Introducing the Zergotech Freedom

[zergotech]

Introducing the Zergotech Freedom - The world's most innovative ergonomic mechanical keyboard.
Find out more at https://www.zergotech.com
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[Sintpinty]

Looks really weird .. the wrist rest is a bit small.

Is it a diy keyboard kit, or what switches does it come with?

[Findecanor]

Apparently, the wrist rests are supposed to slide around. That's the only innovation I see here.

Weird layout with staggered ZXCVB row but other rows orthonormal. Space and Enter keys are too far inwards to be comfortable to use for a large number of people, I recon.
No right Alt key = No sale to continental Europe.
No mention of remapping or reprogramming.
Missed opportunity to not use the space above the bars for indicator lights.
Missed opportunity to not shape the modifiers on the bottom row convex or in a way that would make them easier to find by touch.
On the plus side, it does offer forward tilt and adjustable tenting.

[macroxue]

Very interesting! I have a build with a similar layout. I can attest that Space and Enter keys are comfortably located for thumbs. This KB has a few differences than mine though.

1) Large palm/wrist rests. I think they should be optional, not built in. The KB could look nimbler.
2) Semi-orthogonal. I am not sure why the ZXCVB row is staggered. Any study suggests that's more comfortable?
3) Asymmetric halves. I can see the purpose of having more keys on the right half.
4) Large modifier keys on the last row, for easy touches I assume.

Hopefully there is a way to reprogram keys. Otherwise, the non-standard layout could turn away casual users and the inability of remapping keys could turn away power users.

[Sintpinty]

Apparently, the wrist rests are supposed to slide around. That's the only innovation I see here.

Weird layout with staggered ZXCVB row but other rows orthonormal. Space and Enter keys are too far inwards to be comfortable to use for a large number of people, I recon.
No right Alt key = No sale to continental Europe.
No mention of remapping or reprogramming.
Missed opportunity to not use the space above the bars for indicator lights.
Missed opportunity to not shape the modifiers on the bottom row convex or in a way that would make them easier to find by touch.
On the plus side, it does offer forward tilt and adjustable tenting.

Aight, i see then.

[Findecanor]

I expected the links on the top of the web site to be internal to the page (like what is the crappy norm for new web sites today  ) but they actually lead to more content that I missed on my first visit.
Apparently there are also non-sliding wrist rest inserts included that fill up the whole eh .. "ice-rink". That's good: giving users a choice.

1) Large palm/wrist rests. I think they should be optional, not built in. The KB could look nimbler.

I think detachable wrist rests would have been more difficult to design. Much easier to retain retain strength and rigidity with fixed wrist-rests, especially considering that the when the keyboard is tented more, the wrist rests would also have to tent at the same angle. The wrist-rests have to support the weight of the user's forearrms while propped up on flip-out feet -- and if the wrist-rests were detachable, the attachment points would have had to take a lot of stress.
Contrast that to a "regular" flat keyboard where the wrist rests lies flat on the desk.

Plus, the wrist rests contain the flip-out feet used for tilting the keyboard forwards. The keyboard might have needed to be (even) thicker otherwise.

[algernon]

While the keyboard has some interesting properties, as others have already said, there's no mention of remapping or reprogramming. Being able to reprogram, or at least remap the keyboard *is* as much of an ergonomical benefit as anything else, if not more. OneShot keys, macros, layers, that kind of stuff can be a huge ergonomic boon. Missing out on those is a grave mistake.

The most successful ergonomic keyboards all support either remapping (Kinesis) or reprogramming (ErgoDox, Model01, UHK, all the ortho splits running QMK, etc).

[macroxue]

This is from my own experience, so please take it with a grain of salt. I've never needed wrist rests for ergonomics. My wrists are always straight and floating, and I type several hours a day. My issues are with fingers, not wrists.

How well do the wrist rests work with tenting? I tent my keyboards at least 30 degree. Can my wrists rest comfortably without sliding down?

I expected the links on the top of the web site to be internal to the page (like what is the crappy norm for new web sites today  ) but they actually lead to more content that I missed on my first visit.
Apparently there are also non-sliding wrist rest inserts included that fill up the whole eh .. "ice-rink". That's good: giving users a choice.

1) Large palm/wrist rests. I think they should be optional, not built in. The KB could look nimbler.

I think detachable wrist rests would have been more difficult to design. Much easier to retain retain strength and rigidity with fixed wrist-rests, especially considering that the when the keyboard is tented more, the wrist rests would also have to tent at the same angle. The wrist-rests have to support the weight of the user's forearrms while propped up on flip-out feet -- and if the wrist-rests were detachable, the attachment points would have had to take a lot of stress.
Contrast that to a "regular" flat keyboard where the wrist rests lies flat on the desk.

Plus, the wrist rests contain the flip-out feet used for tilting the keyboard forwards. The keyboard might have needed to be (even) thicker otherwise.

[pixelpusher]

It's interesting to me that when I try to use an ortho keyboard, the one row I cannot seem to get used to is the zxcvb row.  I don't like the looks of this keyboard, but the layout might be ideal for me.

[ergonaut]

The offset zxcv row doesn't make sense to me at all and is an instant deal breaker. Apart from that, it seems OK. According to one of the pictures, it can even be tented ever so slightly (not really enough though). It also seems to be programmable.

[Findecanor]

I believe the offset ZXCV row could make it easier for some typists used to standard staggered keyboards to adjust to the keyboard's left hand side. I have even seen some users of symmetric stagger move those five keys one step to the right on their keyboards to make the layout more like what they had been used to.

I don't see any reason for having the offset on the right though.

[ergonaut]

I think I forgot to also say some good things about the board, so here it comes.

I like the big thumb keys. When going with a more or less traditional bottom row instead of thumb clusters, I think big keys are the way to go.

I also like the looks and the fact that it has some tenting out-of-the-box. This is rare in commercial keyboards, so thumbs up for that.

While I personally like fully symmetric setups better, I think that their quasi-symmetric approach (2u keys on the far left mirrored by 2x1u keys on the far right) is nice too – it keeps the familiar right-hand overload of keys while still having two equally sized keyboard halves.

As for the movable wrist rests, I think it could be a good idea, but I'd need to try it to form a relevant opinion.

I don't agree with all of the key placements, but apparently it is programmable, so it wouldn't really matter. I wonder if it will be available with blank caps, though.

If it weren't for the offset bottom row, I'd actually consider getting one of these.