Proword:
Have you ever used a Kinesis Contoured? If so, how does it compare to the Maltron? That's something I would like to know.
If it's any help, I am a Kinesis contoured user since 2004. I also tried a Maltron (their more common 3D model) for a few days. What I remember is that the Maltron has a better hand positioning for me, my hands felt more relaxed. The Maltron is more tented than the Kinesis by about 10 degrees, providing better relief from hand pronation. The Kinesis feels almost flat, which is why some people resort to this:
Apart from that, I like the Kinesis better in most respects, it is programmable and has better layout of the keys in my opinion. I hated the arrow key placement in the Maltron for example. Also the Maltron emited multiple keycodes for some keypresses so you couldn't program it even in software. The electronics behaved weird, I dug up some old email I wrote about it; if I hit shift and a number, for instance shift 5 to get the left parens (horrible layout in the first place), and I lifted the shift
before I released the number, I saw the keyboard repeating 999999999 till I hit another key. And shift 2 for the carret (yuk) produced 6 once you released the shift.
Hey Proword, do your maltrons behave in that weird way too?
I really hated this weird implementation of certain symbols, however I did like the dedicated * and _ keys that did not need shift at all, and also liked having real function keys instead of the Kinesis' rubbery ones.
I'm sure you are aware of the Maltron having linear switches (cherry MX black) instead of the Kinesis tactile browns, however Kinesis is going to produce the
Advantage LF (linear feel) with
cherry MX reds , so that pretty much seals it for me in favor of the Kinesis ... now if I could tent it a little more it would be perfect... maybe I'll cut up my old Contoured Classic to experiment after I receive the new Advantage LF :-)