Ask Paul: January 3 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and Happy New Year! Let's kick off the first weekend of 2025 a bit early with a great set of reader questions.
⌨️ Ergo-ish
wright_is asks:

Have you already ordered the new ergonomic keyboard from InCase?

Not yet. We're heading to Mexico in about two weeks, and for the first time, we don't have a return date, so it's not clear when we'll be back and how that might overlap with this being released (it's just listed as "early 2025") for now. Otherwise, I would have preordered one immediately, if only to try it: I switched to using split ergonomic keyboards years ago and feel that this has protected my hands from carpal tunnel or a similar issue. My hands had started cramping up, and still do when I use laptops too much.

It looks very slick, but the use of chicklet keys with relatively little travel put me off. I have the last of the Ergonomics with real key travel (a Natrural 3000 and a Microsoft Ergonomic).

That bit doesn't bother me, though I'd have to try it to be sure. The favorite keyboard, still, is the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard, which I always got in set with the baseball-shaped ergonomic mouse. I'm not sure what the literal key travel is on that, but it's almost certainly 1.5 mm.

At one point, I had three extras in boxes in my closet, but as they've worn down, I'm left with only two, one here and one in Mexico. That said, I have an HP 960 Ergonomic Wireless Keyboard here in Pennsylvania now and have been using that for the past several months here. It's also quite good, and it addresses some of the issues with the Sculpt Keyboard. I do still prefer the Sculpt Keyboard overall, in part because of the key travel, go figure (the HP is about 2 mm). But it would work if needed.

I'm hoping it won't be needed, of course. Microsoft and Incase announced one year ago that the latter would keep selling many Microsoft-branded keyboards and mice, including the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Set. But they're mostly still listed as "coming soon." So this week's announcement gives me hope that the others will finally arrive, too. When I first saw this new keyboard, I thought it was a new version of the Sculpt Keyboard, one that was more compact and didn't require a proprietary USB-A dongle. But it lacks the negative tilt (I mistakenly call this reverse tilt all the time) feature that the Sculpt and HP keyboards both have. I find this to be necessary. (It's optional in both devices.)

What I'd really like is something like the Microsoft Ergonomic, or this new InCase, but with real keys using real switches (E.g. Cherry MX Reds). But I've never found anything in this direction, although I did just check again and this Perixx just turned up: Perixx PERIBOARD-335BR ... Just seen that it also has Reds and discounted to 59€, so I ordered it straight away.

I look around for this type of thing from time to time, but it seems like the ergonomic keyboards with mechanical switches are always semi-radical designs. I know...