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I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

electronicmaterialsoffice.com

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Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#101

Post by mromanuk »

kerblang wrote: post #46

Web site advice: The spinning graphic is cool but it's very hard to get a decent look at the whole thing. I even tried clicking to pause it. It seems like all the pictures are partial or moving. As the keyboard goes: As others have noted, it would be really nice to see this design approach taken to a more full-sized standard keyboard. I think it's necessary to have some kind of tactile thing between function keys - a…

More Website advice:

  - the text is too big
  - Add padding to text and images
  - Add space between elements (look crowded)
  - too much moving stuff: Loose the marquee text
Pictures and videos looks awesome, the product looks superb, love the concept of having different height for keys. Congratulations on your launch!

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#103

Post by Shorel »

tauntz wrote: post #34
Festro wrote: post #2

Looks really nice BUT: There's a split between what people online post pics of on fancy desktop setups and what people prefer to use as their daily driver. Minimal keyboards are for minimalists, and people who like to show of their setups. Just like desktop vanity posts typically have speakers, yet everyone uses headphones. Anecdotally there was a post recently on some PC subreddit asking what keyboard people preferr…

> Only people who didn't WFH much, or didn't have jobs involving any data entry at all could do without a numpad. I'm (mostly) a software dev for 15+ years and I've never felt the need for a numpad. I'm curious now - have I been really lucky that none of my gigs have ever involved any substantial numerical data entry? Do other devs have to constantly do that so it justifies the larger keyboard (which is off-center an…

At the very least, the numeric keyboard should be in the center, so the symmetry is not broken.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#104

Post by okasaki »

Biganon wrote: post #62

The ONLY thing I want from a keyboard (well, the main thing) is the ability to wash it thoroughly. These things become disgusting. I had to buy an old logitech keyboard on ebay, one that's no longer in sale, to have this.

On a mechanical keyboard you can take the key caps off for easy cleaning. Though I just dust my keyboard and it's pretty clean.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#105

Post by D13Fd »

Thoughts:

- Excellent job

- The font choices are bold. They don’t appeal to me personally, but nice job.

- The sunk/raised key caps look nice but I’m not sure how they would perform in practice.

- I couldn’t tell from the website what the second switch on the site does. Maybe USB/Bluetooth?

- My strong preference is a key command for switching from Bluetooth/USB, and that the keyboard keep both active for instant switching. The only keyboard I’ve found that does this well is the micropython-based M60.

- I’m not a fan of the look of the dial. It sticks up too far and looks like something that could break.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#106

Post by reflexco »

layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

Yea, it seems like this footprint could accommodate a 75% design. The big one is the Del key, it's quite inconvenient to have to use a key combo for such a common action. But if the design allows swapping the rotary knob for a Del key then it would be acceptable.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#108

Post by layer8 »

gwd wrote: post #82
layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

> Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I've been using the HHKB keyboard [1] for over a year now, and I absolutely love it. You simply have to re-map your muscle memory for "PgUp" to be a chord (involving the function key naturally). I'd argue…

I’ve used the HHKB for a while in the late 90’s, but in the end it wasn’t for me. Chords tend to trigger my RSI, and a reduced need for chords just means better ergonomics to me.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#109

Post by jeffbr13 »

layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

I very much enjoyed the [Vortex Race 3] which is 75% with all the F-keys and the home/delete/pg key cluster in a line down the right. It works really well and lets you switch between Mac/Windows button order for the CMD/Windows/ctrl buttons in the bottom left through a keyboard shortcut if I remember correctly. It comes with both colourful _and_ grey keys for the clusters! A really handsome and well thought-out keyboard if you want something nice without getting sucked into the keyboard modding rabbit-hole.

Unfortunately a friend spilled coffee on mine, and it's hard to justify buying another one at >£100. And it's often out of stock whenever I do manage to justify it to myself!

[Vortex Race 3]: https://spotonpccases.co.uk/product/vortex-race-3-mechanical...

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#110

Post by vladvasiliu »

Festro wrote: post #44
tauntz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only people who didn't WFH much, or didn't have jobs involving any data entry at all could do without a numpad. I'm (mostly) a software dev for 15+ years and I've never felt the need for a numpad. I'm curious now - have I been really lucky that none of my gigs have ever involved any substantial numerical data entry? Do other devs have to constantly do that so it justifies the larger keyboard (which is off-center an…

I do technical marketing (SEO, ads, analytics) and if I am ever in a spreadsheet I gravitate to the numpad for any numerical data entry. It's like touch-typing, superior way of doing it once you've learnt. No need to use shift for simple calculations, one-handed number typing, using my left hand to tab into the next cell, etc. Customer services teams take down phone numbers and enter financial info better with a nump…

> Perhaps 1% of my day might involve the numpad but I'm not going to ditch the convenience for vanity.

I think the point is that the numpad isn't free if you use the mouse with the right hand. It takes space on your desk, between the actual keyboard and the mouse. This stresses the joints a bit more. You either have to grab the mouse way out to the right, or type with your hands to the left.

So if you only use the numpad "1% of your day", I'd say there are reasonable reasons, outside of vanity, for preferring a keyboard without the numpad.

Sure, if you mainly use the mouse and the keyboard single-handedly (say, like a gamer would), the numpad probably doesn't bother you.

I'm not particularly into "vanity shots" of my desk, but I absolutely curse the full-size keyboard whenever I have to use one.

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