A recent reviewer over at MSNBC gave the Frogpad a thumbs down review. Apparently, it’s well put together, but hard to learn. I haven’t tried the Frogpad yet, but have tried several ergonomic keyboards in my quest to help my RSI hands and they do seem to have steep learning curves in common.
The problem is we all learned to type with QWERTY keyboards, a setup that was originally invented to force people to type slower in order to keep the mechanical keys from jamming. Unfortunately, there’s nothing ergonomic about the QWERTY layout, and there’s no need to stick to it when using a computer. If you’re thinking about changing to something else (lots of today’s ergonomic keyboards are coming out with alternatives that put the more used keys under the stronger digits, ie. Enter under the thumb instead of the pinkie), you should be prepared for the fact that it will come with a steep learning curve. If you can, try to rent or borrow an ergonomic keyboard before committing to buying it.
If you don’t want to learn something new but one something that’s easier on the hands, I recommend the Kinesis Contoured Keyboard, which I’ve had good luck with. Though some keys are hard to get used to (ie. arrows being split and moved), the most used keys are in the same place, just canted a little differently.
Read the Frogpad review at FrogPad takes time — a lot of time — to master