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Comparison of the Kinesis Advantage360 and some other ergo boards I've used
(self.ergomechkeyboards)
Hi friends, I have been using the KA360 Pro (with ZMK and bluetooth) for a week and I wanted to share some thoughts on it. My brief overall review is that I love this board and it is very nearly endgame for me. It is outrageously expensive but it fulfills every need I have in a board. My only gripe is with the Gateron Brown switches. Eventually I will probably de-solder and replace these. The overall board is also kind of loud but that's also personal preference.
vs KA2
- very similar to the KA2 but a significant upgrade in build quality.
- fully split (KA360) vs unibody construction (KA2). My poor posture greatly prefers fully split.
- KA2 does not support ZMK but has great on the fly remapping
- KA2 is slightly angled towards you like a conventional keyboard, so your wrists cannot be in negative tilt and relaxed.
vs Ergodox EZ
- curved keywells (KA360) vs flat (Ergodox). As someone with small hands curved keywells work better for me
- Ergodox build quality is ok. The plastic molding reminds me of low quality children's toys. But it is remarkably sturdy and has survived many a cross country move with me, and is the only ergo board in my current collection that I know I can reliably plug in to a computer and start using, which is the primary reason I've continued to keep it.
- it has cherry mx brown switches, which I hate. It can be ordered in hot swap, which I would recommend for anyone that is considering this board or the Moonlander (I did not get that option though!)
- Best configuration, customization, and flashing software I've ever tried
- Tenting kit is poor quality. I need to use books and towels to get it to stay somewhere. It also doesn't go very high.
- The Moonlander did not exist when I got this. I think the Moonlander is better, but I have never used it personally.
vs Dactyl Manuform
- Customizability is the biggest differentiator here. The Dactyl is a completely customizable open source clone of the KA curved boards. You are really able to configure this to almost exactly how you want it.
- It's completely hand built, which comes with major downsides. The 3D print quality leaves much to be desired. If your Dactyl stops working (like mine did), you will need to figure out how to solve this problem yourself. Mine only lasted 4 months before one hand stopped working entirely.
- Unless you completely source and build it yourself, the price tag of this product will closely approach the 300-500s.
- Is the effort worth it? One of the best and most comfortable typing experiences I've had when it's all said and done, but the lack of proper support for it makes it hard for me, as someone inexperienced with building, to go back to using it as my regular daily driver. At the very least I need to have a backup plan for when it inevitably goes dark.
- IMO, the KA360 is what I wished the Dactyl Manuform was going to be. Even though the KA360 is less customizable, its build quality is significantly better and I can rest easy knowing that if/when the board has issues, Kinesis is just an email away.
vs Gergoplex
- A hand built low profile ergo keyboard with an exposed PCB.
- The build quality of this product is very poor, especially without a case. Mine is a bit older and predates the recent explosion of low profile offerings, and I find the LP switch/keycap experience leaves much to be desired.
- I have no idea how to flash this thing. It seemed to only do it by random chance. It comes with very little/no support at all. It eventually stopped working and faces the same maintainability problem that the Dactyl does.
- Despite this, it is by far the comfiest flat board I have used with its ergodox inspired layout, compacted choc spacing, and 12 g choc switches. I experienced 0 pain in the months I used this board. If you have an active injury I very much recommend this board, or considering other low weight low profiles.
vs Corne-ish Zen
- I consider the Corne-ish Zen to be the pinnacle of this hobby. A true enthusiast's board with high quality manufacturing and parts. Darryl, the builder behind this, provides active support on Discord and is constantly innovating new ideas in the low profile world.
- It has an aluminum body that is just chef's kiss. It also comes with its own travel case. IMO, the body is better than the KA360.
- All in this board is close to 450 with switches and keycaps. If you want the ability to tent this board it will add on another 100 at least.
- The quality of the case is let down by the overall lower quality that low profile switches and keycaps tend to be. But there are some really interesting offerings that Darryl is working on that keeps me interested. Unfortunately you cannot get 12g springs for this board -- that is a specialty that only the Gergoplex provides.
- I find the layout of the Corne not to particularly work for me. I have pain from crossing my thumb underneath my wrist (damn the Mac command key!).
- The eink displays are not particularly useful on this board and I could do without them.
- I will probably keep this as a travel board for when I need to go onsite for work or when I want to work in other places, but it is not quite daily driver material.
Alright, these are my experiences with the Advantage360 Pro and Glove80.
Let me start with two disclaimers. First of all, the Advantage360 is a great ergo keyboard. It ticks off a lot of ergo features and I can fully understand that people are happy with it. Secondly, I have had my Glove80 just over a week. I plan to write up an actual review after one or two months. These are just my initial impressions and my opinions may still change after using the Glove80 for a longer period.
So, I should probably first say why I sold my 360 Pro after six months. Prior to the 360 Pro I was using and Advantage2 and life was good. Ehm, I mean I was really happy with it. Of course, the Advantage2 is largely a 30 year old design, so it has its shortcomings, such as no adjustable split and no adjustable tenting. So, I was very interested in getting a 360 when it came out, since it would solve these shortcomings of the Advantage2.
Initially I got a regular 360, but I returned it the next day, because the firmware had some serious bugs. Eg. the keyboard regularly froze while the V-Drive was mounted and there were bugs around macros. Also the keyboard was sold by the distributor as new, it had clearly been used before (there was damage from optional magnetic palm pads). So I tried it for maybe 30 minutes and then exchanged it with the 360 Pro.
