As part of the standard deployment of equipment at work, they gave me a traditional purely flat keyboard. It probably came with the docking station for the admittedly quite nice Lenovo X1 I have to work with. But the standard keyboard is nothing special.
So I went out and spent some of my own money to at least improve the keyboard. The mouse might need swapping soon too because the mouse wheel is acting a little wonky, but that’s a later problem. But where to turn for the new keyboard?
Given the amount of typing I do at work, I decided that I wanted an ergonomic keyboard of some type instead of the straight keyboard I use at home and at work. I tried out Logitech’s new K860 Ergo keyboard at Best Buy but I didn’t like the amount of travel the keys had. Not that I’m some mechanical keyboard connoisseur, but I do want a little bit more travel than that if I’m typing for extended periods. Although I’m lucky enough to live near several Microcenter stores, I did not go and try out any other ergonomic keyboards because right next to the Logitech was a cheap and pretty acceptable solution: Microsoft’s Surface Ergonomic Keyboard.
It allegedly has a slightly different curve and annoyingly moves the Menu button over to the left to make room for an Office and emoji button. Which are useless in my work configuration because I cannot install any special software to enable these buttons. I knew that going in and it has been an annoying change. But after three weeks with the keyboard, I think this periodic annoyance is worth the improved typing comfort. And the angle is appropriate for both sitting and standing typing positions. I’ve found myself standing to work more often as a result.
Not bad for about $45.