if you're still young, learn dvorak as soon as possible and when you're wise, you won't be crippled like these folks praising this keyboard.
Kinesis Advantage 360
271–280 of 339 posts
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#272This is one of the most frustrating product pages I've ever seen. All I want to see is high resolution photos of the keyboard from the top and back. The top view image is 400x300 pixels. The design looks nice, but not having function keys is a major turn-off. This is a keyboard for professionals, it should have a full complement of keys. Edit: Found the large picture via url hacking! https://kinesis-ergo.com/wp-conte…
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Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#273Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#274I must be the only person on HN that dislikes my Kinesis Advantage 2. I bought one in 2021 after the ZSA Moonlander didnt quite meet my expectations. While the keywell idea is amazing, i found that the two halves of the keyboard weren't angled towards each other enough and I still had very painful ulnar deviation. This wasn't helped by it being so far off the keyboard tray. I don't understand how someone can use the…
>While the keywell idea is amazing, i found that the two halves of the keyboard weren't angled towards each other enough and I still had very painful ulnar deviation.
The big change with this one is it looks like tenting angle, cant and separation are completely configurable in this iteration, so if anything this one might help the issues you've had.
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#275I picked up a Kinesis a few month ago and it's been a life changer. I've struggled with shoulder pain since as far back as I can remember. I'd done PT, dry needling, massage, etc etc. I'd even sprung for a personal ergonomic assessment. I'm a cyclist and and keyboard jockey, so most of my waking life is spent in positions that seemed to make it worse. At times it prevented me from sleeping, doing things I enjoyed, et…
Did your doctors or therapists consider Thoracic Outlet Syndrome? I've struggled with severe pain in shoulders, arms, hands and fingers for several years. It was sort of discovered by accident. They removed both of my first ribs (rib resection) and in combination with a Kinesis keyboard and a Wacom pen and tablet as a mouse replacement it's much better now. Unfortunately, the solution came a bit late. The strain on m…
Wow! Another TOS survivor. Despite all the RSI talk in the programming community, I still find it very rare that someone is actually diagnosed, let alone, goes through TOS. However, I do suspect that its prevalence is higher than estimated in this target community.
TOS killed my programming career. It ruined my life and brought me untold mental and physical pain. At one point I couldn't use my arms for more than thirty minutes a day. Even taking a shower was exhausting. I underwent two surgeries, one two remove the ribs and muscles entrapping my nerves. After the first surgery things were good for awhile, my hands were no longer purple (due compression on the vein/artery) and I could actually use a keyboard again. Unfortunately scar tissue grew over my nerves and entrapped them again. At this point I required a second surgery to remove the tissue, which worked quite well and enabled my to use my arms again. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect in life and I still have some tissue that is interfering with my neck and causing chronic pain for which I take a variety of medications for. I currently work a low end job in health care because I can't sit at a desk for 8 hours a day without substantial pain (trust me I've tried everything, at this point I could open an ergonomic store).
I just want to give a shout out to a fellow TOS victim, especially one in the tech world. It's a very rare condition and it's very damaging (imaging not being able to touch your phone without pain) and I wish there was more awareness.
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#276Aaaand despite costing a small fortune and being sturdy….it has to have a ‘Windows’ key. It baffles me how that persists.
With the Advantage 2 you got 4 extra keycaps in the box: 3 Mac keys and an additional Alt key to replace the Windows one.
For the Advantage 360 they're saying 11 additional keycaps in the box. I'm sure one of those is a Windows key replacement.
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#277Sadly, no dedicated F-row. I would even settle for a subset of keys that aligned with the columns. I do not consider layers an adequate replacement. Happy to see they are moving away from their own software configuration. Not a fan of the software interface on the Freestyle Pro. More than once I have gotten myself into a loop where I am unsure which function mode is activated and how to switch back to what I want. I…
I use 65% keyboards almost exclusively these days. No numpad, pgdn/up/home/end cluster or function key row. Function keys are on the number row with a Fn modifier (Fn+1 for F1). You get used to it in about half an hour. It becomes second nature in less than a week. It makes the keyboard much more compact, which is definitely a plus. Less hand movement, less deskspace consumed, lighter.
It's good to reduce keyboard width because we need to put pointing device somewhere near. But reducing height isn't sense for me because vertical space isn't matter at all. I don't strongly need F1-12 keys but prefer to have because nothing is harmed by having dedicated keys.
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Moonlander is also missing F-keys? People can swear up and down how intuitive and natural layers are, but I do not care. If there is ever a decision to be made between more and fewer keys, I always want to default to more.
Keyboard people are a bit too enthusiastic about cutting out a few dozen keys only to add them back in layers.
Agreed. It's fair that remapping keys is great to reduce moving hands in some cases, but it not mean dedicated keys aren't needed. I prefer to have both. Remapping feature is confused to reducing keys.
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Surely you don't expect people using keyboards without dedicated function keys (or number rows) are aiming to never need to use those keys? I could imagine that some people never use the function keys. Or never use the numpad keys. To some people they might be completely useless... Which would make a smaller keyboard understandable. Now, people who do need all those keys and yet still go for a smaller keyboard is h…
> I could imagine that some people never use the function keys. Or never use the numpad keys. To some people they might be completely useless... Which would make a smaller keyboard understandable. > > Now, people who do need all those keys and yet still go for a smaller keyboard is harder for me to understand. :) Right, I don't think anyone goes "I need these keys, I should get a smaller keyboard". But, no one is say…
My conspiracy is that DIY keyboard builder want to solder less parts as possible.
Re: Kinesis Advantage 360
#280> Weight: 3.2 pounds That seems like a lot. Any keyboard experts feel like explaining why a good keyboard is heavier than a laptop?
Stability.