I'm gonna throw out some questions and comments, I'd like your feedback :)
I'm not sure they're even all that comparable, being very different form factors. Truly is flat, Advantage is curved, Truly keeps your hands close together, Advantage separates them, Truly may, or may not even ship, there's a lot of skepticism around here about the reality of it, Advantage has been around 15 years and proven to last over a decade in everyday use.
It's pretty bold of you to preorder TWO of a keyboard that very few, if any, have ever layed fingers on thus far! =p
inward slopes makes a load of difference imo vs flat, imo just as good as having a split. The TE doesn't incorporate an inward slope or concave/kinesis is already much fail imo.
The uTron board is like that but it costs an arm and leg I'm afraid.
Much fail? The vast majority of keyboards are flat. The TECK just adds some much needed sense to a senseless design, that doesn't make it fail. It just prevents it from being 'truly' ergonomic. But it's a huge improvement over regular keyboards, surely.
A better design would be something like two separate halves so you can angle them any way you like but also add a slope and other such things. The uTron board is like that but it costs an arm and leg I'm afraid.
I have a Kinesis Advantage as well as a Truly Ergonomic (I'm skeptical as well about whether they will actually ship) on order. Assuming I receive the TE, I'll gladly share my thoughts on both keyboards as well.
and here i thought you were a Topre or die kind of guy!
on uTron, arm and leg are independently adjustable ;)
/obligatory, sorry HaaTa
Yeah, sorry ergopeople. I'm done trolling back off to the normal keyboards. :hand:
Imaginary glowing reviews are suspect
Wow, a lot of cynicism and suspicion here. No offense intended, but maybe you folks should try starting a company and introducing a new product yourselves before jumping to conspiracy theories? I've done so before, and have a lot of sympathy for others who attempt it.
Please let's not hijack the thread unless they don't deliver.
Best -
first I don't understand why those reviews appear fake. They are available independently at distinct web sites, a few of which I'm familiar with.
does anyone have a writing style analyzer? i could swear the same person wrote all those :)
Given the current promise of shipping in late January with another round in March, if it doesn't ship by February I could see a lot of people kicking up a fuss with Visa/Mastercard.
I don't speak for anyone but myself here, but I find the initial post of this thread to be just as strange and inexplicable as the reviews on the website. I have some serious reservations about the intention of the original post, and believe it's from someone trying to stir up pre-orders rather than a non-review review based on theories of what the board could be. Pre-ordered two? Why on earth would you even do that? I seriously doubt anyone here, and there are some HARDCORE typists, would pre-order two boards that might not even exist. It's even more curious to show up on a new forum to tell everyone about it, and defend over and over a company that has proven to be at least lacking in communication, if not outright misleading. msiegel put it very mildly, but I won't be quite so generous. This thread has every indication of being a spam advertisement for a non-product coming directly from someone involved in the "company" who can, offhand, speak with "expertise" about the industry, almost but never quite revealing enough to indicate their true identity.
iMav, if I'm out of line, feel free to delete this post, and I apologize to the other forum members, but I feel like someone is trying to yank a hook deep into the jaws of geekhackers, and I don't like it.
How WEIRD would it be if I showed up on a gaming forum talking about a game that was rumored for YEARS but never actually demonstrated to exist, even in development stages, and claimed to have preordered two copies, followed immediately with a list of reasons the 'new' game would be superior to Halo?
In frustration I designed my own keyboard and considered either hacking it or having a manufactured, but fortunately this company came along and it for me, incorporating many of my ideas and several new innovative ones, as it so happened. Disclaimer, I have zero affiliation with the company.
msiegal: you'd preorder how many? oh right, you said "one".
:P
Granted, but I'd much rather, as iMav put it earlier in the thread, "call a spade a spade".
How WEIRD would it be if I showed up on a gaming forum talking about a game that was rumored for YEARS but never actually demonstrated to exist, even in development stages, and claimed to have preordered two copies, followed immediately with a list of reasons the 'new' game would be superior to Halo?
