- I've been waiting for this for a long time. And I can already tell just based on the size of the box,
that this is a lot different than the ErgoDox keyboard I used to use,
which was the ErgoDox EZ. This is the company, ZSA.
Sizza, zissa. And this is the new Moonlander keyboard.
There's two, 'cause there's two colors. Thank you for supporting this company.
You can see immediately that it comes with a carrying case. And other than that, there's just a combined keycap puller
and key switch puller in the box. And I actually still have my old ErgoDox one.
Ah, it's white! So there's two cables. This one is gonna be for connecting the keyboard
to your PC. And then this one is for connecting the two halves
of the keyboard, because this is a split keyboard design.
So there's a little Allen key in here. My initial impression is this is way smaller.
It's almost half as thick. Couple extra keycaps in there.
Hold on. (James makes machine clicks)
Boom. Integrated, connected, and included wrist rests.
On the earlier one, everything was sold separately. You could buy this thing,
and then this tenting kit was extra.
They just help you to change the angle, so it can stand up. And then it was also extra
to buy these completely separated, big, rubbery,
dust magnet wrist pads. Now they've got these wrist pads just integrated.
They just come with it. Now it comes out being the same price
or a little more than a fully tricked out ErgoDox EZ.
Ooh. What is that? Is it magnetic? That's just so it can click on to that. (laughs)
Oh, it's a cover. Okay, as you can see, there's actually a little connector in there.
Because this articulates, you only actually have one tent peg to adjust.
Whereas on this one, you had three. Which gives you a lot of options.
You can still decide if you want to put it there or on that side.
And then that goes down like that. Eh, it's not too bad.
(keyboard clacks) Cool, and the reason you wanna have that is so your hand is not flat.
When your hand is flat like that, that's called a pronated position.
When you're in pronation, your radius and your ulna bones actually scissor each other
and they will pinch between their tissue in your arms.
So that's why you can get sore, and you can get RSIs just from having your hands flat.
What is this? Does this come out? Oh, I bet my past ErgoDox feet are compatible with this.
I can have both. But what do I get, though, if I put this over here? You can super pronate.
(James laughs) (crew laughs) Like yeah. You wouldn't want this.
See. This is extension. This is another thing
that ergonomic keyboards seek to solve. So take this off, flatten that out.
Be like that. Tent it that way. That would be better. So just like on the past one, you've got this cable.
And then you've got the long boy. What was it, mini USB before?
Yeah, not a Micro B. Now it's a USB type C, and a change they made is it used to plug
into the right side of this keyboard, now it plugs into the left side.
And that is a selling feature on their website, because you can just operate it one half at a time,
and give yourself a lot of mouse real estate on your Linus Tech Tips store.com.
It's even more compact than before, because these aren't even double wide anymore.
So yeah, it's kinda the same on the inside.
These are smaller. They used to be double high. And then for the thumb clusters,
we get a lot fewer keys.
We had two, four, six keys before, and now we just have four,
which is probably enough. I seem to recall not using all the keys in my thumb cluster.
I had some pretty obscure keys in here. I really do use thumb clusters,
and love ergo keyboards with thumb clusters. I wouldn't use one that doesn't,
because there's your strongest digit, and you should be offloading as much typing as you can
onto them. But I think that five is sufficient. They look like they're the principle buttons down here,
just 'cause they're off color. You would think that's like the main one to use, but no, you have to shift,
and that causes you some ulnar deviation. I found that the software that they offer
to help you configure your layout is quite good, quite intuitive, and very visual.
I went through 11 or 12 different configs
before I settled on what I wanted on this thing. And that all has to do with the keys on the side,
'cause you can see, you have a lot fewer keys here than you do on a standard, even tenkeyless.
The other thing is it doesn't have an F row. That's annoying if you're an Office or Excel user.
I like to use F four, 'cause it repeats the last action. So I've hit insert a row in a spreadsheet.
I can just F four, F four, F, F four a bunch of times, it'll keep doing that.
