I was wondering hitting those thumb keys with your thumb does that feel weird? Them being normal keys (as far as I can tell).
And what about the positioning of the thumb keys ? The ones under the palm of your hand look weird, hitting shift for instance.
I find the thumb keys very comfortable. The only two that require me to move my fingers off the home row are the fn key and the Windows key, but I don't really mind that. If I'm using either of those keys, I'm probably not e.g. mid sentence, so moving my hand an inch or so doesn't mess with my flow.
The position of shift is actually my favorite of any board I've used. With my fingers on the home row and my hand in a relaxed/neutral position, my thumb is right above space and shift (or backspace and shift on the left half). But if you're taller I can imagine it might be better if they were further away.
Can you switch out the keys ? Moving around the function keys for instance or using Colemak as a layout? You can't really do that on the TEK
I'm a QWERTY guy, so I can't speak from experience regarding Colemak, but I know the firmware has built-in support for both it and Dvorak. You also get a choice of key caps when you order (QWERTY, Dvorak, or Colemak, if I remember correctly).
I also received some extra key caps with my kit to support moving modifier keys to places with different sizes, although I can't say for sure whether that's still the case.
On the firmware side, some options (like Dvorak/Colemak, or swapping control and shift) are directly supported by the firmware, whereas I think others require you to change the firmware and re-flash the board. There isn't a GUI configurator that I know of (yet?) but it's pretty straightforward if you're comfortable with that sort of thing.
What are the options firmware wise, can you flash it like you can do the TEK ? website says you can.
And if so can you do combo's like CTRL+C ? (Withouth using the FN modifier)
Do you mean having a single non-modified key that's equivalent to pressing Ctrl-C? If so, I'm 99% it is possible but haven't done it myself. Let me know if that is what you had in mind and I'll try to provide a definitive answer.
Any chance you could up a vid on YouTube too??
I really like my TEK but I do feel like something is missing, this Esrille does look like it hits the spot, if it wasn't so darn expensive I might have ordered it already
Yeah, I'll try to make a quick video this weekend. Speaking of which, I'll only be at a computer sporadically between now and Friday, so my replies may be a couple days delayed.
Regarding the cost, it's definitely true that it's more expensive than a TEK or an ErgoDox kit. However, the keyboard is pretty central to how I go about both my work and my play - programming and computers generally are central to both. So the way I look at it is that a long-lived improvement in comfort and/or productivity is well worth $500, without even considering the fact that avoiding RSI may extend my career or prevent a surgery later.
Of course, the rub is that you can't know if it will work for you until you try it. I guess there's really no getting around that, so I decided to just go for it. I'm not sure, but it may also be relatively easily to sell it on to someone, especially as these boards start to get more attention.