Red flags would go up, the spam votes would be off the charts, and my account would be disabled before I could even post a follow-up.
Obvious shill is obvious.
Obvious shill is obvious.
Wait for someone here with a solid history to get their order in and review it, I think.
Let's just say I've been involved in gray-ish work like re-purposing information, "producing" content, and SEO work before, and I'm not going to even bother dealing with Architect's particular posts one way or the other, it's more the things like the complete fail of SEO for the main site or any similar enough posts that leave me skeptical.
but your in second place in that poll...
would hyped up marketing troll be best? I've already already explained how I believe a 2 day 14 post guy could almost shed the troll mantra and the easiest way is to post a lot to up your postcount past 1 to legitimize yourself.
I've been pointing out marketing trolls when i see them and just recently even PM about them. Why? like any concerned GH, i want to keep GH troll free.
Architect is either the victim of too much scrutiny or using really advanced marketing troll techniques beyond being a 1 post "omg look at TE, so awesome". We won't know now will we.
I can say as a professional internet marketer if I were to drum up news about a product weeks before release, i'd find the most relevant website, with tons of inbound links and is the authority on mechanical keyboards and start off my first post with a controversial topic or, pre-review.
I'd write it in an easy to understand fashion, use lots of bullet points when possible, because ppl love it when text is broken up and remember to subtly capitalize specific keywords and use them often such as
The Truly Ergonomic Keyboard vs. The Kinesis Advantage.
This instantly brings ppl's eyes to these words and is great once google indexes it...
http://www.google.com/search?q=truly+ergonomic+vs+kinesis&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a (http://www.google.com/search?q=truly+ergonomic+vs+kinesis&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)
wow first page result, that's pretty amazing, i wonder how that happened, maybe because it was created before other pages were done and maybe because GH has a PR of 4 which is pretty high in google terms (pagerank).
Then i'd have to find many other different posts and spread myself around in the different sections of the forums so i can get rid of the 1 post troll. Once ppl see that i have 8 posts, most mods would leave me alone because trolls are often lazy and don't revisit a site, unless they are trying to capitalize on an authority website.
again these are really advanced techniques or it just happened to be this way, magically.
You might not understand what i'm talking about rip, and i of course don't expect you to, unless this is your field of expertise. Just like when we're watching how it's made or we see a plant tour, my fiance will say oh that's a blah and a blah with blah and blah, cuz she buildsplants.
(P.S. yay handwriting recognition while holding tablet at weird angle in bed =P .... keyboard is definitely better usually, but this scores some nice convenience points)
Architect: after practicing some month with an similar keyboard like the Truly Ergonomic,The thing not to like about the Matron, besides looking like part of a 1950's battleship, is that the switches are black Cherries. Last I checked, they had no brown or blue option.
you can find a picture of that in my public album section, i would tend more to the
Kinesis Advantage.. personally i would today choose the Maltron keyboard..
after my little ergonomic research phase, for the moment...
We at Truly Ergonomic hope the New Year brings good health to you and your loved ones. Please remember there are no dreams too large, no innovation unattainable, and no frontiers beyond your reach.
This email is to thank you for your patience and understanding during our pre-production phase. As you already know, we will provide you with a high quality, Truly Ergonomic Keyboard, exactly as you asked for, and as we have promised. The features and benefits of the product, as you are aware, will be:
However, we are experiencing manufacturing delays, amongst an array of suppliers, which are unfortunately out of our control. We wish to avoid any circumstances under which the quality of the shipped Truly Ergonomic Keyboard might be viewed as unsatisfactory. As such, it is taking significantly longer than anticipated to manufacture your Truly Ergonomic Keyboard to the quality we have promised. We have been further slowed down by the recent holiday season, and are therefore apologetically forced to inform you that we must delay the delivery of the Truly Ergonomic Keyboard until late March 2011.
