Very impressive. Due to my work at the moment, the sight of the CE mark gave me an instant headache though.
Why?
I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
31–40 of 688 posts
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#32The typography is hideous.
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> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#33Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#34Looks 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 and is awkward to use on a laptop)?
From personal experience, I'd assume that jobs that require non-trivial amount of numerical data entry are (I've been 100% WFH for the past 5 years and I'm not sure how that related to the numpad / no nupad discussion?)
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#35Everyone 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 useful to color the function keys differently in groups of four (cf. the standard PC layout).
I’d also rather do without an Fn key, as it messes up muscle memory from regular desktop keyboards.
I like the idea of using different key shapes for the number row and the cursor keys for tactile recognition, although I’d have to try it to see if those shapes are any good for actual typing. I feel that slightly concave keycaps will always be the best.
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#36Looks great and I'll keep my eyes peeled for when you launch. Rotary encoder is an interesting idea. (Presumably reporting a key-press for each click left and right?)
I know you're only at prototype stage, but visually I'd say the giant numbers are a bit jarring, and having some but not all of the Fxx labels displaced from centre on the function keys depending on whether there's a symbol there too looks a bit strange.
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#37Very nice.
You'll have a hard time pitching this to some "hard core keyboardists", but don't forget that this keyboard is for you, not for them. If you don't want an ergonomic layout, or split and tenting, or an ANSII enter key, or Cherry keys, then so be it. This looks like a great project and a very good implementation.
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#38This is excellent, my feedback:
- The numbers are too large, they break the consistency of typography.
- The rotary encoder sticks out too much. Rotate & move to the end of the enclosure, and mostly occlude it, like a mouse scroll wheel?
- I would prefer Page Up/Down and numpad.
Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
#39I think it looks beautiful, but have to echo the comments about not having the home, end, pgup, pgdown + numpad keys making it impractical. Would 100% get this if it had a full sized version.
I believe it is mac-inspired, where cmd/alt+arrow are usually used for that.
But overall, yeah, people split around mac/60, tkl and full. No idea why keyboard makers tend to fix on only one of them. Budget reasons - yeah, but isn’t it strange to cut off large parts of potential customers.