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

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281–290 of 688 posts

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

#281

This looks so, so good. I'm weak to all things minimal + chic. This looks like a mini mech keyboard done by Teenage Engineering, in the best kinda way. I'm not saying it looks derivative, but I wouldn't be surprised if they saw this and wish they made it themselves. They don't hold a monopoly on this look, need, and aesthetic penchant to go in this direction. I'm more of a "full-size keyboard with numeric pad" typa p…

Thank you, I am a huge Teenage Engineering fan so that is a big complement!

Perhaps a larger board or separate numpad could come down the line if there is enough interest.

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

#282

Is it possible to remove the 'rotary encoder'? As someone who often carries his keyboard around in a backpack, I think this part can break very easily.

I hadn't considered that but you raise a good point. I'll look into it.

I think the rotary knob is cool, despite not having a use for it myself at the moment (I could probably think of one). Is it possible to just reduce the height? Maybe make the knob interchangeable?

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

#283
Keyboard looks great but no insert-delete-home-end cluster means an instant no from me in any keyboard, how do you people move without those keys? I've cringed enough in my life seeing people pressing the arrow keys and waiting 5-20 seconds while the cursor traverse an entire phrase/paragraph.

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

#284
post #51

First off, I love the design. I signed up for updates, etc. To me, this is missing an opportunity to be ortholinear - a grid instead of the standard finger straining zigzag pattern. That’s an ergonomic feature you can fit in a low profile keyboard. I think the grid would harmonize quite well with your design aesthetic while adding another feature on top of “pretty and slim”. I am the sort of person who buys every vag…

I don’t personally like ortholinear boards, I think they only solve half of the problem. Columnar stagger is the way to go, no more claw hand pose.

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

#285
post #51

First off, I love the design. I signed up for updates, etc. To me, this is missing an opportunity to be ortholinear - a grid instead of the standard finger straining zigzag pattern. That’s an ergonomic feature you can fit in a low profile keyboard. I think the grid would harmonize quite well with your design aesthetic while adding another feature on top of “pretty and slim”. I am the sort of person who buys every vag…

I don’t agree on the ortholinear point, at least for the v1 product. The fact is you are cutting out a lot of people by going with a non-standard layout. This is the same point made by Dygma to explain why they didn’t go down that route.

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

#286
It's a beautiful keyboard, no doubt, and I'm sure a lot of care and thought went into making it. For me, having no page up/down buttons (and you do have space for them), is a deal breaker. I can forgive the weird mac-like squiggle button on the top left although it's completely useless to me (and most people I assume), but not the lack of Page Up/Down. I actually use those.

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

#288
post #262

There's a lot of criticism in the comments here, some of it feels very negative. I can imagine reading it as the OP is quite demoralising. Personally I think what the OP has achieved is very impressive. The design looks beautiful, and there's a very "Apple-esque" feel to the website. I love that sustainability has been made a requirement as part of the design. I think some of the other comments give good feedback abo…

The problem is that these things are deeply personal. And this one is really, really close to what I'd want myself. Yet... I still wouldn't buy it. Here's what I'm using right now (actually I have the wireless version which they recently stopped producing): https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb... But I couldn't deal without the trackpoint, which I use regularly for simple mouse actions even wh…

Its designed for apple and not windows. Note the presence of a command key. Apple calls the backspace key a delete key even though its not. (It may do delete as a shift option.)

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

#290
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the exact opposite pref. In most of Europe ISO layout (with various country-specific accents) are standard and it can be hard to find a US (ANSI) layout (with horizontal rather than vertical Enter). In the Netherlands, most brands seem to default US layout, but some (most notably Logitech and Apple) still default to ISO, with a thin vertical Enter. Even "International English" (Apple) or "International America…

US-ANSI keyboards are easily available in Denmark (double check the manufacture's model number though). - https://www.computersalg.dk/l/1428/tastaturer?f=71324fc8-e92... - https://www.proshop.dk/Tastatur?pre=0&f~tastaturer_sprog=amk...

Logitech's "US International" keyboards have ISO layout (vertical Enter, short left shift), not ANSI.
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