I am currently typing this post on a Go60, my (at the time of writing) fifth (!) ergonomic mechanical (ergomech) keyboard.
If you already know me, there is a decent chance that you read the title and said "well, duh". And it's true, I've been daily-driving a ZSA Ergodox EZ and a Moonlander since 2020. I've also had a Kinesis Advantage gathering dust on my spare desk for about as long.
But until last fall, it's just been those three. I've often said that I am someone who uses ergomech keyboards, but I am not an ergomech keyboard person, in that I don't have particularly strong feelings about many things that "real" keyboard people worry about.
Now, I did spend possibly-irresponsible amounts of money on these keyboards, so please indulge me a bit as I talk about how it feels to use them.
A brief Voyager (+ Navigator) review
I picked up a ZSA Voyager last semester on recommendation from some coworkers during my time at Stripe. After a whole saga in which my keyboard got stuck in transit for two weeks thanks to UPS not notifying me that I had to pay customs, my keyboard arrived early last October!
The first surprising thing (to me) was how long the adjustmet period was. After five years of split keyboards, I was largely expecting more of the same. How naive of me.
The Ergodox layout (used by both the Ergodox EZ and the Kinesis) features 76 keys, including having keycolumns on both sides of the main "alphanumeric zone", a row of keys underneath, and a thumb cluster with six buttons. The Moonlander reduces this to "only" 72 keys by streamlining the thumb cluster to four keys, which wasn't much of a transition at all.
The Voyager, in contrast, has 52 keys. While not all the way to being one of those 40% layouts commonly espoused by real enthusiasts (citing things like actuation force and travel distance), it is still a steep drop-off and took a lot of tinkering to get something I was comfortable using.
Surprisingly, the most difficult adjustment was the fact that the Voyager only has two thumb keys per side. The layout I've been using for years needs three: Space/Backspace/Mod on the left, and Space/Enter/Delete on the right. Compressing these shouldn't have been that difficult; I obviously don't need Space on both sides, and Delete is rare enough that it can go on another layer. Even so, it took several weeks before I was comfortable with the new setup.
As this was always intended to be used as a travel board, it's worth discussing transport and protection. The metal backplate seems sturdy enough; I doubt anything short of intentionally slamming into the counter would remotely jostle the internals. I was a bit worried about the keycaps coming off in transit, as I find that I'm often a bit rough with my backpack.
I quickly discovered that the default "wallet" that it came in wasn't going to work - it was a bit awkward to slide in and out (especially if I kept the magnetic tenting holder), and the wire pockets were woefully inadequate. Instead, I purchased a regular hard shell keyboard case and went at some PVC foam with a box cutter:
This is very sturdy, but more than doubles the space taken up by the keyboard in my backpack. I have considered 3D printing something a bit more custom, but this serves my purposes as-is and I'm not quite ready to invest that much time into it.
The trackball is a Navigator, which I was hoping would eventually avoid needing to use my laptop trackpad when away from my dedicated desk.
Thus far, my experience has been a bit less rosy. Integration into my setup and basic mouse movement work great, no complaints on that front. What is a bit more annoying is the need to use regular keys for pretty much every function (basic clicking, scrolling, etc), which necessitates the use of a separate layer.
By default, the mouse layer will activate when the mouse is moved, with a timeout before returning to the base layer. While the default isn't terrible, I haven't had much luck adjusting the timeout in either direction. I've also tried a toggle, but I'm starved for buttons as-is; I currently have a key on the mouse layer that tells the mouse layer to remain active until manually dismissed.
I am told that the mouse layer is supposed to deactivate automatically when a key not on the mouse layer is pressed. In practice, I have had issues with the mouse layer "sticking", where the mouse layer color will even flicker off before re-activating as I start typing (and I'm very sure that the first key pressed is not one of my mouse keys). When I started writing this post, I'd written this off as an annoying design decision; I now suspect it's a bug, as I've found several blog posts showing this feature working as intended.
An even briefer Go60 review
Despite being mostly satisfied with my Voyager, the few nits did lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole that ultimately culminated in me, two days before a conference deadline operating on way too little sleep, purchasing a Go60 on Reddit's recommendation.
I sit here now, two weeks later, discovering that I
still use the "wrong" finger for certain keys, courtesy
of the Go60's aggressive pinky stagger causing typos every time I
inadvertently use my ring finger to type ;. Funnily,
I actually think this board gives me more pinky strain
than my Moonlander, but maybe that's just growing pains.
As the name suggests, the Go60 has, well, 60 keys, bringing back the bottom row of control keys and adding back the third thumb key. This, to me, is already a more natural setup that is less likely to interfere with muscle memory on my larger keyboards.
Build-wise, the board itself feels quite sturdy, with a hefty metal frame protecting the internal electronics. The default carrying solution is simply a plastic frame and a strap to hold the two halves together (keys inside), along with a few velvet bags to hold the tenting bars, etc.
With some effort, I was even able to fit the wires between the two halves of the board for transit, though I'm not sure how often I intend to make use of this.
The other thing that intrigued me about the Go60 was the builtin trackpads, which have served me quite well in my limited usage. They are self-contained, unlike the Navigator, meaning that I don't need to sacrifice keys to use them and there's no issues with layer timeouts or the like.
On the flip side, they are still trackpads, with all the little annoyances that come with them. They don't support multi-touch (understandable given the board's constraints), necessitating a separate trackpad for scrolling. Clicking is done by quick-tapping the pad rather than a proper click, which has caused a few issues with click-and-drag elements for me. Jury is still out on whether I prefer them to the Navigator, but overall my experience is very positive.
Becoming a keyboard person for real
Let's take a step back. I opened this post talking about how I'm not a "real" keyboard person. If you look around on, e.g. /r/ErgoMechKeyboards, you'll see a lot of discussion of things that I haven't mentioned at all in the above reviews.
For example, switches. Until very recently, I'd never given my switches a second thought beyond "blues are banned from the office". I loosely knew that I preferred tactile switches (a friend in a Discord server found a board whose marketing said its switches felt "creamy", which makes me vaguely uncomfortable) and had considered buying clickier switches for use at home, but I've never otherwise had reason to change from the defaults. The Go60's default switches are fine (I'm using the cherry blossoms), but I've begun buying dedicated switches for the first time ever.
Or firmware! I don't know anything about QMK, ZMK or whatever. ZSA's Oryx configurator is extremely easy to use, and MoErgo's GUI isn't far behind. I often see people complain that Oryx isn't available offline, but I've never found that to be a problem - are people changing their layouts multiple times in quick succession while on the go?
Tenting? I've recently considered buying some tripod mounts to carry around with me. Board profile/keypress depth? Doesn't really matter, beyond how it impacts my ability to travel with it. Wireless? I'm a wired-only user, and the one time I did forget the wires, something about my (Linux) laptop refused to connect anyway.
These are all things that, until recently I didn't care about. It wasn't until doing the research on my issues with the Voyager (and stepping out of the ZSA bubble in general) that I'd even realized these might matter to me.
How deep does the rabbit hole go for me? I have no idea. I've been meaning for a long time to try to move more keys off my pinkies, but it's been slow-going. I've thus far resisted the urge to try out more radical layouts (like chording or home row mods) as I'm a bit afraid of the adjustment period, but if my wrists and/or finger strain start to get worse, I might not have a choice.