Last March, I posted about a growing keyboard obsession and decision to buy a Filco Majestouch mechanical keyboard. Well, the madness continues. I am now the proud owner of a Kinesis Contoured Advantage.
The Filco is a high quality keyboard. The Cherry Blue switches feel great but are indeed noisy - not ideal for late night hacking at home. Actually, even day time hacking was frowned upon by my family. Luckily, I got a closed door office at work which allowed me to use the Filco all day without driving others crazy.
Unfortunately, I started experiencing wrist pain and the evidence pointed to using the Filco. The ergonomic people at work set me up with a keyboard tray to promote better hand positioning. That helped but I felt "trapped" in the "correct" position. Not only did I still have wrist pain, I was even more uncomfortable.
Frustrated, I switched back to using a Microsoft Natural keyboard. The pain subsided but the rubber dome keys felt awful after typing on the Cherry switches. The extra force required to press the keys was noticeable and tiring.
I considered pre-ordering a Truly Ergonomic keyboard but I didn't want to be an early adopter. I'd rather wait until there are many reviews.
I mentioned in the March post that I've long wanted a Kinesis Contoured Advantage keyboard. They look really cool but, more importantly, have many positive reviews online. I decided that it was finally time to try one.
I've been using the Kinesis for a couple of weeks and really like it. The Cherry brown switches feel as good as the Filco's blue switches but without the noise. I really like the thumb keys and use my pinky fingers much less. I remapped the CTRL and ALT keys to the same positions on both thumb pads. Using Emacs and org-mode is now easier and faster. Most importantly, the wrist pain is fading.
It didn't take as long to adjust to the Kinesis layout as I feared. After a couple of hours, I was typing at my usual rate. Switching back and forth between the Kinesis and regular keyboards does take some adjustment but it appears to be getting easier.
The Kinesis may well be my ideal keyboard. Now I'm wondering when I should consider switching to a Dvorak layout. A challenge for another day.