(James sighs) But if you want this tight, minimal look,
that's the kind of the sacrifice you have to make. These are really cool keycaps.
They're really gritty, and like, matte, and chalky feeling.
I like them. This, I believe, I ordered with box whites from Kailh,
a very popular switch. When we did our big key switch round up, that was one of the most popular ones.
It's a clicky switch. And that's why this feels so awesome.
Okay, I'm gonna, I got my laptop. I'm gonna power this thing on, and see the RGB lights and everything,
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(keyboard beeps) Sweet retro noise.
These nice and spread. Ah! Look at the RGBs.
All right, let's get to typing. (keyboard clacks)
Oh, oh, they've got this... Ha!
If you're coming from a QWERTY, it's probably easier for you than me,
where I have my thumbs are so... Oh no, use...
No, it's not escape. (laughs) My thumbs are so used to doing other things.
I don't know where they have... What do they use for space on default?
James, space. No, that's return. What do we got over here?
This is space. Oh, I don't like having space on my left thumb. Not used to it. (laughs)
Oh no, I minimized it. (laughs)
Don't try any special functions or shifts. This is an adventure.
See, unlabeled keys, you gotta get used to it.
One thing that you'll have to used to, probably regardless, is this is an ortholinear or columnar layout.
So in a QWERTY, these keys are actually staggered, instead of up and down like this.
X and C. When I switch to a QWERTY, these days, I hit X and C differently.
If I'm gonna write "cat," I hit C with my index finger on a QWERTY keyboard.
But on these keyboards, you can see, it's actually underneath the middle finger.
So on this, I would hit it like that. That'll take some getting used to, same with X.
because the way they're staggered on a QWERTY, you kinda wanna just curl your finger down in that way.
Oh yeah, another thing that I remember is kind of a drag to get used to is having your arrow keys split out.
So you've got left and right on the left hand and up and down on the right hand. And that's just,
you can get used to it, but it's kinda tough.
Oop! You can see the switches come out. You can put whatever switches you want in here
that are compatible with this pinout. I do notice now that, build quality wise,
there's is a bit of a weirdness. Right in there is, like, a little janky
on both of them. So it just looks like how they're made. It gets thinner right at that point.
There's a little bit of a concave arc. And it just looks a little rough.
For the most part, this is pretty nice, though. Like, even other parts of this curved rest look good.
Then you've up these threads, which I didn't notice before.
You could actually mount these to, let's say, the side of your chair.
So you could just be, you know, way back here. Oh, why don't we look at the black one?
Pretty badass. I will say that. This is called Dark Matter.
(keyboard clacks) It might be more durable, in terms of discoloration and just marking it up.
If your hands are dirty, this might look newer for longer. I don't know. I just like the white one.
I feel like the product was designed to be white. There it is. I think that's basically it for this keyboard.
Fold this puppy up. Got one pouch for each module.
Feel like that is a good amount of Velcro to keep everything
in together. And so that's about it. If you're asking yourself, "Should I upgrade my ErgoDox EZ?"
It depends on what you got, because they iterated a bit,
I believe, in terms of RGB. The one that we have here, actually, is not RGB on the keys.
It's the Shine package, which is just LEDs that are RGB on the back.
So it's like an underglow. But they did have the Glow variant later on,
where it's actually RGB under each key. If you wanna upgrade just for RGB,
just looks more modern, and it's more portable.
It's easier to fold this up and put it in the case than it is to carry around all this cumbersome crap.
They're not cheap. They're not cheap. They've never been cheap.
(James sighs) But they're cool. If I was still using the ErgoDox EZ,
I would definitely upgrade to this newer one. It looks like there's no downside to it.
Sure, this thumb clusters have a few fewer keys,
but I don't think that really matters. This just looks cooler and cleaner.
It's pretty sweet. I'm happy with this. This is a worthy sequel, worthy successor.
And you know what? You can use it for gaming, too. So, subscribe to ShortCircuit.
Thanks for watching. And we're blasting off now.
Bye.