this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

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Keep it ergo

Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)

i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²

¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid

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How do you choose a right ergo keyboard for you? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/ergomechkeyboards
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I've slowly been going down the rabbit hole of ergo keyboards and want to replace my current "normal" full-size keyboard, but the sheer amount of variation there is, even disregarding the usual differences like rgb or some extra macro keys or whatever, is kind of giving me decision paralysis, so I'd like some help.

I know what I definitely want:

  • Split
  • Tentable
  • Ortholinear
  • Supports QMK

But that still leaves a lot of questions open.

I like the look and portability of heavily vertically staggered 42-key keyboards (three rows and three keys per thumb cluster), and while for programming that's definitely enough, especially for certain games that seems like a questionable choice, since you'd need a lot of layers for a good experience.

Then I looked further into keyboards with four rows, which definitely seem more appealing, but at that point I'm wondering if for convenience's sake, it might be better to just get something like the Moonlander which has more than enough keys, but is also just really big and leads to a lot of finger movement which isn't necessarily a problem, but also just isn't really... well, neat.

What kind of keyboards do you all have and what do you use them for? Are there any you'd recommend? Should I just go with something akin to the Moonlander or are there any tangible advantages to something like the Piantor apart from portability?

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[–] Raffowo 6 points 1 year ago

You have mentioned two keyboards that took your attention the Piantor and the Moonlander.

So let's breakdown them, and let's see the major benefits:

  • If you have to travel a lot and dont want to spend much to try a new cup of tea, you should go for the piantor; it's cheap, really easy to build (thanks to the diodeless feature), tentable (see on the community for tentable case) and portable!

  • Instead if you don't need to travel and you are sure that you want to switch go for the moonlander; Despite it's high price it has a really large community and it's built to make the average user feel at home. With the number row, tentable, full-size mx switches; it's a really good option if you dont have to travel that much!

  • If you want a middleground of those, I can suggest the Sofle, it is a very popular keyboard too and has a number row;

This is the beauty of this community, everyone has it's preference and we love to build keebs on those!

Let us know what will you take and your feedbacks!