Sooper excited until I saw the heirloom quality price. I hope it succeeds and they are able to produce a less bespoke model for less.
Also probably wouldn’t work with my Contour rollermouse (which yes, is the same price, but I can at least get work to purchase those, unlike a kickstarter keyboard…)
The huge problem with these keyboards, mentioned on Tested when they built their own, is that the key placement is not staggered and makes typing/gaming really awkward. You can learn to type onit but it seems like an annoying and unnecessary layout to adopt.
What is that, a space bar for ants?
I use (and therefore assembled) an ergodox, which is a keyboard very similar to the Model 01. I also went to one of the tour dates the Keyboard.io people held, and tried it out.
My thought: it’s a very well put-together keyboard with some features I haven’t seen elsewhere: the palm buttons, two kinds of mouse emulation via button presses. It also has some nice thought put into it: the thumb button layouts are very impressive (the Ergodox’s thumb cluster is, while vastly better than nothing, not that intelligently put together); you can either tent the keyboard or not, all with included hardware.
I’d be a lot more likely to pick one up if it had more keys – the Ergodox has 38 keys per hand; the Model 01 has only 32. I’m a power user, so I don’t know how much of a downside that is for the target market. Overall, it’s a pretty nice keyboard; it’s just not for me.
I haven’t seen the Tested build (which video do they talk about this, and where? The first video in the week of videos is 45 minutes long), but I do have an Ergodox, which is similar to the Model01.
There is some switching cost, but I didn’t find it that difficult. I think you’re talking about how the keyboard is set out with vertical columns that are staggered on the Y axis, rather than a traditional keyboard, which has horizontal rows that are staggered on the X axis. This design actually makes more sense, if you ignore the additional cost (due to not being mass-market), and switching costs (because you already use the row-staggered design). Ergonomically, shouldn’t it be easier to reach down than down and sideways? And letting the columns stagger up or down lets them be closer to directly under your fingers; on a regular keyboard, my left pinky rests at the bottom of the A key, while my left middle finger rests at the top of the D key. And why shouldn’t your thumbs have dedicated keys?
So yeah, it’s different, but I’m glad I switched.
A good keyboard is a must.
I am vaguely tempted to mod my laptop by replacing the screen hinges with custom-made higher ones, swap screen for a higher-resolution one from a wiring-compatible model (it’s reportedly quite possible, the sigalling between the panel and the videocard is quite standardized), and putting on a keyboard with real cherry switches. The weight penalty shouldn’t be so big, the added thickness, well who cares about the thickness anyway except some fruitheads who are spoiling it for everybody else, and the tactile properties of the keys should be way WAY superior over anything the portable market offers since computers stopped looking like briefcases…
Uhm, no. They built an ergodox as I recall. This is a completely different keyboard with a different layout that only looks superficially similar.
Yeah, Tested bult an Ergodox. Original poster is confused.
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