The 360 Pro initially had really bad Bluetooth issues. When the keyboard was turned off or when flashing a new firmware/layout, it usually took 1-2 minutes of meticulous power cycle timing to get the halves to link again. This got better with subsequent firmware versions, but still required meticulous timing except I'd get it connected after one or two attempts.
However, the worse issue for me were the switches. Cherry Brown switches used in the Advantage2 are not known for their smooth and sharp tactility. But for me the Gateron Browns in the 360 Pro are really tiring to type on. I discovered pretty quickly that in contrast to the Cherry Browns they don't actuate at 2mm, but close to 3mm. So typing is simply much more work for each finger.
Then there were more minor issues like that the ABS keycaps that the 360 Pro come feel quite bad. I did replace them with PBT keycaps. But it's weird that a 620 Euro keyboard needs another 60 Euro upgrade to get decent key caps. Also the keycap profiles are (IMO) a regression compared to the Advantage2
the spherical home row caps on the Advantage2 are nicer than the bland caps on the 360, also the 360 removed much of the staircase effect from the thumb cluster, making it harder to reach the upper keys.
Finally, the Advantage360 does not address an important shortcoming that goes back to the original Kinesis Contoured Keyboard - most people with regular or small hands can only reach two keys on each thumb cluster (four in total) without extreme stretching or moving your hand.
All in all, even though the Advantage360 Pro is much more expensive in Europe than the Advantage2, it feels like a side-grade from the Advantage2. It brings variable tenting, a variable split, and better acoustics. But it has (IMO) worse switches, Bluetooth issues, and worse keycaps. After a while I switched back to the Advantage2 because the switches were just less tiring and the 360 Pro was collecting dust (and then I sold it to recoup some of the cost).
I went back and forth a lot on whether I should buy a Glove80. My largest worry were the Choc switches. I have built some custom keyboards before with Choc switches and was never a big fan. However, I am glad that I eventually bit the bullet and ordered the Glove80.
One thing that immediately noticed when I started using the Glove80 is that the key wells feel better. I haven't discovered all the reasons yet, but one thing that immediately jumped out for me was that the pinky columns feel nicer and that the pinky keys are easier to reach. If you look at the keyboard and your hand it's pretty evident why. If you put your hand flat on the table, you can see that your pinky is much shorter than your ring finger. Both the Advantage and Glove80 account for this by moving the pinky column slighly towards the palm/wrist, but as importantly, they have a significantly raised pinky column. However, if you curl up your fingers or make a fist, you see that the length difference between the pinky and ring finger is almost gone. The Advantage does not account for this, the lower pinky rows are still raised compared to the ring finger rows. This makes typing with the pinky on the lower rows less pleasant. On the Glove80 the height of the pinky row converges towards the height of the ring finger rows in the lower rows. This makes typing with the pinky on the lower rows much more pleasant. The key wells feel different in other ways as well, but I haven't investigated what the differences are yet :).
Another thing immediately jumps out is the thumb cluster. In contrast to the Advantage thumb cluster, the Glove 80 thumb cluster follows the thumb arc when you move the thumb outwards and has a raised second thumb cluster layer. I have average-sized hands and I can use more thumb cluster keys comfortably, which is definitely a win.
The tenting mechanism on the 360 is easier to use than that on the Glove80. But I always had the issue that none of the tenting degrees was exactly right for me. I often felt like the ideal degree on the 360 was somewhere between the lowest and the middle setting. So after a while I started to switch several times a day. It took me 30-60 minutes to tweak tenting on the Glove80, but that put it at a setting that I really like and feels good.
Wrt. to Bluetooth connectivity, after using the 360 Pro, I thought that the difficulty getting halves to link was an ZMK issue. But it turns out I was wrong. For me, so far the Glove80 halves have always linked immediately. No matter when I turn on each halve, it simply hasn't been an issue.
Finally, the convex keycaps feel great (they are made to make it easy to move upwards and downwards). I expected that I would be bothered with the uniform profile, but with the curvature of the key wells and the shape of the keycaps I don't have any trouble finding keys. And it's nice that you can rearrange the caps as a result of the uniform profile (which I like as a Colemak-DH user). I went with Choc Red switches and they don't bother me in daily use. They may not be silky smooth, lubed with Tibetan mountain goat saliva or whatever, but during multiple days of work they didn't bother me and that is all I ask for. Plus there are multiple switch options to choose from (including soldering your own).
So far I haven't really found anything negative, except that hopefully one day it will also be available in local ergo shops so that people can try it out + next day shipping.
Ok, this got a bit longer than I expected. But summarized my current feeling is that while the 360 is mostly a side-grade, the Glove80 is really an evolutionary step forward in contoured keyboards.
Wow, I did not expect such a thorough answer!
I still only had the time to skim through it, but I believe it deserves is own post!
Thank you so much for such a detailed comparison! Glove80 is definitely still on my watchlist. Personally, I have very small hands and I just don't use any of the keys my hands can't easily reach and prefer to remap things into layers. So the KA360, I probably only use 50% of the keys (my corneish zen is a 3x5 and that's very easy for me to use). The same will definitely be the same with the Glove80, if I ever end up using one.
I feel very lucky that I haven't had any bluetooth issue with my KA360. And weirdly enough, I like the ABS keycaps (but I'm not particularly well-versed in keycap materials). There seems to be quite a lot of people who feel otherwise though.
I am eagerly looking forward to your long term review. I am mostly concerned about long term reliability when it comes to the Glove80, something I know is less of an issue with the KA given its longer history building and supporting keyboards.