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Ergonomic keyboards ease strain when one is typing a lot, which can easily happen when one types for a living. They are a necessity for many who end up with wri
by Jd 15y ago
Ergonomic keyboards ease strain when one is typing a lot, which can easily happen when one types for a living. They are a necessity for many who end up with wrist strain (I had my first serious episode at age 17, another one at age 22, and another one at age 24).
They also can enable you to type faster. This isn't very important for coding, but it may be important in a variety of other contexts depending on what you do. I've been trying to push over 90 awpm myself.
Here are the keyboards I've had and tried:
MS Natural Elite, classic, affordable, does everything right. I feel the same way about this keyboard as I do the classic MS intellimouse, which was superceded by (IMO) inferior products. The spacebar felt a bit loose and broke on me a couple of times.
MS 4000, never felt as smooth to me as the Natural Elite, but easier to obtain. I think they made the spacebar more stable, but not as easy to reach. I was in the habit of putting my natural elite in my lap and pounding away, the adjusted curvature of this model didn't allow this and otherwise annoyed me.
Kinesis Advantage, major price tag and major pain to use if you have to use a mouse periodically. Also more difficult to adjust to. That said, gives you a slight advantage w/ typing speed (+10 or so words per minute) and allows you to easily touch type the numbers, something that very few people can do. Also, very very comfortable.
Do you really need an ergonomic keyboard? Depends on what you do. I predominately use a laptop keyboard (on my 13" Air) these days and haven't had a major issue with strain for some years, largely because (I assume) I do other wrist intensive exercises (primarily yoga). That said, if I ever did something again where I really needed to push 100 wpm, esp. over an extended period of time, I would definitely crack out my ergo keyboards.
- steventruong 15y agoThey also can enable you to type faster. Do you happen to have any reputable references for this? I'm truly curious. For years people have continually spread the idea that typing on an ergonomic keyboard could allow you to type faster but it seems like everyone spreading the message are people who heard it from others and/or just relaying the message without any real evidence that suggests so (or maybe I just never personally came across any). I have friends who type in the 130-150 wpm range using a standard keyboard, and I myself border around 100, so its hard for me to believe that switching to an ergonomic keyboard naturally means it'll allow me (or anyone else) to type faster. As a matter of fact, I've tried years ago to get use to them purely for speed reasons and no matter what I did, my type speed decreased drastically. It was awkward and even after giving it a chance for a few weeks, I just gave up. While I can agree with the wrist ailments it aims to solve, I often wonder if the type speed thing is a perception. For the record, I briefly tried to Google something on the subject before writing a response here, and came up with nothing (admittedly didn't try too hard however). This thread sort of peaked my old interest in this speed typing debate if you will.
- Jd 15y agoYep, I'm about 110 wpm without adjustment last time I clocked on a regular keyboard, but I can't maintain this for long periods of time. I suspect that ergonomic keyboards allow you to maintain high speeds, not necessarily to reach them. I don't personally don't find myself slower on, for instance, my old natural elite. My only written reference is the material by "ergonomic experts" included with my Kinesis Advantage -- a bit on the unreliable side. Would love to know if you and Google can turn up anything else.