I am a software engineer, so I'm on the keyboard all day, every day. I touch type, including special characters, and am reasonably fast. I'm pretty picky about my keyboards.
I have a new favorite keyboard.
First of all, be aware this keyboard has a Quirk, that lots of folks seem to have run into:
The wireless works fine, as long as:
- The receiver dongle is not more than two or three feet away from the keyboard AND
- The receiver is in a direct unobstructed line of sight with the keyboard.
I have one at work and one at home, and for both I bought a USB hub which I keep on my desktop nearish the keyboard. Once I did this I've had no further issues. The one I have at work I've been using continuously and heavily since ~June 2017.
Once I worked out the above two things, I had no further issues, for going on four months now.
But if you violate either of the above two factors, the keyboard will work fine - mostly.
But occasionally you'll encounter the keyboard going 'dead' - completely unresponsive - for a few seconds up to five minutes or so. Then it comes back, as if nothing ever happened. This had me looking for all sorts of system and network issues ...
Occasionally the keyboard will drop key events, such as 'key-Delete-down' or 'key-Delete-up', or whatever. It's inconsistent. When it starts, this will happen randomly, often enough to totally disrupt your work, for an hour or so.
Then it will stop happening, and be fine for 1 to 10 days.
Then it will happen again.
Basically I narrowed it down to a weak wireless connection between the dongle and the keyboard itself.
Whenever the dongle was further away, or the battery getting old, or there was a lot of wireless traffic in my area of the building, I might see issues. Changing the battery will make you think that fixed it, but it didn't. The problem will return. (Once I figured out and fixed the above two factors, I put the old/original battery back in the keyboard as an experiment. The keyboard worked fine, and is still working fine on that battery.)
After six months of happy use, I bought one for my home system as well. It worked fine - for a couple months - then I started to see the above issues. I'd put the dongle in a USB port on the back of my computer, which put it about three feet from the keyboard in a direct line. But the computer case, parts of my desk et cetera were physically between the two.
I installed the dongle in a USB hub on top of my desk, about 1.5 feet from the keyboard, with nothing in between the dongle and keyboard, and all the issues disappeared, and have not returned.
So now this is my new favorite keyboard.
Overall it feels great and is at least as comfortable as my previous favorites (see below).
The keys are short throw, fast, and quiet, like a good laptop keyboard, but a little noisier. It's definitely quieter than any other non-laptop keyboard I've ever used. It's significantly narrower than any other keyboard I've used, a little wider than a standard keyboard with no number pad. I like this aa lot, as it lets me put my trackball comfortably close for the first time ever. That's definitely a plus.
The arrow keys are in an inverted 'T' layout on the lower right, close enough that I quickly learned to use them efficiently without having to stop and look for them. I do occasionally hit the Left-arrow key when I go for the right Control key (which I use a lot). But that's probably my lack of precision.
The PageUp/PageDown etc keys are definitely in a new and unique arrangement. I wasn't sure I liked it at first, and worried that their proximity might mess up my use of the Enter, backslash, and Backspace keys, but that didn't happen. The Delete key is large, is two rows tall, and is just to the right of the Enter and Backspace keys. I figured I never use those keys, so I didn't really care.
To my surprise, once I got comfortable with the keyboard, I found I -was- starting to use those keys. The layout is actually great, and I use them constantly now where I never did on previous keyboards.
As others have pointed out, the function keys are somewhat mushy buttons, definitely not the same mechanics as the other keys, with minimal tactile feedback. I rarely use them - EXCEPT for the Esc key.
If you are a heavy UNIX/Linux vi or vim user, you'll find the Esc key pretty annoyiing. It will slow you down. (Time to switch to emacs!)
The wrist rest is comfortable, with minimal give. It will start to show a bit of wear marks after 6 months or so of use, but nothing significant.
I've never used the number pad thingie, and probably never will.
Formerly my favorite keyboards were:
- Fellowes Microban Split Design Keyboard, Black (98915)
Still like, have a few.
Dislikes: Largish, noisy to type on, left alt key is not -quite- in the expected place, arrow keys are not in a 'T' layout, /page up/down etc keys are not in a 'normal' 3 wide by 2 tall layout. Definitely still usable.
Likes: Best, most comfortable long-term layout (until the Sculpt).
- Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite USB (the original, NOT the 3000, 4000, 'comfort', etc.)
Still like, have a few (including the very rare black version).
Dislikes: All the same as the Fellowes, except the alt keys are in the correct place here. For gaming, this keyboard doesn't handle chords or very fast keystrokes well - sometimes doesn't 'see' some. But never had an issue in any other situation. A little noisier than the Fellowes (to where coworkers have commented on it). This annoyed me enough to try the Fellowes. Also, they are generally very robust - But don't spill any liquid into one, even a little. The 'b' and some keys nearby will stop working - permanently. No amount of drying, cleaning, disassembly and cleaning will restore it. It's dead. By contrast the Fellowes keyboards seem to shrug off such accidents.
They come in ivory only, unless you manage to find one of the very rare black ones. (I didn't know they existed until I stumbled across one on Amazon Warehouse Deals).
Likes: The ONLY Ergo keyboard for many years I found to be an improvement over a 'standard' layout. And it is definitely much better, much more comfortable for me. I bought several as backups, used them at home and work. They're robust: I've used the same ones for years with no issues, and I have a heavy touch (learned on a manual typewriter). Relieved a bunch of minor complaints, mostly muscle tension.
Happy typing.
Update: 04/12/19
I have the same keyboard at work.
I've used the original batteries since I got it. (I replaced them briefly while debugging the wireless issue, but then put the originals back).
I have finally had to replace them (red light flashing on the kb for weeks, but finally it just quit).
I got it about 4/18. So the batteries lasted exactly a year.
I'm a software engineer, and use the keyboard heavily all day, almost every day.
| Wireless Type | 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency |
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