 yesterday though! I figured the build quality is worth it, though the cable isn’t removable, it’s nice and think beaded, and I got the 4 year warrantee. I like the aluminum body for adding rigidity in case he wants to take it back and forth to work. It was 80 bucks and has rgb, so I’ll just install a Pac-Man theme to it just ‘cause haha! He used to love playing Pac-Man, and can still see some for now, possible enough to see blinky chase Pac-Man, but mostly for others to see and be jealous of the blind guy with a kick-ass keyboard!!

Instead of worrying about a volume control on the keyboard itself, maybe invest in a good wireless headset for him? Personally I love the Turtle Beach I60 or the steel series wireless headsets. With these, he gets a volume right on the headset. Plus they'll give him the ability to hear his phone and take calls, while also listening to his computer. Plus chat audio means he could put his screen reader through chat audio, and then control the volume for it separately from the system audio. And wireless headsets, as long as they don't add any audio lag (most gaming wireless headsets don't) are extremely powerful. Got a long email or document to read? He can just walk away and do something else, while the screen reader keeps reading to him. I do this all the time while i'm making lunch, doing dishes/laundry, etc.

As for mechanical keyboards, you can go cheap. Assuming he's completely blind, as I am, he doesn't care about RGB lighting or fancy keycaps. We can't see the lighting anyway, and if the printing on the keycaps wears down, we weren't looking at them anyway! The only thing that matters is the brand of the switches. I like the codekeyboard myself, because it uses a replaceable micro USB cable to connect to the computer. I had to toss my previous mechanical keyboard because, even though the keyboard was fine, the USB cable developed a short, and I couldn't replace it. It was a cheap off-brand thing I'd purchased off Amazon, so I decided to spend more this time just for the replaceable cable option. As for the issue with the function key, there are jumpers on the back that you can use to set the keyboard up how you want it (mac/windows, dvorak/qwerty, swap ctrl/caps, etc). The jumpers are way way too fiddly for me to set myself, but I only need sighted help to set them once; I've never wanted to change them.

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Personally love the metadot das. The code keyboards are cool too or wasd keyboards.