I don’t think anyone would challenge me on the assertion that ‘ergonomic keyboards look a little weird’. However, that’s not the thing that has kept me away from them for, well, ever. It’s that they feel weird. There are many types, of course, but mostly they’re designed to keep your hand in the same position, and perhaps slightly elevated. They all come with their own learning curves, and I frankly just don’t want to shape up how I type. I still use QWERTY, and I don’t touch type. For shame, I know.
That’s not to say there aren’t benefits to swapping to a keyboard that aligns with how your arms traditionally sit. It’s partly an acknowledgement that I do plenty of other things in unergonomic ways, and don’t necessarily know if the swap will be worth the effort (and price).
Luckily, the PC Gamer office had the aforementioned C959 Ergo TKL in a closet, and I thought it would be the perfect time to blow the dust off the box, get it plugged in, and finally make the swap.
Other than the fact that you need to plug this keyboard in a very specific way, and the fact that drivers failed to update and entirely tanked the keyboard for a day, the swap was relatively easy when it comes to actually typing. My model has two halves that are split, but can be snapped together to feel closer to a traditional keyboard. Of course, you still get the benefits of an ergonomic keyboard, with a space in the middle so you don’t have to cross your arms too much and wrist rests to keep your hands at an angle.
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Some of the bigger hurdles in making the swap involve where I naturally place my palms and which keys I hit with which fingers. For instance, I’m very used to hitting the ‘B’ key with my right hand, as there are four keys to the left of it and two on the right, in a standard QWERTY layout. This means I often went to hit the ‘B’ and was greeted by empty air.
Learning to properly touch type would certainly help me with ergonomic keyboards, though that’s a pretty big learning curve. I tend to lay my right pointer finger around the ‘H’ and the left pointer finger between ‘D’ and ‘F’. Learning to use more of the keyboard with my left hand was a struggle
But that struggle only really lasted a day until I was totally comfortable with the Cloud Nine. I think my ergonomics are particularly bad normally, as I have a twitch, which can affect my fingers. Strain in my hands is often exacerbated by my own desire to move them, which can make long days typing a literal pain.
This pain is definitely an infrequent occurrence that is, like many twitches, worsened by stress, but I can say the ergonomic has not added to that pain since I’ve had it. Part of that, I think, is that it encourages you to plant your hands. In a traditional keeb, I often hover for quicker access to keys, and a better stretch, but my ergonomic keyboard, from its slanted wrist rests to its position of keys, really wants you to just sit still.
In a traditional workday typing, the only time I’ve really had to swap up my positioning is when I’ve gone to adjust the big volume key that sits in between the two halves of the keyboard. Even then, I think I could use it with a thumb and some practice.
It’s when I started gaming that I noticed the real downside, though. In Red Dead Redemption 2, you have to hit H to whistle for your horse. ‘H’ is on the right keyboard, so it’s tough to hit with my hand on my mouse. Pretty much anything left of ‘G’, ‘T’, or ‘B’ is a real stretch while gaming, and not all that ergonomic in practice.
This means I’ve had to either adjust keys to fit on my mouse or the left side of the keyboard, or do without them in most cases. In some slower-paced games where the map is ‘M’, I could leisurely lift my left hand over and hit the key, but it’s not massively viable in most games (and a tad uncomfortable).
It’s worth noting that the Cloud Nine I’ve got my hands on is more gamer-centric than many other ergonomic keyboards. Though the two sides are detached, they snap together, and the keys are laid out in a traditional QWERTY fashion. This is to say that I suspect the likes of the Naya Create, Asus ROG Falcata, and even the reportedly brilliant Kinesis Gaming Freestyle Edge RGB to pose more of a difficulty to me.
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Ergonomic keyboards also exist in the form of the Kinesis mWave, which is just on board, but with a slant on the bottom and space in the middle to separate your two hands. I feel this one would fare worse in my hands. I feel that, with the Cloud Nine, I’ve got the lowest barrier to entry out of any of the ergonomic keyboards I can find.
This is before mentioning ortholinear keyboards like the ZSA Moonlander, which has straight keys and slanted remappable buttons. Frankly, this is too big a learning curve for me to want to commit the time right now, and too niche for me to put up that upfront cost. Maybe in the future, as a deal catches my eye, I could make the change.
Though gaming on an ergonomic keyboard certainly isn’t impossible, and it’s about the same as a standard keyboard when it comes to games heavily reliant on WASD and surrounding keys, there’s definitely a tradeoff here. It’s one that might make for a better gaming posture and less strained wrists, though. See, being able to split the board in half means you can keep your mouse and keyboard closer, which is part of why people like compact keyboards. I’m certainly drawn to its versatility in ways, even if that darn ‘M’ button is too far away.
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I have thought about using one keyboard for the day and one for the night, like the geekiest Jekyll and Hyde, but frankly, that’s too much effort. My desk is simply not big enough to justify constantly swapping, and I like my setup to stay the same most of the time. If I happened to have separate work and play setups, I would certainly commit to this, but take one look at the cost of gaming PCs right now, and you’ll understand why that’s not possible.
So, after a few weeks without my very first ergonomic keyboard, I can confidently say the swap was so much easier than I thought it would be. The slant on the keys and the way it makes you separate your hands from each other is really not that far off a standard keyboard. But is it better for gaming? I think not. It’s a tad clunky and needs some customising (and a few unused buttons) to avoid big stretches to hit certain keys.
But what I can say is that my heart is now open to the perfect ergonomic gaming keyboard. I’m not intimidated by the notion of splitting my keyboard in half, and I think the right one is definitely out there for me. Just keep the Azeron hand-shaped keyboard away from me. I don’t think I can quite stomach that one just yet.
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