- A unique Split-Symmetric Columnar Key Arrangement based on the neutral position of the human anatomy and physiology.
- A design which promotes a healthy posture, reducing stretching and twisting that can cause pain.
- It will significantly help to diminish the risk of work-related conditions like CTS, RSI, and tendonitis.
- It will remain familiar, and work intuitively, solving ergonomic issues without becoming bulky.
- Manufactured using high-quality Cherry MX mechanical keyswitches.
- It comes with a removable palmrest with integrated cushion.
- It has full N-key rollover; where multiple keys can be pressed simultaneously and register properly.
- Fully reprogrammable.
As a valued customer, we would like to offer you our sincere apologies for this inconvenience and are offering you our gratitude with an exclusive gift certificate in the amount of fifty US dollars, to be delivered along with your Truly Ergonomic Keyboard. This gift certificate will be redeemable for any product that we offer up to twelve months after you receive your Truly Ergonomic Keyboard.
We appreciate your patience, understanding, and support and want to thank you once again for pre-ordering your Truly Ergonomic Keyboard. We believe you have made an excellent investment in your personal health and comfort, and can look forward to increased typing efficiency.
We reiterate that the Truly Ergonomic Keyboard provides many advantages that no other product on the market can match and we would like to offer our deepest apologies for this delay.
We will contact you again when relevant information is available or when we are about to deliver your Truly Ergonomic Keyboard.
Please send us an email should you have any questions or require additional information.
Regards,
The Truly Ergonomic team
I can resist... I can resist... NEVERMIND: TOLD YOU SO!I don't think anyone still active in this thread is at all surprised. I'll be impressed if I EVER see one. ;)
I think Maltron would be happy to make you a cherry brown or blue version if you asked. They are hand assembled and hand soldered and they mention the word custom quite a bit on their website...Maltron with cherry blues.... You have planted the seed for me to spend more money. thanks buddy =p
Cherry reds - there's an idea...
Maltron with cherry blues.... You have planted the seed for me to spend more money. thanks buddy =p
Hi, some of us are exceptical about the truly ergonomic, mostly because they haven't show any pictures or real life.
some of us are exceptical
exceptical = exceptionally skeptical :) ?
Here it is:
"
"
"
Call me crazy, but I still believe they are legit. I think it is their competency, not their legitimacy, that is questionable.
Call me crazy, but I still believe they are legit. I think it is their competency, not their legitimacy, that is questionable.
Call me crazy, but I still believe they are legit. I think it is their competency, not their legitimacy, that is questionable.
"....simply reply to this email stating you no longer want to benefit from of all the advantages provided by the Truly Ergonomic Keyboard that no other product provides, do not want to receive a gift certificate in the amount of fifty US dollars, and would like to receive a full refund of your purchase."
I emailed the guys at TE and pointed out the false information with the registrar. Here's part of their response:I wrote to the TE People, asking for the same fake information and i receive the same email as you:
"Due to heavy snail junk mail, e-mail spam, identity theft, data mining, telemarketers, and as we are currently only accepting pre-orders, we are keeping information about our company as confidential as possible. Once we start taking normal orders, we will publish our head office address and our telephone number in our website.We have now opted like many other corporations to have the 'who is' information private; once in place, we will restore our information following ICANN policy."
"Customers who pre-ordered their keyboards prior to December 1st, 2010, like yourself, have a delivery delay as we experienced manufacturing hurdles which were out of our control. We were keen to avoid any circumstances under which the quality of the shipped Truly Ergonomic Keyboard might be viewed as unsatisfactory, and many of our pre-ordering customers have accepted the delay as being prudent. We are grateful to our pre-order customers for showing us patience and support."
