Can you recommend a cheap split keyboard? I'm not sinking 300$ to discover I hate it
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Keychron has a cheap one
This is just ads with extra steps
So is this the new trend after 60% mechanical keyboards, ultrawide monitors or immutable distros ?
Maybe it would improve my typing speed, but I've been using a conventional keyboard layout for so long now, I'm fine with where I'm at. Almost thirty years of muscular memory made it "hard coded" in my hands.
You don't use a spilt keyboard set to colemak exclusively running Emacs weird
Sawme here! Honmestly I dom"t thinkl I coukd ever go vack tp a mormal keyboard ¶¶¶¶
Recently bought a CharaChorder, haven't mastered it yet but it is promising.
I think one of my favorite keyboards ever was a Microsoft “Natural” keyboard. I think they were available in the mid ’90s or so. Not quite a real split keyboard, but the ergonomics were great. I think I gave it away…it was great for typing, but I wanted a simpler keyboard for gaming.
the one with the biiig built in "leather" wrist rest? loved that thing!
I use a knock off ergonomic keyboard from adesso. 60% of the time, it works every time.
You can still get them on Amazon for like $40 if you ever decide you want to relive the split key glory days.
Fun fact: that's Elijah Wood and it's his first film role
As long as it's got mech switches and can run a qwerty layout I'm happy
That's ok, insanity comes in many forms.
When I was a kid, I got my hands on a PS/2 Y-adapter and so typed on two keyboards - left hand on one on my desk, right hand on one on a keyboard tray. I don't know what my typing speed and accuracy were then, but a few years back an entire office of people tried to beat me in a typing test and couldn't. Since then I've taken a typing test on a laptop while sitting in a hotel bed and gotten a score of 158 with, IIRC, 98.2% accuracy. (This was my best score but even since then all of my typing evaluations have gone well.)
I also use a trackball as exclusively as my environment allows, including while gaming (other than Minecraft). I'm not remotely a pro, but among my peers I tend to score highly in, for example, FPS'.
I'm not trying to brag; there are many better than I in both categories. The reason I bring these up is to demonstrate that something being the convention doesn't automatically make it better and something being unfit for your preferences doesn't make it inferior.
edit: AFAIK, I only have one left hand.
Which trackball? I was looking at them the other day but couldn't decide
My favorite has always been the Kensington Orbit. Probably a lot of people - even those who like Trackballs - would disagree, but I've been happily using these for around 25 years. Except in Minecraft.
Why are you so vehemently opposed to the use of trackballs in minecraft?
I wouldn't characterize it as vehemence, but rather a combination of consistency and honesty. People are fairly consistently surprised at my enthusiasm for gaming with trackballs, as though it's automatically a detriment; I don't find it to be so, except in Minecraft, so I don't want to represent it as other than it is.
With the style of trackball I use - ball in the middle, left and right click on their respective sides of the ball - and the way I use it - thumb on left click, index and middle finger on the ball, ring and pinky on right click - right clicking can be a stressor. This isn't a problem when tapping once or holding, such as when engaging a scope; but when repeatedly right clicking, it tires whatever muscles and tendons run between the outside of my hand and my shoulder, which already has its own problems.
Minecraft is the only game I play that requires me to repeatedly right click. (I know that now you can right click and drag to place lots of blocks, but that hasn't always been true and doesn't really allow for precision in my experience.) Therefore, it is the only game to which I feel my trackball is not well suited.
Have you considered remapping that control away from right click?
My mouse has five inputs: left click, right click, scroll wheel (not including clicking), ball movement and emulated middle clicking by simultaneously clicking left and right.
I can't see any of those being better than right clicking and neither a keyboard nor a controller seem preferable.
edit: correct a word.
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