Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work.
I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard.
I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be useful to color the function keys differently in groups of four (cf. the standard PC layout).
I’d also rather do without an Fn key, as it messes up muscle memory from regular desktop keyboards.
I like the idea of using different key shapes for the number row and the cursor keys for tactile recognition, although I’d have to try it to see if those shapes are any good for actual typing. I feel that slightly concave keycaps will always be the best.
The traditional keyboard standard may not be perfect but it used to be standard. I had muscle memory that served me. Now my client laptop, employer laptop, personal laptop, home gaming/photo desktop, media computer, etc all want to have wildly different, completely unique layouts, usually with massive compromises. "you just have to get used to it" assumes I'll have a single keyboard for prolonged period of time but that is simply not the case for me. I need the dedicated home/insert/pgup/pgdwn block because I use it every minute. I need function keys in easy blocks of four so I don't hunt for f5 or f9. Layout should be a solved problem, or let's work on making a better layout standard, but each keyboard having its own layout is a personal nightmare.
I disagree. I've switched primary keyboards many times: from cheap pc keyboards to standard apple keyboards, to minimal mechanical, and now the advantage. I also routinely use a windows workspace from a linux host which totally throws off my keybindings.
One thing I think helps: I've had blank keycaps for the better part of the last decade. There's at least no visual cue saying this key does that thing.
And now, I switch between my primary advantage layout to laptop keyboards (I have a few) all the time. I think all the switching between layouts just makes you better at whatever. I'm a pretty fast typer wherever I end up and getting used to a new environment is kindof fun.
I would totally buy this keyboard if i was still using a standardish layout. I love the advantage so much i can never go back.
I mean, indeed, we are free to disagree when it comes to personal preferences. One of my keyboards is Das Keyboard with blank key caps too. But I would've used that to booster my claim, not yours - I can use that blank keyboard specifically because it's standard and same as my other keyboards:-). I spent hard earned cash on the t25 ThinkPad so I could enjoy a few more years of good keyboard before I have to switch to some modern laptop atrocity.
If you are switching truly different layouts daily, are fully efficient and have instant muscle memory with all, and never lose a moment consciously or subconsciously looking for a key, absolutely more power to you. I do not work like that. Having to hunt for Home key when I want to hit control-home drives me bonkers. Not having space between f4 and f5 is as silly as red turning lights - strictly worse for no actual benefit. Half height laptop up and down arrows are abomination upon IT Gods. And yes I've been a grouchy old man since I was a teenager :->
The only thing that my next keyboard probably won't have is the numpad, because I don't use it, and having the mouse closer to my right hand would be a welcome convenience.
Other than that, a couple more keys, like for example a Hyper key or a higher-level Shift would be very welcome.
> Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work.
I've been using the HHKB keyboard [1] for over a year now, and I absolutely love it. You simply have to re-map your muscle memory for "PgUp" to be a chord (involving the function key naturally). I'd argue it's probably faster as a whole, because your hand has less distance to travel.
> I’d also rather do without an Fn key, as it messes up muscle memory from regular desktop keyboards.
I haven't had a problem switching between the HHKB and other keyboards; but in any case, the portability and the fact that it can have multiple connections means you can just use the same keyboard everywhere.
I’ve used the HHKB for a while in the late 90’s, but in the end it wasn’t for me. Chords tend to trigger my RSI, and a reduced need for chords just means better ergonomics to me.
Something I've been actively working on is chording with two hands.
For an example, I noticed that I habitually type & with only my right hand, twisting my wrist to press shift and 7 at the same time, which is awkward and painful if I do it too often.
The solution being to use the left pinky for the shift key and the right middle for the 7/&.
I agree the less chords the better, but for what's left, making sure chords are either ergonomic by themselves, or two handed, is a good way to keep typing for longer with less injury.
I’m trying to do that as well. I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to have some software that would disable specific chords when you use the “wrong-sided” modifier key for it, in order to train yourself to use the right one.
I couldn't figure out how to do this with QMK, I had the same thought as you.
Ok, more accurately I figured out that it would involve writing nontrivial amounts of C, and I gave up. You can do anything with QMK if you're determined.
That's a standard compact Mac layout, so muscle memory will work fine for Mac users. Maybe Fn is elsewhere for the PC one, but I detect a tiny bias in the website.
Whilst I always used a full keyboard with a PC, for the reasons you give, the Mac has practically all of those things mapped to cursors + meta keys so your hands don't need to move from the normal typing position. I now see the extended bit of the full keyboard as dead space that makes me reach further to get to mouse/trackpad. But as you say, everyone is different.
Right. I use a left-handed mouse due to RSI, so 100% keyboards are not a problem for me, and moving my hands around a bit rather than using chords also helps with the RSI. It also reduces the complexity of chords when using keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Shift+PgUp, or NumPad-specific keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+NumPad-“+” to auto-fit columns in grid views, or Ctrl+NumPad-“*” to expand all subfolders), which I do a lot.
I very much enjoyed the [Vortex Race 3] which is 75% with all the F-keys and the home/delete/pg key cluster in a line down the right. It works really well and lets you switch between Mac/Windows button order for the CMD/Windows/ctrl buttons in the bottom left through a keyboard shortcut if I remember correctly. It comes with both colourful _and_ grey keys for the clusters! A really handsome and well thought-out keyboard if you want something nice without getting sucked into the keyboard modding rabbit-hole.
Unfortunately a friend spilled coffee on mine, and it's hard to justify buying another one at >£100. And it's often out of stock whenever I do manage to justify it to myself!
> and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work.
I'll bite; how useful is the Menu key really? Is there something in your workflow that is benefitted by having it? Totally agree with Home/End/Insert/Delete being required on any keyboard I use.