Finally, in response to me bringing up the possibility of requiring a refund, here's the important bit:
"....simply reply to this email stating you no longer want to benefit from of all the advantages provided by the Truly Ergonomic Keyboard that no other product provides, do not want to receive a gift certificate in the amount of fifty US dollars, and would like to receive a full refund of your purchase."
I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do. I really want one of these keyboards if they exist, and I ordered at the $150 price so if they turn out to be real I'd be out $50 if I reordered at the full price later. On the other hand, cancelling would probably be the prudent thing to do.
The contents of this email are to be read only by its intended recipients; they are not meant to be forwarded or posted elsewhere, in whole or in part. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message immediately.
Fake addresses and phone numbers are worse than a "competency" issue. I can't see a legitimate business faking their contact info. But who knows...
I have a Kinesis Advantage now. And let me tell you. There is simply no comparison to the TE. o_O
Just to add a data point, here is my history of dealing with TE:
late Dec -- discovered TE website, got psyched about product though a bit suspicious
1/5 -- placed pre-order for $188US total, paid via AmEx / paypal
shortly after 1/5 -- discover geekhack forum, find out about the 1st batch getting postponed to March, start worrying a lot more about the possibility of having been scammed
1/13 -- email TE asking for immediate refund
1/17 -- receive TE reply trying to persuade me to reconsider the many advantages of not cancelling and they need me to re-request refund for them to do it
1/18 -- email TE to say yes I really did want a refund
1/18 -- refund appears on my AmEx account
LoL, TE really should ship out a protype to iMav at least, at least then someone could prove that it actually exists.
strange to say, but the only post from V21 are these myth lines.., without any prehistory or future comments.. hmm
sheesh.
I was posting partly to THANK geekhack for prompting me to get my refund.
enjoy your paranoia!
if the max your emplorer will spring for is a ms ergo 4k then your not gonna be getting a mech ergro from them heh.
Actually the response was: for the price of a Kineses we can buy 30 dell keyboards!
I'd love to see TrulyErgonomic take me up on my offer of a vendor forum here. It would certainly lend credibility to them and also give them additional exposure. At the very least, it would be nice to see them pop in here. :)
4 Jan 2011, 21:39 #28
iMav
Site Admin
No need to close the thread. It has not been significantly derailed. It is valid to be skeptical of a keyboard that is, up to this point, vaporware. Several of the members here (myself included) have pre-ordered and certainly want the keyboard to be everything it is billed to be.
You, as a long-time Kinesis user should know that it is one thing to claim ergonomic bliss...it is quite another to deliver!
I think we should all, at best, be cautiously optimistic. They have obviously fabricated some PR for themselves. All start ups do it. Why would you take offense at us calling a spade a spade? As someone who has pre-ordered as well, I would think you are going into this with eyes wide open just like the rest of us.
Or do you have some additional information that we are not privy to??
(BTW, TE has received an invitation to join our vendor forums...we'll see how serious they are about customer service and open communication)
6 Jan 2011, 11:58 #44
Lanx
Senior Member
I guess i'll make it official, after a day of not posting and trying close his own thread (a behavior of trolls, the only ppl who have closed threads on GH are butthurt or trolls) so I dub thee, Architect Sir Troll-a-lot. Thank you fellow GH'ers for your fine work.
OK, well, I think it's a little rude for a mod to reopen a thread that a member desired to close, but whatever, the energy being put into this is pretty silly in my estimation. It's just a stupid keyboard.This thread is in a keyboard enthusiasts forum. The discussion of a keyboard's merits is simply what we do here. NOT discussing the Truly Ergonomic keyboard here would be silly.
By the way my wife laughed her ass off at the idea that TE was a scam. Sure, a scam in ergonomic keyboards, I'm sure Bernie Madoff will be proud when the evil TE is unmasked!Questioning the validity of a start up that we know little about seems prudent to me. The same skepticism is levied against other keyboard announcements here all the time (as well as brokers, eBay sellers, etc).
It's just a stupid keyboard.
