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by badlucklottery 3251 days ago
>Topre switches are the best ever

Do you know of a decently built and split design keyboard that uses them? A quick googling didn't show anything. I'd be willing to give it a shot but I'm not going back to a one piece keyboard for anything.

2 comments

I've never seen one unfortunately. I suspect they exist but maybe aren't easily found on english websites.
That's a bummer. I have a Das Keyboard, and love it, but at some point my keyboard obsession will return, and I can't really justify getting a keyboard that isn't split/configurable. It would be great to be able to try out topres at the same time – the enthusiasm is strong!
Offtopic(ish), but do you mean like the MS ergonomic keyboard split-but-one-piece, or actually two separate pieces? If the latter, what do you like about them?
>do you mean like the MS ergonomic keyboard split-but-one-piece, or actually two separate pieces?

The MS ergo keyboard isn't wide enough for me but I'm not against a one-piece design. I just recently switched to a Kinesis Advantage2 (split-but-one-piece) at home but I have a straight two-piece keyboard at work. The width I keep the two-piece at is a bit wider than the Advantage but it's not enough to bother me.

>If the latter, what do you like about them?

The main issue for me is that I'm 6'6" and have broad shoulders. Normal keyboard layouts cause me to roll my shoulders dramatically so I can get my hands on the home keys. This caused some shoulder pain issues in the past when I had code-heavy weeks. Split configuration seems to have fixed that completely.

Don't physically split keyboards allow for more extreme flexibility?

Single piece split keyboards still restrict the angle of your wrists. I find the MS ergo keyboards to better by default, but having the ability to adjust the angle opens the possibility of finding an even better angle (that may change over time).