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I've used both the Ergodox and Moonlander. In general, I think both keyboards have poor thumb clusters. The Moonlander has the big red buttons that you can't press while keeping your hands in normal typing position. The Ergodox has the 4 1U keys that are also hard to press. The Ergodox has 1.5U keys between the hands (like to the right of T,G,B, and to the left of Y,H,N), while the moonlander just has 1U keys next to T,G and Y,H. I found the 1.5U keys much easier to press than the 1U keys. (Try typing "RGB" on a QWERTY keyboard; it's really not that easy to make your pointer finger responsible for 12 equally-sized keys.) As a result, I moved backspace from the 1.5U key next to H,N to a thumb key. The thumb isn't as fast for rapid motions as the pointer finger is, so I notice backspace being a little more cumbersome than necessary. But, I don't really think about it anymore, so it's not a big deal. (I do see my usage of the 1U keys falling off, though. I used have _- and =+ on them, and I find myself going for shift-= instead of the dedicated + key. I think that's because my Ergodox didn't have a + key, that was backspace, and I never learned it.) Both the Ergodox EZ and Moonlander have godawful tenting. But the Moonlander lets you fix it because it has an array of threaded inserts on the back that you can screw a proper tent to. I use this thing https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4769961 and love it. Generally the Moonlander is quite appealing. I use it every day and it's great. (I did replace the switches with Zilents. I always use weird switches on my keyboards.) But I'm looking at the Advantage 360 and think they've done a really job, so it's definitely a third option to consider. Finally, I've experimented with other designs. I made a 107 key keyboard (I call it the Ergorocks 107) that is Ergodox-like, but has 3 1U switches for the thumb clusters, a number pad in the middle, and F keys above the number keys. I fucked up the angle of the thumb keys, and found the numpad in the middle hard to use. I made it take a standard keyset, though, so you don't have to hunt for "Ergo" keysets. You can use any normal keyset! If this is interesting to anyone, I might make a second iteration with the bugs fixed. (It's entirely 3D printed. Don't let people tell you 3D printed keyboards are bad, they're great. PLA is honestly a great keyboard material; very rigid and pretty quiet.) |