Kinesis Advantage Users opinion of Keyboardio ?

[allthumbs]

I'm trying to decide whether to buy a Kinesis Advantage or to wait some unknown amount of time for the Keyboardio. So I'm very interested in hearing what Advantage users think when they see the Keyboardio prototype.

Do Advantage users find that the concave wells and sculpted keycaps are indispensible? Or can you imagine ever preferring a keyboard without the wells over the Advantage? I've never had hand wells before and my typing style is to type in bursts of common letter combinations like "tion" by raising my arms slightly and having them fall down gently on the keyboard with the momentum performing the keypresses instead of using each individual finger on its own, whenver possible. Can I do this in hand wells? I'm currently learning the Workman layout.

Does the possibility of more than one extra logical layer on a Keyboardio interest you or is the existing keypad layer on the Advantage enough for you? I think I'll want to be able to do everything without reaching for the rubber function keys on the Advantage, so if I had one, I'd be stuffing a lot into that second layer. I'm a programmer by trade so there's IDEs to deal with.

What do you think of the number and arrangement of the thumb keys and the palm keys on the Keyboardio, given that you're accustomed to the Advantage layout? I'm not handy so the furthest I'd probably go to mod an Advantage is to somehow glue some kind of thin mechanical switch to the palm position. It looks ilke the Keyboardio puts more thumb keys in easy touch-type reach. Or as an Advantage user, can you say that hitting the smaller thumb keys is easy to do without looking and moving too far out of the home position?

I think I've ruled out the Ergodox personally. I think I'd prefer the thumb situation on the Advantage (different plane from fingers) over the Ergodox (same plane). But I might prefer the Keyboardio's thumbs over the Advantage, plus it has the built-in palm buttons. Or maybe reaching the lowest thumb button on the Keyboardio would hurt.

[hoggy]

I don't know about the Keyboardio, I plan to get one though.  I can tell you that the kinesis advantage works really well for me, but you are different.

What I really get on with, is change.  I keep something like 10 boards a work, and swap every now and again.

If you can afford it, try the kinesis, but keep the intention of buying the Keyboardio as well.  You use a board all day for work, given the lifespan of these things, they're cheap.

Kinesis have a 60 day return policy, and so do Matias, so you could take a look at their ergo pro too.

[obra]

So, I'm one of very few people here who's typed on a Keyboardio Model 01. It's awesome

You should totally get one.

I'm not biased at all.

However. Unless you're very special, you're unlikely to actually have a Model 01 in hand before Christmas. We have the parts for 20 prototype units on the dining room table, but full production isn't going to happen overnight.  Start with something you can get now.

[davkol]

I've owned ErgoDox in the "default Massdrop configuration", then Kinesis Advantage, then something like Humble Hacker, now ErgoDox again, but with 80 switches and sculpted keycaps this time.

There are three reasons why I don't have the kinesis anymore: size, not enough keys, and firmware.

First, size. Kinesis Advantage is bulky, the empty space in the middle isn't flat, and the keyboard is tall; I didn't like the angles either... resting my palms hurt... In the end, I had to lower my keyboard tray, put something like a towel under the front part of the keyboard to get somewhat negative tilt comfortable for floating hands, and put a thick book under my mousepad to avoid wrist extension while mousing.

Second, keys and firmware. This largely depends on your use case. I heavily use AltGr (and AltGr+Shift) to type letters with diacritic marks and proper typographic symbols (esp. quotation marks), thus symmetrically placed AltGr keys are very useful. I also prefer to have special symbols like parenthesis or brackets around the home row (on a layer, of course)... another pair of modifiers required. Moreover, hotkeys for window management, navigation and stuff like that are neat too... another pair of modifiers. My hands are slightly smaller than average, I can reach the outer thumb keys on neither the kinesis, nor ergodox. When I remapped outer 1.25x pinkie-controlled keys (e.g., Caps Lock) to modifiers, it exposed some bugs in the firmware (or maybe keyboard matrix? Idk), and even other key combinations stopped being registered at times.

80-key ErgoDox fixes both issues. I only wish there were extra keys between main and thumb clusters. That gets you something pretty close to keyboard.io.

The Advantage of Kinesis Advantage is that it isn't flat. Keywells are neat, but I can live without them easily. Thumb keys on a different plane are a bigger deal though, and they're the reason why I'm considering Axios or Maltron. Thumb clusters made with the gripping motion of an opposable thumb  in mind are truly a killer feature in my eyes. It's one of the main differences between Logitech TrackMan Marble FX and Microsoft Trackball Explorer; the latter doesn't cause me thumb pain every now and then.