I’m a complete novice to mech and ergo so I apologize in advance for any sins lol
The 3 I checked are Kinesis 360 (https://kinesis-ergo.com/keyboards/advantage360/), Glove80 (https://www.moergo.com/collections/glove80-keyboards) and the Moonlander (https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/).
These below are what I got from watching reviews:
- Kinesis is difficult to customize and sometimes has connectivity issues
- Glove80 feels cheap
- Moonlander doesn’t have many keys and thumb cluster is on odd position
Considering the prices, the moonlander is about US$100 cheaper than the others, so feels like a better option.
I am interested in options with keywell, as they feel way more comfortable, but anything will be better since I use an conventional non-split keyboard.
The right menu links to a compare tool but there are so many.
My hands are small, so it may constrain the options I have. Or maybe not.
What are your opinions/suggestions/experience with these types of keyboards?
IIRC, Xah Lee in his review specifically mentioned that glove80 are better suited for smaller hands than KA360 as it feels more compact. Having a different pinky column curvature probably also helps. I’d also be interested to know if glove80 is factually more compact (in terms of e.g. key spacing).
Take a look at u/noneagoninf 's reviews here for more first hand experiences.
I heard good feedback that since firmware 3.0 for the KA360 the connectivity issues have been solved.
Maybe I’m too late, but after looking at all of these options and a few more, this is what I’ve decided I’m switching to
I have a moonlander and generally really like it, however I would take a second look at the glove 80. I’m tempted to eventually sell my moonlander or start saving up for a glove 80.
The moonlander is pretty solid, and you can get used to the thumb cluster, but I have smaller hands too, and it’s tough to reach across all of the moonlander while touch typing. I think a key well would help with that issue.
Taking a better look at the glove80, it’s definitely appealing to me, since it also has the function keys on it. It’s about CA$550 vs about CA$450 for the dactyl, which has less keys.
I’m trying to find one that I can use for years to come, since they are very pricey.
Please don’t tell me about other keyboards! I got a Moonlander, am really happy with it and consider it my endgame board. Not like all the other endgame boards, I swear!
I have a Moonlander and find it works well for me. Took a little while to get used to, but really not long, and the longer I used it, the more I liked it. Not sure what you mean that it doesn’t have many keys, as it has way more than a lot of ergo keyboards?
It has more than the ergo I saw too. I’m used to number row and function keys and wouldn’t want to lose that. That would probably take some getting used to it but if I can still have those keys, no reason to choose one that doesn’t.
I know of almost no ergo boards that have dedicated function keys. Moonlander does have number keys though… and you can use layers to turn those into function keys…
I saw some mentions of layers but in all fairness, it’s not appealing to me if I want to hit F6 to make the cursor go to the browser’s address bar.
But thanks for mentioning! It may help others.
Yeah, I get it. I say the same thing about boards with no number keys and people tell me I can just use layers. But for whatever reason, layers for function keys makes more sense to me. It’s just like pressing “shift” except instead of “shift” you press a different button and the number/function key.
