Hello adn welcome to my plea for help! I’ve been PC gaming for a very long time, and in the beginning I used a split dome keyboard, it was fine for what it was. I switched back to standard keyboards though and have been using them for years. I’ve been a fan of corsair mechanical keyboards for the last 15 years, the last 4 with rapid fire switches.
My issue is, due to the angle my left hand tends to rest on WASD my pink is at an angle when I press shift or control, it never bothered me over the years. But it’s starting to cause pain in the joint, probably do the pinky not lining up straight with the movement of the key press, so that the joint in the pinky and getting stress in a direction it isn’t supposed to get.
When I joined Lemmy I saw a lot of posts from this community, but after the pinky problem I started wondering if a split mechanical keyboard would help, I think a more ergonomic position for my hand helps with the pinky placement.
Which brands are worth checking out? Do they have “rapid fire” or “silver” switches available? I got used to the very short key travel before it activates and I’d love to try out an ergo mechanical with the same type of switches.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, this problem is pretty damn distressing, I don’t want to be hobbled in relation to my favorite hobbie.
I don’t have too much experience with ergonomic keyboards, but I’ve been using a Glove80 for several months now and I love it! I’m actually quite impressed at how comfortable it is for games too. They keys are easy to reach and the thumb cluster makes for easier access to modifiers. I’ve always been an ESDF gamer though, so with remapping movement controls the keyboard feels very natural.
I got mine with the red switches and I like it. Not sure what other switches they have though.
I have an erhpdox ez, you van choose switches when you bit it, you can also get the board itself and 3d print a case.
You can have of ship with ghr switches you want as well they offer the silver ones
Clearly you need more practice with it 😏
No this is from my phone where 99% of my time on Lemmy is spent
- It was a joke
- Maybe proof read your messages before you send them. It was FULL of mistakes.
For gaming you can usually get away with just the left half of a split ergo (depending on game of course!). Then you can still use a normal keyboard for text input.
I have an Ergodox EZ from ZSA and have been really impressed with both the keyboard and the company. I got mine with Silent Reds but later swapped out for some clickier Zilent switches. Switches are easy to swap, so you have a lot of options there.
When I got mine, there was an issue with it losing connection (I think the USB port solders had broken) and ZSA support was really easy to work with.
Do you use the Ergodox EZ for gaming? If so, how is it?
Not extensively, the keyboard is at work right now, but I’ve fired up a few things to try it out. It’s a well-built mechanical keyboard and performs like you’d expect in that regard. Ortholinear key placement takes a bit of getting used to, but it doesn’t take long to build that new muscle memory. By the time you’re typing comfortably on it, gaming would likely be fine.
Thank you for the extra info! The non-uniform placement of the keys was my concern as well. I feel like it’d work well, but then have doubts as well. I have enough room to keep my standard corsair mechanical hooked up and in reach too in case it’s needed.
I do and it works great in my experience
Update
Ok, I’ve dug into each option! I think I’m leaning toward trying out the Ergodox EZ! My only hurdle know is, I love cherry mx speed silver switches after having used them for years, but the Ergodox EZ can’t have back lit keys and cherry mx speed silver switches. It looks like that might just be down to what Ergrodox has access too because cherry mx rgb speed switches definitely exist and can be purchased.
So I might buy a backlit Ergodox EZ and buy a set of cherry mx speed silvers and swap them. I’m still mildly concerned about getting used to the keyboard, but the idea I can just keep my old keyboard hooked up for work is reassuring. I do a lot of navigation and cursor/selection using arrow keys, hold shift, home, end etc and those muscle memory movements won’t work with the Ergodox EZ.
Thanks to everyone for the helpful information!
The muscle memory movements take a while to retrain. It took about a month of daily usage (45mins of straight typing a day on average) to get to where I was on a “normal” keyboard. The Epistory game was a fun way to train on it
I think I’ll do okay with actual typing, but sightless pressing of the arrow keys to move a cursor around, hold shift, and tap end to highlight a whole sentence, that’ll take a long time to retrain. I placed my order, so I guess in 2 weeks I’ll find out!
I have a ZSA Moonlander and lily58. Both are great! I think an ortholinear and split board will help you out a bit. Regarding switches, ZSA has several options you can select, including Kalih Silver. You should be looking at boards that have “hot swap” meaning you can easily change the switches.
If you’re looking for something with short key travel but mechanical, something that supports choc switches should be on your list. Although the options for keyboards and for switches will be quite reduced.
Reading into the ZSA Moonlander, it looks great, I think it’d be comfortable and easy to get used to for me. I see some reviews saying it has up to 16ms latency though, have you noticed any latency, do any gaming?
It definitely is comfortable! I game a little now, I did a lot more in the past. Can’t say I really noticed any high latency, but I’m not a pro gamer by any means.
I appreciate all the great information! I’m looking into each keyboard suggested and seeing if I feel like it’ll work well for my use case. I’m wondering if as @hellweaver666@discuss.tchncs.de mentioned, just getting the left hand portion of the keyboard would be best. I work from home as well, and my corsair doesn’t bother me at all for typing while working, and I use the DEL, HOME, Page Up and Page Down, and End keys, and numerical pad constantly.
I have a friend who uses a Cyborg, which looks extra crazy to me, but with as customizable as it is, it looks like it might help too with gaming: https://store.azeron.eu/
