$259.00 For A Keyboard? Uh, No.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Regarding this thread. Didn’t want to go off on a tangent in GQ.

This is what I am talking about.

I have read the specs and still don’t understand. Enlighten me. What makes this keyboard worth that? Seriously. Is this high-tech snake oil?

2

Here is the product info, for those who haven’t seen it. Basically:

[ul]
[li]It eliminates many keys that most geeks consider unnecessary - notably the Windows key and the Caps Lock key. They are replaced by more useful keys (larger spacebar and Ctrl, respectively.)[/li][li]It’s very compact - it takes 1/3 the desk space of a regular full-sized keyboard. Compact size is especially important in Japan where this product is designed and primarily sold.[/li][li]The $259 version feels really nice. A sharp tactilie “click” instead of the more mushy feel of membrane switch keypards (i.e. most keyboards). But not as harsh as the old IBM mechanical keyboards.[/li][li]The USB version has a detachable cable, which is more versatile than a cable permanently connected to the keyboard. And more reliable than a wireless keyboard.[/li][/ul]

3

It feels comfortable to use, it’s more durable, it wont break when you drop it, it’s small so you can take it with you easier.

Lets say you buy a $5 keyboard and it lasts you a year of heavy use, and you buy the above and it lasts you 5 years. Over the 5 years, you spent 5 hours a day on average on the computer. Thats over 9000 hours using that keyboard which means it’s costing you a whopping 2c extra per hour of use. Now, calculate how much doctors bills for RSI cost and factor out the difference.

People happily pay $250 extra for the latest and greatest CPU which gives them all of 3% extra performance which they will never notice. A decent keyboard is a much better investment.

4

Hmm…$5.00 times five years = $25.00. A tad cheaper.

Listen, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade here. I guess it is sticker shock, and most likely I am not geek enough to appreciate the advantages…but I still haven’t seen the huge advantage for the huge amount of money.

5

:confused:

I DON’T GET THAT.

6

Yeah, but you didn’t include the doctor’s bills for RSI. That’s what Shalmanese said.

I wouldn’t buy it myself but then I haven’t got $250. If I did… look, a decent tactile keyboard, like a good chair or a monitor that doesn’t make your head hurt, is a good investment. I agree that $250 is extremely pricey, I haven’t seen one that price before. If someone came out with a really good tactile keyboard that makes you enjoy using your computer more, and it was low in price, they’d make a fortune.

This would be a good place for somebody to recommend one, imho.

7

It still has caps lock and the function & navigation keys, but I’d never use them where they put them.

What is fn? and isn’t start replaced by that diamond key? or is that control?

8
      • Excuse me but ummm, what? How does this keyboard do anything to prevent RSI? I know the keys make nifty clicky sounds but that is not the cause, the problem is that straight-across rows of keys that cause users to bend their wrists at odd angles. It looks like a smaller but still straight/flat keyboard, and generally, the better one-piece ones are the curved+semisplit-layout ones like the MS Natural keyboards…
  • Anyway, the Happy Hacking is for pretenders. The PCKeyboard models with the pointing sticks are the real shizznit.
    ~
9

If a keyboard has poor tactile response, you bang harder on the keys which increases the stress on your joints. It also makes you type slower since you don’t get a natural bounce from them. If I save a minute a day using them, then that’s 30 hours over 5 years which is well abouve the $250 price at a conservative $30/hr.

10

Actually, the old IBM tactile keyboards CAUSED RSI. WHen you press, the ‘snapping’ motion would put stresses on your hands and fingers.

However, I love the feel of the old style keyboards, and the one I use is a Keypro that is ten years old or more. It’s got the old AT style plug that I have to use an adapter for. A few of the keys skip, and the numeric pad is flaky. But I still use it because it has a marvelous tactile feel. I often try out the latest whiz-bang super internet keyboards when I go into computer stores, but I’ve never found one that could approach the feel of this one. So chalk me up as someone willing to pay quite a lot for a keyboard with the right tactile feel.

11

Check this one out. The fastest typer I have ever seen swears by these:

http://www.officeergonomix.com/default.tpl?action=full&--eqskudatarq=05-052-04XX

12

I can’t throw away equipment owned by the state. I have to send it to an agency that disposes of it. They sell this stuff. There are a bunch of old keyboards I haven’t done away with yet. Check if your state does the same.

13

But but but – it’s available in light grey and charcoal grey! Coming soon: medium grey, dolphin grey and hippo grey!

Lewis Black would have a stroke.

14
      • The key action might be part of it, but somehow I think a bigger part is the fact that a normal keyboard is laid out with the keys flat and straight across, yet that’s not how your fingers naturally fall when you rest them on a desk. I seem to remember that RSI is cause mostly by having your wrists at odd angles, not simply doing something which places strain on them. If that were the case, then all jobs would suffer RSI as badly as tech workers–yet all jobs do not.
        …The only other people I have read of suffering RSI very much are professional musicians and meat-processing plant workers using traditional “straight” knives (that require them to curve their wrists during use). I dunno what the musicians do, they just suffer for their art I suppose but the meat plants use bent knives to help prevent RSI injuries: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/poultry/additional_material.html#knives (I could not find anywhere that sold these, as far as I know only processing plants use them).
        ~
15

Or, you can buy a new one with the Windows keys and other fooferaw. They’re sold at Unicomp, which bought IBM’s keyboard business from Lexmark in the mid-90s. They’re made the same, and they’re just as clacky.

Alternatively, you could eBay a used one. Search for “IBM Model M” keyboards. That’s where I got my mother hers for Mother’s Day one year – she’s kinda a dork like me, and she loves it.

16

Knitters can suffer from RSI, especially if they knit tightly for long stretches at a time daily. There’s some guideline about knitting for a certain amount of time before taking a break. I can’t remember if it’s knitting for half-an-hour and then resting for fifteen minutes or the other way around. There are also hand warm-ups you can do. Most therapists give hand exercises and stretches and might advise using some sort of brace. Musicians often have similar treatments.
</hijack>

17
      • I might try the Kinesis Advantage if I had some spare money about, but I certainly would not pay that much for a tiny, flat HappyHacker. I have looked for a long time for anything that was one-piece and that felt as good as/or better than the MS Natural/Natural Pro keyboards, and have not found anything made as well for anywhere near the price (I had a source for plain-Naturals for $15 for a while, I bought four). MS has screwed up lots of other things, but actually did these things right.
        …
  • Now if I can just map all the Half-Life-2 buttons to my MS Dual Strike controller, I’ll be all set… :stuck_out_tongue:
    ~
18

I bought my SO a $100 keyboard for Christmas. Why?

It fitted his needs exactly, and we had the money to spare. Now I wouldn’t buy a $259 keyboard, true, but if we had more money and it fitted one of our needs, maybe. I have a $25 keyboard which fits my needs…but an expensive trackball since I prefer them.

If you spend a lot of time at the computer, as we do, best to get the best you can afford for your own sake.