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- Average user rating: 5.0 stars out of 7 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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4.0 stars
"Best ergonomics and durability available, but has bugs"
Pros: Ergonomically this keyboard is the best available, and it is durable enough to last for many years.
Cons: About once a week a modifier key gets stuck on and you have to hit both shift keys before your editor gets filled with garbage.
Summary: There is an engineering compromise between building a good keyboard and a cheap one.
At one end of the spectrum you have disposable keyboards given to people for free with their PC's and sold in stores. The keyswitches are basically one sheet of rubber laying on a flat printed circuitboard. The only advantage of this design for desktop use is that it is cheap to manufacture. It sacrifices both ergonomics and reliability for low cost. Microsoft ergonomic keyboards and imitators consist of two flat membrane keyboards at an angle to improve your wrist angle a bit.
At the other end of the spectrum you the Kinesis Contoured keyboard (and the similar Maltron, which I have not tried). If you watch your fingertips as you slowly flex and relax your hand, you will notice that they naturally go through an arc. Internally, the Contoured keyboard has a separate rail of keys that approximates this arc separately for each finger. This almost completely eliminates the need for your fingers to reach while typing. The staggered keys on standard keyboards (along with qwerty) are artifacts from mechanical typewriters.
The mechanical keyswitches on the Contoured are more reliable and provide better tactile feedback than rubber membrane keyboards. Having an independent switch for each key also makes it possible to repair a broken key. I have had one defective keyswitch after years of heavy use.
The keyboard is programmable, making it easy to set up a modern computer-optimized key-layout (I use Colemak). While it is possible to re-program your key layout at the operating system level, doing this makes it a hassle to move your keyboard between computers, and prevents you from keeping a standard keyboard connected for other people to use.
Kinesis is a very small company. The upside is that they are very responsive to help requests. They've provided support well beyond their official warranty twice for me now. The main downside of this is, obviously, that this is not a cheap keyboard, even for the very high quality parts it contains. They have very little economy of scale, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are assembling each keyboard by hand. Additionally, they don't have an engineering staff to maintain their firmware. A couple times a day the firmware will screw up and start spitting out the same character repeatedly. You can work around this by hitting both shift keys quickly or re-plugging the keyboard when it happens.
In summary, this is one of the best keyboard money can buy. The reduction in strain you'll experience while typing and the keyboard's durability more than outweigh the crumby firmware, high price, and initial adjustment period.
Where to buy
Kinesis Contoured Advantage Keyboard:
$269.00
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$269.00 | Yes |
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