Which Keyboard to Buy?

The TouchStream is going to be moving over to the laptop soon, so I'm looking at a couple of possibilities for new ergonomic keyboards for the PC. I like the TouchStream but I like to try new things, too.  I'm thinking of renting a couple from Solutions for Humans to try them out. Rental fees are a little steep though ($65), especially after you factor in shipping costs both ways. I may just haunt eBay for a while.  The two I'm currently considering are the OrbiTouch and the Kinesis Contoured Keyboard. I'll keep you all appraised and throw up a review of whatever keyboard I grab (or rent).

Comments

[Casey Allen Shobe]

I very nearly bought a Kinesis keyboard a couple years ago, and sometimes find myself wishing I had. I found a few interesting companies making keyboards for those with RSI problems, Maltron is one name I remember, but I wasn't impressed with their keyboard, nor their custom layout (I'd recently converted to dvorak and was already quite happy with the improvement).

I looked at them, and some other sites, but the Kinesis keyboard, in the end, was the one I really wanted. The price point kept me away though, and I found a couple traditional keyboards that had a really good feel to them (the Sun Type 5 became my favorite). I discovered with a bit of disecting a huge difference between "good feeling" and crappy keyboads.

The crappy models, have the circuitry (or in this day and age, often just a couple sheets of plastic with contacts that touch), laid out on a flat surface. All of the buttons work at a 90 degree perpendicular angle to this, and only the tops of the keys are cut at an angle to make it *look* curved. Sadly 95% or more of modern keyboards made are now manufactured like this. Good keyboards (i.e. the Sun Type 5, or the IBM Model M) have the circuitry/plastic internals built to the curve, and thus each row of buttons ends up having the downward press at a different angle, relative to the curve.

Coincidentially, the well-designed keyboards are generally easy as pie to pop off the keys and remap to dvorak, while it's almost always not that simple on the cheaper build.

I've also wanted to try the SmartBoard, but haven't got around to it (and it looks a bit flat...but can't judge it without using it).

I'd never seen the TouchStream - it would be interesting to try, too.

[Icelement]

I'm looking for a good keyboard to buy that has a good keystoke limit..
I play some rhythm games that require lots of keypresses at once, and this board i have isn't cutting it. ot any ideas for a cheap one?

[Ergoblog]

Icelement,

Gaming was one of the first things I gave up when I started having trouble with my hands, so I'm not sure I can recommend a good board. Though I really like the Kinesis Contoured Keyboard I eventually bought, I wouldn't recommend it for gamers who use the Function keys a lot (the function keys on the Kinesis are not regular keys; they're smaller and barely off the level of the keyboard). The TouchStream has a lot of short cuts for gamers (i.e. you might replace your key combinations with "gestures"). However, since it's a totally flat keyboard, I found it hard to really get used to. Also both boards are in the $300 range.

You can get more information at www.fingerworks.com or www.kinesis.com but in your situation, you may find a better board for gamers by consulting people in that community and seeing what they're using. Good luck!