I Like Small Keyboards • Hacker News Board

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#21

Post by benjiro29 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

> I Like Small Keyboards

I like quiet keyboards but finding non-laptop / non-membrane keyboards that do strip the leather from your wallet, is a almost impossible task. Let alone one that does not grow in noise level over time!

There is way too much focus on a entire enthusiastic click click keyboards, but everything that i keep finding, sounds like absolute horrible loud, in a quiet room, where your partner is sleeping in.

And when you find something, its often a import, not in stock, and you get presented with like a $300 bill and no guarantee about quietness after a long time using. Or worse, they changed the keys in between production runs, and its now more louder.

Why am i writing this? Don't know, maybe tired of often wasting hours seeing youtube videos and reviews, and posts about keyboards to just feeling burned out.

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#22

Post by microtonal » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

Quot wrote: post #12

If anyone is looking into ergonomic keyboards, look into a layout other than Qwerty as well. I swapped to the Corne and Colemak-DH at the same time a few years ago. The Corne is beautiful, but I would say swapping to Colemak-DH provided much more ergonomic benefit for me. I love my Corne but I never use it any more because I have to switch to my laptop keyboard too often. I am still able to use an ergo keyboard layou…

I tried probably 10 keyboards in a very short period when I had wrist pains. The Glove80 completely solved it for me and I never have pains anymore. I would rank from highest importance to lowest:

- Regularly exercise, including proper exercise for your hands/arms.

- Height-adjustable desk + good chair, so that you can micro-tune the height to have straight wrists, etc. It should probably be electrically adjustable, my experience is that most people do not properly set the height if it's more effort to change height.

- An ergonomic keyboard. For me, it has to be column-staggered, split, with thumb keys and a key well. I have reviewed some flat keyboards after switching to key well boards, but discomfort comes back after a few days to weeks.

- A keyboard layout. So, this is the part where I disagree with you. Switching to non-QWERTY is maybe the last 5% of optimization. There is one catch though: an alt layout becomes more important when switching to split column stagger, since you cannot alt-finger as easily and the very frequent letters T/N are in a bad position on columnar boards.

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#23

Post by mghackerlady » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

benjiro29 wrote: post #21

> I Like Small Keyboards I like quiet keyboards but finding non-laptop / non-membrane keyboards that do strip the leather from your wallet, is a almost impossible task. Let alone one that does not grow in noise level over time! There is way too much focus on a entire enthusiastic click click keyboards, but everything that i keep finding, sounds like absolute horrible loud, in a quiet room, where your partner is sleep…

Have you tried making your own? Get a board, some switches, some caps, and a soldering iron. Keyboards are great beginner projects

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#24

Post by variadix » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

I personally use a 3x6 Corne for non-gaming tasks. I would recommend it for anyone that uses a keyboard for more than a few hours a day to preemptively reduce the risk of RSI, especially programmers. The small layout and tenting reduce wrist and finger strain significantly, to the point where when I have to use a regular keyboard at work I can quickly notice the pain in my right pinky. If you want something with curved key wells the Dactyl Cygnus is a Corne-like option. I haven’t bothered to try anything smaller since I don’t see the point (for non-steno), as all keys on a 3x6 are within 1u of the home row.

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#25

Post by stronglikedan » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

fyrabanks wrote: post #6

thanks, me too. the one big disadvantage here, if you have to go into an office, is either having to own multiple or transporting your keyboard back and forth every day. there was a period where i was doing standard + ortho Plank + an ErgoDox-like on three different machines and it's a bit of a mindfuck context switching between them. extremely inefficient.

> if you have to go into an office, is either having to own multiple or transporting your keyboard back and forth every day

That's easy. Own multiple. I have three of the same keyboard: one for the office, one for the home office, and one for the couch.

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#26

Post by realityfactchex » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

Keychron K1 Max is the best tenkeyless ultra-slim keyboard IMO, and just about perfect.

I'd say it's a "small keyboard" in width and in height.

Mechanical, can be fairly quiet (with red switches), arrow keys, F keys, home/page keys. Well-built IME. Not exorbitantly priced.

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#27

Post by FacelessJim » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

benjiro29 wrote: post #21

> I Like Small Keyboards I like quiet keyboards but finding non-laptop / non-membrane keyboards that do strip the leather from your wallet, is a almost impossible task. Let alone one that does not grow in noise level over time! There is way too much focus on a entire enthusiastic click click keyboards, but everything that i keep finding, sounds like absolute horrible loud, in a quiet room, where your partner is sleep…

I’ve recently built a GeistGeist Totem. 36 keys, splayed, low profile. With silent kalhi switches.

It’s more silent than membrane keyboards, completely customizable and super lightweight. (Got a carry box that is the size of a small paperback)

You can download all the schematics (also the board) and case files to print them. The assembly requires a bit of soldering. All in all it costed me ~150€ but I printed some extra stuff to try out.

There are also places that sell kits directly so you don’t have to source all bits and pieces yourself

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#28

Post by ndiddy » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

benjiro29 wrote: post #21

> I Like Small Keyboards I like quiet keyboards but finding non-laptop / non-membrane keyboards that do strip the leather from your wallet, is a almost impossible task. Let alone one that does not grow in noise level over time! There is way too much focus on a entire enthusiastic click click keyboards, but everything that i keep finding, sounds like absolute horrible loud, in a quiet room, where your partner is sleep…

Topre keyboards feel nice to type on and are quiet. They're rubber dome but they have the thing most mechanical keyboards have where you don't have to have a key pushed all the way down for it to count as "pressed".

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#29

Post by Konnstann » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

squeedles wrote: post #5

65% is the sweet spot for me. Reaching across a numpad for a mouse aggravates my RSI. I ditched 100% long ago, then eventually ditched the mouse and moved to a laptop-style trackpad in the middle, which did the trick. Over the years, I tried pretty much every keyboard with a built in trackpad. Usually the keyboards were so-so to poor. Eventually I got a plate of 6061 aluminum, added a nice wooden wrist support with r…

The dactyl keyboard family with built in trackballs are way nicer than ones with built in track pads at least from my experience. My personal favorite so far has been a Charybdis from bastardkeyboards. Expensive but I don't need a mouse anymore for being productive.

Re: I Like Small Keyboards

#30

Post by AlexErrant » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

For people who like small keyboards, why do you NOT have an integrated trackball/pointing device? E.g. I love my Charybdis, but I rarely see people advocating for a keyboard with a pointing device. Does a trackball disqualify it as "small"?