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It was very good about 5 years ago, and is still quite comfortable.

However I would say that today this has largely been superseded by a myriad of better choices. For the adventurous type there's e.g. Dactyl Manuform. If one does not care so much for the keywell there's Lily 58, Iris or Kyria. For built-in tenting there's ZSA Moonlander, Redox etc.

All of these have better customizability, repairability and portability than a Kinesis Advantage.

Want to try diffent key switches? Use hot-swap sockets.

Want wireless? Drop in a nice!nano microcontroller.

Want to create a crazy custom key layout or macros? You can do anything you want in QMK and flash it to the microcontrollers.



I own a Kinesis Advantage 2, a Lily, and a Corne, and tried a Dactyl Manuform. IMO the Kinesis still wins hands down. I’ve tried dozens of keyboards but the Kinesis is the one I will always go back to.

Why? To be blunt, I don’t care at all about fancy keyswitches, or wirelessness, or portability. I’m simply looking for the most comfortable input device possible.

If non-ergonomic rubber dome keyboards feel like plastic chairs, all of the other keyboards you mentioned feel like fancy wooden chairs. Some of them might be incredibly well-crafted and contour to your body! But the Kinesis feels like a top-of-the-line high-tech massage chair. I’ve tried dozens and dozens of ergonomic keyboards —- and even made one, by designing a PCB and printing it out —- but at the end of the day, the Kinesis is the keyboard I will ALWAYS reach for.


What do you think makes it different from the others then? Is it the keywell?


The curves of the keywells, the integrated wrist rest, the thumb buttons placement, the tenting angle, etc. is unmatched.


There’s a project to replace the board in the Kinesis with a QMK-driven one. One day I’ll get around to it.

https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-07-09-kint-kinesis-...




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