My daily driver is a kprepublic BM40 with Zeal tealio switches that I got off of Ebay for a steal and have upgraded since then. I'm gonna eventually replace the switches with something more tactile, I definitely prefer tactile switches over linears.
I'm on a Keychron V3 base with Gateron Brown switches and PBTfans Dolch caps. I have some foam fillers in the spacebar, but no hardware mods otherwise.
I went with it for similar reasons: programmable + 3 or 5-pin hotswap + TKL + normal profile gave me a lot of flexibility to try different things.
I'm especially happy with the keycaps I settled on. I realized almost immediately that Keychron's stock "OSA" caps weren't for me. Next I tried an ABS shine-through set, which were too hard to read with the backlight disabled and started to develop shine very quickly. PBTfans seems to hit a sweet spot for me: nice texture, comfortable Cherry profile, PBT material doesn't seem to wear too fast, and doubleshot to prevent the legends wearing down.
Keychron Q8, which has an Alice layout. I like the layout; it feels pretty familiar since my two previous daily drivers were ortholinear. I switch between the Alice and ortholinear keyboards often, too.
I think I'm not crazy about the switches, though. I got it with Gateron G Pro Reds, which are linear, pre-lubed, and maybe just a little too light for my taste. It's my first and only keyboard with linear switches, and I bottom out too hard on each keystroke. It's a little uncomfortable on the fingertips after a while. I'm trying to adjust how much pressure I use when typing, which is a hard habit to change.
I had the same experience bottoming out with linears. Mine were K-Pro reds, which are fine switches otherwise, but I'm more comfortable with browns. On the plus side they let me type quietly when needed so I'm thinking of trying them in a mobile/tablet/travel keyboard – maybe an Ajazz K620T.
I’ve been rotating between a lily58 (the boardsource.xyz lulu58 case) with Zealio Zilents V2 65g, and a ZSA Moonlander with Durock T1s. Numpad I’ve been super happy with my FFKeebs Púca with SP-Star Dark Magic Girl switches.
I have two pre-builts from NuPhy right now, the Air96 and the Halo75.
A coworker showed me his Air75 and I was fairly impressed adn started researching... I had been somewhat interested in mechkeebs for a while already but didn't wish to fall into the rabbit hole of custom builds and group buys but didn't like the mass-market offerings such as Logitech's Mini Mech or the Rokkat Vulcan very much either.
Keychron seemed cool but the ones my coworker has all didn't call to me. But the two NuPhys are pretty neat for something that works out of the box!
I have since gotten a bunch of switches to play around with and replaced the keycaps... aaand only recently ordered an Odin 75 kit as my first custom.
Rabbit hole, here we go. :D
I wish it were programmable in VIA instead of NuPhy's software but otherwise their low profile boards look really good to me. I tried a Keychron K3 in the past but strongly dislike their keycaps, and their stabilizers make them incompatible with other brands.
The Odin looks really cool! That little screen should be fun to play with.
Currently on a wireless Kyria, tented, no case. Switches are Gat X with Sprit Slow II 78g springs on the upper keys and a choc thumb cluster. SA8010 on the MX switches.
So, there are some different levels/kind of keyboard that may be more "ergonomic" than a traditional one. Howe weird are you looking to get?
Re: budget, ergo boards tend to be low-cost DIY kits, but you generally have to do a fair bit of soldering. You can also get prebuilts, but they're not super cheap since it's not like, assembly line production in most cases, it's one person building it by hand. There are some exceptions that are more production, but they won't be as cheap apart form like a Keyboardio Atreus or a Planck or Preonic
Alice layout: Normie layout "unisplit" with a slight split and angle on it. Will be easy to adjust to, minimal ergonomic difference from regular board. But having split spacebar is a big win in itself to be honest.
Regular board, but split, such as a Quefrency or Sinc from Keebio. Layout isn't ergonomic for your fingers, but you can put them at whatever angle suits your wrist, and you can tent them as well (angle the halves)
Basic ortholinear. All keys are in a grid, like Planck, Preonic, XD75, MechWild Waka. Layout is arguably a bit more ergonomic than regular, will require more adjustment. Many of these boards are not split, although some are.
Columnar stagger: Each column is a different height, reflecting the different lengths of your fingers. More ergonomic. Mostly split boards like Corne, Kyria, Sofle, Lily, Iris, Ergodox, Moonlander, with some unisplit boards like Reviung and Atreus. You can use this tool to compare layouts
Keywell/Dactyl: Keys are positioned in a bowl like shape, three-dimensionally. Examples Dactyl, Kinesis Advantage, MoErgo Glove. These will be a lot more expensive if you want someone else to build them for you.
There are tons of different options out there, so you'll wan to start by narrowing down what kind of layout you want and how DIY you want the build to be. The actual builds are mostly pretty straightforward, but most ergo kits do require you to solder diodes and controllers, not just switches. And some of the more esoteric ones have a higher difficulty level, like the keywell boards.
Ortho and columnar stagger boards will take time to learn to type on at speed. Many users also take the opportunity to learn a new non-qwerty layout at the same time since they need to build new muscle memory anyway.
You'll want to pay attention to the layouts when you are picking keycaps. Many ergo boards use all 1u, or 1u plus a couple of spacebars. However, others use ergodox-style layouts with several keys of other sizes. Kitting can be difficult if you want all your keycaps to correspond exactly to what you have those keys assigned to do. Life will be easier if you are a touch typist and willing to make use of blanks or novelties.
This is a really great resource, but just wanted to add my 2c. I've had (or at least used) most of the variations on this list, and if I could do it again, I'd probably just further down the list faster. I'm a programmer by trade so I spend a lot of my time typing, and I can't express how much of a positive impact building a dactyl manuform has had on my wrists (and just general typing comfort). If you have a 3D printer already it's actually pretty easy to put everything together, and you could probably definitely do it all yourself under your budget (so long as you already have the soldering equipment). The kits are definitely going to run you more though. That said, in my opinion, its worth going at least to columnar stagger if you're going to go down this route! (Plus - if you're already relearning to type, do yourself a favour and switch from qwerty to dvorak or colemak or something like that!)
I've tried both alice and standard split boards. For me, the split standard is as ergonomic as I could ever ask for. I'm currently using a Q11 and at the correct angle it's magical! There are already some 3d printable wedges to give it some tilt as well, but I have yet to print and try them as I'm pretty happy with where it's at now.
I have two atm, one for my home computer (which I primarily game on, plus personal programming projects etc), where I use a 60% KBDFans HHKB Tofu with Zealios. For my work PC I went with something a little bit more ergonomic to save the ol' wrists a bit, and I have a self-built Dactyl Manuform Mini with Zealios also (I just really like Zealios, they're just my favourite way to the fealios).
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