It puts an extra key in that area, giving me one more candidate to use as Compose. (Of four laptop designs, I think I’ve used RMenu as Compose on two of them, and RAlt on the other two, which I think have RMenu as Fn+RAlt or Fn+RCtrl, one each. It depends on the positioning of Space to a considerable extent.)
While on the topic of what keys are on the keyboard and while thinking of Fn keys, I really, really, really wish that keyboards would give a key code for Fn+___ for each and every non-modifier key. It’s absurd that such a simple opportunity for good macro-capability is discarded, and you can only use Fn with the few keys (on laptops, commonly around 16–20) the manufacturer deigned to hook up (e.g. Fn+F1 as XF86AudioMute, Fn+F7 as XF86BrightnessUp, Fn+Space as PrintScreen, Fn+Left as Home, that kind of thing) and the rest are just swallowed in the keyboard firmware. How is it that as far as I can tell no one has done such an obvious and obviously useful thing?
I use it all the time in IDEs, File Explorer, Word/Excel/Outlook, basically everywhere there are context menus based on keyboard focus. It reduces the need to use the mouse, in particular for functions that are only available via the context menu and not via a main menu. It can also be quicker because you just press Menu followed by a letter key to invoke the function, and it’s easier on the hands because no modifier keys are involved.
It has saved me many times when the mouse failed. Especially in RDP sessions where the cursor sometimes develops an offset, ie click location is suddenly a fixed number of pixels away from the cursor tip, making it incredibly difficult to click on things.
I also use it every now and then to change things up when I feel the RSI sneaking.
My laptop has Home/End/PgUp/PgDn as the Fn function on the Arrow keys, and its actually really good. So good I've actually setup other machines with the same shortcuts wherever I can.
Yeah, I use Home/End/PgUo/PgDn constantly, so much that having to use any modifier for it is just not acceptable to me. A secondary factor is that there are often keyboard shortcuts that combine Home/End/PgUp/PgDn with (combinations of) Shift/Ctrl/Alt, so having to add another modifier to those just makes it really inconvenient.
There is a sweet spot of the number of keys available for use without modifier keys, and that sweet spot may be different for everyone, but it is closer to 100 for me.
Having Home/End/PgUp/PgDn bound to the Fn key is much more convenient for me, though.
After all, you already do all other cursor manipulation with a combination of the arrow keys and Ctrl/Alt/Shift. From a muscle memory perspective, having the 'beginning/end of line' and 'previous/next page' actions as just another modifier is much more natural than having to use an entirely separate set of keys for this.
Everyone is different, but when I got my first 60 percent keyboard, I started using the SpaceFN layout through the TouchCursor tool on Windows and now I can't live without it anymore, even on full size keyboards.
> I’d also rather do without an Fn key, as it messes up muscle memory from regular desktop keyboards.
As someone who recently switched to an Ortholinear layout, it's not nearly as bad as you think. I got messed up when switching back to a standard layout for the first maybe week or so. After that I can switch between either layout with absolutely no problem. While you may be different, you're probably underselling your own muscle memory.
> I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work.
This probably depends on the work you do. I've found myself using those keys all more often and faster when I bind them to alpha keys with a modifier. As someone who types all day in VIM, I can bind Home/End/Pgup/PgDn/etc. to keys that have analogous functions (i/a/u/d respectively), which has been great for me.
I use a 84 keyboard. It is basically a laptop keyboard layout and it works great for me. It has del, backspace, esc and 4 arrows. It shares the function keys with media keys but I have it using function keys as its default and works great as a layout. I don't know why it just isn't the most popular layout.
Yea, it seems like this footprint could accommodate a 75% design. The big one is the Del key, it's quite inconvenient to have to use a key combo for such a common action. But if the design allows swapping the rotary knob for a Del key then it would be acceptable.
As someone with decades of full-size keyboard use and corresponding muscle memory, I moved recently to a 60% keyboard.
Initially I experienced some difficulty getting used to the lack of cursor keys, delete, escape. But with a short bit of time (couple months) I find I don't miss them anymore, and in fact appreciate the closer vicinity of these keys now.
However, the key thing is good layers, and buttons that can access them. The left half of my space bar gets to my main layer.
It's so good that I now find it annoying to move my hand to get to the cursor keys.
60% also means the mouse is a lot closer for me.
I don't get the appeal of low profile, and these days I think I'd want a split.
There's a lot of wasted space on the right side of this keyboard where they could have easily put the Del/PgUp/PgDn keys right there. I don't know why they didn't.
Judging from the USB-C at the top and other tact/slide switches on the side, my guess is that the MCU and a prismatic battery of sorts (500mAh Li-ion?) occupies that space. A low profile design will always have some tradeoffs; perhaps an oled in that space is possible with a cutout for a badge.
Controllers are really small these days and fit just fine in the gaps between keys (see link below for a typical example). It’s almost certainly mostly for the battery.
You are correct! There was not enough space below the keys due to the device's low profile. So the right hand area houses the MCU, USB C port, battery, as well as the 2 slide switches and button that poke out the side of the case.
Yep, everyone is different indeed. I've been using 30% keyboards (30, 33 or 36 keys) for 3+ years now. I used 40's for around 2 years before that.
Now I can't stand any keyboard that requires my hands to move from the home position. Also being able to carry my keyboard to anywhere is a big plus for me.
I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard.
I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be useful to color the function keys differently in groups of four (cf. the standard PC layout).
I’d also rather do without an Fn key, as it messes up muscle memory from regular desktop keyboards.
I like the idea of using different key shapes for the number row and the cursor keys for tactile recognition, although I’d have to try it to see if those shapes are any good for actual typing. I feel that slightly concave keycaps will always be the best.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menu_key