I’m not a true mechanical keyboard enthusiast. I mean I like a good keyboard for typing code, so I rolled with model-Ms in the 80s and 90s, then some expensive Cherry keyboard I only recently retired because it was utterly spent (and it was PS/2), and now I happily use a Wooting Two HE.
I’m so glad the mechanical gaming keyboard scene has developed so much: it means there’s a plethora of really excellent keyboards for the rest of us who don’t play games.
But something utterly baffles me: why are high-quality keyboards getting smaller?
There’s a lot more keyboards without the numpad and the block of middle keys - whatever they’re called - or with the middle keys reduced or squashed up awkwardly on the side, than full-size plain old 102- or 104-key layout keyboards. What’s wrong with the numpad? Isn’t more keys generally better?
Back in the days, I bought the original Happy Hacking keyboard because it kind of made sense to maneuver around in our server room with a small keyboard that took up less space. Typing on it drove me up the wall but it was convenient to carry. And I guess it was also good option for going to LAN parties with a smaller backpack. But other than that, for a keyboard that never leaves your desk, I don’t get it.
Are there other advantages to smaller keyboards? Genuine question! I’m not dumping on smaller keyboards: to each his own and if you’re happy with yours, more power to you. I’d just like to know why you prefer smaller.
I was team numpad all the way, but then I received a 60% as a gift and I have to say, I’m quite impressed with it.
It’s pretty decent for gaming, you get more desktop real-estate for your mouse which is a huge plus. I’d also hazard a guess and say that the smaller size is more attractive for the average computer user.
Now that everything seems to take USB-C it’s really easy to swap out your board for something more suitable for your task. So if you really need a numpad, you can just swap your full size board back in.
Depending on your use case, you might be surprised how far you can get with a 60%. I thought the lack of arrow keys and F1-12 was really going to bite me, but I can use them easily enough for most cases - but not always. For instance, I wish I could still select text with Ctrl + Shift + arrow/home/end, but that’s out of reach now. But for 99% of my usage, it gets the job done.
tbh it sounds like what you need is better firmware configuration if these things are out of reach. a common approach is to make the spacebar a tap-hold key that outputs space on tap and switches to another layer on hold. on that layer you could bind arrow keys on ijkl, for example, and still have shift, alt, ctrl in easy reach.
Yeah, there’s probably some way to fix it if you have the motivation to dig into it. But it’s also not just a matter of reach, it seems the key combination doesn’t get interpreted the way I expect it to, probably because it’s using the Fn key.
But if I really need arrow keys, it only takes about thirty seconds to plug in a new board, so it works for me for now.