I've had my eye on a few 40% builds as of late, so I'll throw another option into your list here: portability. I'm looking for a keyboard that I can throw in my laptop bag that isn't miserable to type on. I had a Microsoft Designer Keyboard for a while but it's worse than my laptop keyboard, so I'm back to the drawing board, and this seems like where I'm landing.
I built a 40% keyboard a while back somewhat for the fun of it. I can type on it, but honestly it's difficult. Hunt and peck style, sure - speed typing, not yet.
I could not live without my 60% keyboards anymore. I have one for at home and one for at work, and I'll never use a full-sized keyboard anymore. They feel so clunky and take up unnecessary space.
The next board I'll be building will be a 40% board (Hopefully the minivan [0) though I don't think I will use it for coding. My main use for it will be just typing tests and recreational use.
Yep. Ive spent a lot of time looking at the keyboard space and part of the reason i started the subreddit was that there werent many projects, let alone things I could just buy off the shelf, that were fairly portable and ergonomic.
Theres already a number of travel-friendly high end standard layout keyboards (Ive used the Nuphy f1 for the past year which is nice (and was essential to my portable raised tablet setup), but I miss my Kinesis Freestyle split keyboard that was great but impractical to travel with)
I built my own portable mechanical keyboard for precisely this reason; I got spoiled by a nice board at home only to be filled with disappointment every time I went out for a change of scenery at the coffee shop. Now I've got something that almost fits in the pocket, has a nice split angling of the columns, and is designed to work with Emacs from the ground up. (lots of thumb keys)
This is my #1 priority now that I'm in the market for a new keyboard. I lose so much typing efficiency when switching between laptops, so functionality or comfort is no longer a leading factor for me.
I like to carry a keyboard around with my laptop - especially since it's a convertible, so when on a desk, it's easy to just flip the screen and use it with a keyboard and mouse.
Subjective preferences (optional, to keep the discussion generally useful): I like tenkeyless size for compactness, I use UK layout (large Enter) and a wireless/bluetooth option would be nice.
I had the Corsair K63 until now, which is great, but the keys fall out very easily (like, without force, even in bag) which makes it fragile to carry around - especially with its weight.
Thanks, I really want something more like a Psion keyboard but a tad smaller to fit in the dimensions I have available, there is no room for any wasted space but I want to be able to input shell commands easily and dislike the idea I'd have to fold and unfold a keyboard to have a good typing experience. I already have a poor quality rubber dome keyboard with no scissor switch mechanism so it's not like a laptop experience like on a Psion.
I feel like you're out of the loop when it comes to keyboard nerds. Check out the dactyl-manuform [0]. The days of tiny 40/60 keyboards are gone, they aren't cool anymore (joking of course, use what you want).
Built a LilyPad kit. I found it too tall for my liking, so went back to my old Dell keyboard.
I have parts for a low-profile Bluetooth keyboard laying on my desk. I couldn't find an existing design I liked. Just waiting for inspiration/time to design the PCB... It'll come.
Drevo Gramr 84 - it's a 75% keyboard - very compact yet have all keys necessary. It's really cheap on aliexpress but worth every penny (I've got 2, both works flawlessly since ~2014). The only downside can be the fact that if you would like to customize it, you would need 3 or 4 special keys (right alt, fn, ctrl, shift) since they're in the same size as regular keyboard/letter keys.
I did the whole keyboard must be perfect thing a few years back. I realised I had wasted more time researching and testing keyboards they I could ever save during the left of my working life heh.
Now a nice keyboard is something you want to have but as long as it has some key travel I am good to go. I don't like mushy keys too much though.
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