The world keeps turning, there are new, ergonomic, split keyboards to admire. If you still want to read about the other keyboards I've looked at -> visit this post.
I'm the proud owner of a Keyboardio Model 01. But the guys from Keyboardio weren't lazy and packed the community's feedback into a new version, the Model100
Actually, the Model100 is almost identical to the Model01, at least on the outside. The most important changes1
The rest remains as usual:
A nice improvement over the Model01 because it addresses the known problems and tackles them. It's also great that the Keyboardio Model100 now comes with a travel case (at least if you ordered it via Kickstarter).
The costs are about $289 US (currently about 265€, plus 19% VAT then about 315,-€2) at Kickstarter, later it will be correspondingly more expensive.
But there are other alternatives in the field of split, ergonomic keyboards. The Moonlander Mark I comes from ZSA - a small company that now belongs to Ergodox.
I was relatively close to getting this gem, but then the Model100 was announced 😉.
It seems to me to be a good alternative to the Ergodox-EZ, but it "only" has 72 keys compared to the 76 keys of the Ergodox-EZ.
So far I haven't had my hands on the Moonlander, but it seems to offer a lot to me and is available immediately. Unfortunately, I think the Moonlander looks a bit cheap and I'm not sure if it's stable.
The price is $365 US (roughly €330 plus VAT €3922, depending on the exchange rate).
The Glove80 is a very interesting project. The keyboard is round, similar to the Kinesis Advantage 2, but smaller and handier.
The keyboard has 80 keys, which is more than the Ergodox and the Model100 or Model01. Nevertheless, the keyboard seems to be quite compact. The price is somewhere beyond €300 (depending on the exchange rate to the New Zealand dollar and which variant you want, but at least €360 again plus VAT then €2).
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
For all of these reasons I finally decided against the Glove80, even though I had been weak for a while. 😉
This is also a very exciting keyboard, fulfilling all the characteristics that I believe a good, ergonomic, split keyboard must support. And it also looks quite futuristic:
The special thing about it is that you have different options for almost every component (baseplate, frame, keyswitches, keycaps etc). And then the keyboard is assembled with magnets - really cool!
Basically, it is very similar to the Ergodox-EZ, even if it has fewer buttons (in the thumb cluster, the Sol3 has 72Keys).
Depending on the choice of components, you will end up with about 300-400€2 but it is definitely worth considering. Technically, there is hardly anything to complain about, it should work for all areas of application. One could be tempted - a lot 😉
It's really nice to see what's happening in the market for ergonomic split keyboards. In my humble opinion, the split keyboards offer the maximum ergonomics and flexibility - although this requires touch typing (which is probably not a problem for someone willing to invest more than 300€ in a keyboard). Now you should just switch to a better keyboard layout 😉 - I wrote something about it here.
The time and money invested in keyboards is certainly well spent. As has been said many times, this is currently the input device for computers and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon. Everyone who sits at the computer professionally and privately should really give it some thought.
Project page on Indiegogo [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-keyboardio-model-100--4#/](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-keyboardio-model-100- -4#/) On Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/model-100/description Company homepage Keyboardio https://keyboard.io Keyboardio Community https://community.keyboard.io
Project Page https://glove80.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/info Project creator MoErgo on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/MoErgo/
Shop Page https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/
created Stephan Bösebeck (stephan)