OK, well, I think it's a little rude for a mod to reopen a thread that a member desired to close, but whatever,
Buckling Spring Mini shipping
The uTron, still staggered but in a better way I suppose, but still it makes no sense to me to even have the keys staggered... and with the uTron, were do you rest your hands? And it's difficult to buy and expensive. I would like the Kinesis Advantage (also expensive) or the TrulyErgonomic, hope it comes out of the factory soon, if it ever does. if it doesn't maybe I'll go for the TypeMatrix 2030.
The uTron, still staggered but in a better way I suppose, but still it makes no sense to me to even have the keys staggered...I disagree.
I disagree.The staggering on TrulyErgonomic's design and on the µTron board are at least sensible. On regular keyboards, it's asymmetrical, but if you look closely there are no lines. On the home row, you can see the row above it moves ~25% to the left, but then the row above that one moves 50% to the left. It's a total mess. This means your fingers have to deal with a zig-zag while moving up and down.
I have not tried the µTron keyboard, but I believe it's staggering to be more natural than a flat matrix layout (like the TypeMatrix has). It has to do with the different length of the fingers. The ring finger and pinky are shorter than the middle finger (in that order) but on the other hand (no pun intended) the index finger is more dexterous and therefore it can have get more reach than the longer middle finger.
The most natural orientation of your hand on the keyboard is angled slightly inwards. Then you can rest, and really relax, all four fingers on four keys in a row. With a mirrored uniform staggering - like the µTron's, where both hand are equal, you can do this on all four rows of the keyboard and you can switch rows just by moving your fingers. With a matrix layout, you will have to either twist your wrist or move your hand to make the pinky reach the top row.
The TrulyErgonomic is also staggered!
If we see only the alphanumeric keys, then the layout of the µTron and TrulyErgonomic are more similar to each other than any of them is to the traditional QWERTY layout.
Imagine that each key on the µTron is rotated slightly so that they are laid out in columns instead of rows. Then the largest difference between the two layouts that you can see are that the index finger columns are a little bit lower on the TrulyErgonomic. The remaining differences are only very small shifts up and down.
The staggering on a classic QWERTY keyboard works for the right hand, but is all fouled up for the left hand, especially if you (try to) touch-type. Most people have keyboards with cursor keys and numpad on the left, with the alphanumeric typing area shifted to the left from how they sit. For them, the angle of the left hand is smaller than for the right hand. With a smaller angle, it becomes more natural to rest the left pinky on the Left Shift key than on A .. and that is, I think, why people use predominantly the left Shift key over the right. I think that people who don't touch-type, but have evolved their own typing style, they tend not to use the same fingers for the columns Q-Z,W-X,E-C,.. but for W-Z, E-X, R-C,.. with either fingers for the the home row.
Found the TrulyErgonomic on Taobao (http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=7972129543). $441. Wow.
@finedcanor: "staggered" is a word I just recently started using, but I think the meaning is the keys are in a straight column. Not shifted. So in my understandig the TE is not staggered, M, J and U are in a straight line, for instance. Same for the TypeMatrix. The uTron is staggered, the keys from top to bottom are slightly shifted.
The lenght of the fingers is taken in to account on the TE, also on the Kinesis advantage where the column for the pinky is "lowered" a bit.
please try our thread on ergo terms!
I bet it's the actual keyboard, but can't afford putting my money where my mouth is. You first :D
Where can I find that thread?
I'm still on the side of entrepreneurs. Although I didn't know Canada had any.Show Image(http://www.comingsoon.net/gallery/48327/The_Social_Network_6.jpg)
The company behind the TE put all his effort into marketing efforts ...
I'm reminded of why I don't frequent these forums.
I'm reminded of why I don't frequent these forums.
I wouldn't mind incorporating a couple of the switches towards the "center" of the 2 halves like the Utron....
I woke up to the sound of thunder, but it's actually the sound of everyone typing and sending TE emails requesting refunds....
