10 years ago, this keyboard was my main keyboard - the Ergo travel.
Now I am back to looking at split keyboards, and kind of miss the ergo travel. It had the perfect layout and size. I sold it because: 1. It lacked a good case. It was EOTW and never felt particularly solid. 2. The USB socket wasn’t sturdy - I had to resolder on multiple times becuase it kept coming off. 3. No hotswap - was not a fan of the gateron browns. But this was a long time back!
The options I know of are: 1. ZSA voyager 2. Sofle keyboard 3. Corne 4. Lily 58
All these are good, but none of them have quite the right number of keys in the bottom row and thumb cluster. That might not be such a bad thing, though, since it would force me to get more creative with layers.
But keyboards are a niche hobby and also a deep rabbit hole. So I knew there had to be options out there which would match my needs. They just weren’t going to be easy to find.
After scouring through r/ergomechkeyboards and r/mechanicalkeyboards, I found two near-perfect options:
- Harper
- Ergodash mini
Unfortunately acquiring either of them isn’t straightforward.
Harper is made in Ukraine and doesn’t ship internationally. They have a workaround for international shipping but I am don’t want to deal with extra hassle and the potentially long delivery time.
As for Ergodash mini I haven’t found any sellers offering prebuilt version with good case. The only option seems to be buying a kit and assembling it myself, which involves soldering1. Even then, there don’t seem to be many good case options.
I’d like to avoid soldering.↩︎