Novice with Kinesis Advantage Question

[dgreekstallion]

Hi guys, I've been browsing here for many hours, researching, and am now finally registered.

I've decided I want to go mechanical, and I want a split like my Microsoft KB, but I have only found the Maltron and Kinesis.

So far I like the Kinesis Advantage a lot, but am willing to do either one, I just can't seem to find major difference and am having a hard time justifying the price...

I would love some help!

Thanks again, gentlemen

[treigle]

I only have the Kinesis, but....

The Maltron is the original, and is a hand-produced, which is why it costs so much more. The Kinesis is a mass produced alternative, based on the Maltron design, with a few improvements and a few downgrades at the same time...

The function keys on the Kinesis really do suck (this is pretty universally agreed upon), but they are usable.

You are likely to decide you want to remap a few keys to suite your personal preferences, particularly given the alternative layout. I've found the hardware programmability of the Kinesis very valuable for this reason (the Maltron doesn't have this feature).

The Maltron angles the hands down about 30 degrees from horizontal, vs 20 on the Kinesis. Furthermore, the thumb clusters of lower down on the Maltron. Thus, the Maltron's layout is considered a little more ergonomic/comfortable than Kinesis's by people who have used both. Having said that, most of us ergo-geeks tend to prefer the lighter action of the Cherry brown/red switches found in the Kinesis vs the Cherry black switches in the Maltron.

If you do any gaming, you might want to go for the Kinesis, as it has 6-key rollover (up to 6 keys can be registered simultaneously without interference; this is the limit of the USB keyboard protocol, so you'll find 6KRO on most high-end keyboards).

Overall, I think you'll be quite happy with the much less expensive Kinesis.

[erw]

Overall, I think you'll be quite happy with the much less expensive Kinesis.

Espcially considering you might need more than one.... :wof:

[sordna]

A big difference is the key switches. The Maltron comes with cherry MX blacks (heavy linear switches) and the Advantage comes with cherry MX browns (light tactile switches) or with cherry MX reds in the Advantage LF model (light linear switches).

Another feature the Kinesis has going for it is the programmability; it has qwerty/dvorak switching built in, and 2 fully programmable layers, so you can remap keys to different locations right on the keybard itself, without software, and it will work in your BIOS screen, your boot loader, when you move the keyboard to another computer, etc.

Your own preferences come into play in the comparison, these 2 keyboards have slightly different hand positioning, especially in the thumb key area.

[moogatronic]

This 1000x. I started the same way as you, reading this forum among others, hours and hours. Found a used Kinesis here at a fair price with Cherry Browns. I've recently obtained my second Kinesis with MX Red's. Both have the o-ring mod, and both are awesome beyond description. (one office, one home)

I went from the MSFT-4K to the Kinesis with Browns, the first week was rough, but the lasting experience is a revelation. If you're already comfortable with the ergo-split, I would be extremely surprised if you weren't more than satisfied with the Kinesis. Like others have said, the function keys are ****. I don't have to do any touch typing that involves them luckily.. Just step-debugging in IDEs!

Espcially considering you might need more than one.... :wof:

[Lanx]

just buy a kinesis, maltron seems silly expensive, and they use cherry blacks, the most unergo keys.