I doubt it and i am sure you do and you follow this thread every post, since this is probably the best ranked forum about keyboards at search engines you used it to publish all your bull$hit on a thread you started and later closed it in order to prevent other people to publish their comments and assure people just had your biased opinion and marketing propaganda; fortunatelly for us (unfortunatelly for you) iMav decided to reopen it and this thread still follows and not only we have this thread, we have other ones about people with compliants against truly ergonomic :
Maybe the OP thinks it might be a good keyboard when it ships.
Something to think about.
Personally, I find the stalking posts about the developer creepy and not exactly representative of a healthy community.
Could it be...Architect=Alfredo Buhler??? Could it be that Alfredo Sauce has an ego that created an alter ego (Architect) to do his henchman, behind-the-scenes defense/reinforcement on one of the most prolific and read keyboard forums on the planet?
That alfredo guy does have 1 architectural patent among all the TE patents or applications, whatever.
Do you know where I can get Oompa Loompas?
Clever business model, TE works with the money of their "customer's" -
in the meantime they get interest and other similar income - if anyone
resist on a refund they can do this easy..
Maybe the OP thinks it might be a good keyboard when it ships.
Something to think about.
Personally, I find the stalking posts about the developer creepy and not exactly representative of a healthy community.
Anyhow, I figure the $ from my order is hopefully helping them finish this thing (and it's a tax write-off, so my actual cost for two keyboards (with discount) is about $160 - OK conspiracy freaks?) But as I say I'm getting weary of the lack of communication, wait and lack of visible progress.
Hi noctua, i saw on your signature you made your own keyboard, i have to agree this is the closest real thing i have found to the TE. hahaha
Nice work, one question : did you make a qwerty to colemak filter ? like the qido usb filter (http://www.keyghost.com/qido/) ?
Sorry, it wasn't my intention to violate your intellectual property, i found your picture trying to find some posts of you related to the tensy++ usb controller which i am interested.
Maybe the OP thinks it might be a good keyboard when it ships.
Something to think about.
Personally, I find the stalking posts about the developer creepy and not exactly representative of a healthy community.
The industry self has rarely intellectual idea's, the most ideas comes from
such people as you or me or from the "scene" like GH or something related.
And patents - this "structure" is similar to piratical company model's..
Personally, I find the stalking posts about the developer creepy and not exactly representative of a healthy community.Well, if the Truly Ergonomic guys can't go through the hassle of publicizing more info of who and where they are, how can one know where the money went?
i can't understand which part fromIt is not a patent for a "invention". It is a "design patent" which covers how the keyboard looks, basically.
the imaginary TE keyboard requires an patent..
The idea of the "curve" staggered key positions is not new and definitely not from TE self, the japanes boy's was first with such an layout, later Maltron has also used this design.. i can't understand which part from the imaginary TE keyboard requires an patent..
The japanese guys have done that before ...
The japanese guys have done that before ...
Oke, who are these Japanese guys? Which brand is it?
The japanese guys have done that before ...Show Image(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=16881)
The new images of the pre-production model look great! (http://www.trulyergonomic.com/gallery.html)
Ahh, suspense sweet suspense...
I hope they put up the video announced in their mail SOON.
Yes the preproduction models look great. I got a 'no lettering all black' stealth model.
Also, as I need Command, Option and Control (plus caps) I get all on both L&R, unlike the Kinesis. And it's relatively compact, mechanical function keys, dream come true .... anybody want to buy a pair of lightly used Kinesis Advantage Pros?
Where ever you want it, supposed to be re-mappable. Most USB keyboard controllers these days are so I expect this to work fine.
I should post a pic of the key mapping I'm looking forward to, I photoshopped one of the new pics with the layout I'm planning.
Architect, could you please post some simple pics of the keyboard you got? Maybe showing the underside of the keyboard, showing it in your hands, on an actual desk, etc?