I Have Waited A LONG TIME for this keyboard!!! - ZSA Moonlander
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
1,978 words · ~9 min read
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- I've been waiting for this for a long time. And I can already tell just based on the size of the box,
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that this is a lot different than the ErgoDox keyboard I used to use,
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which was the ErgoDox EZ. This is the company, ZSA.
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Sizza, zissa. And this is the new Moonlander keyboard.
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There's two, 'cause there's two colors. Thank you for supporting this company.
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You can see immediately that it comes with a carrying case. And other than that, there's just a combined keycap puller
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and key switch puller in the box. And I actually still have my old ErgoDox one.
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Ah, it's white! So there's two cables. This one is gonna be for connecting the keyboard
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to your PC. And then this one is for connecting the two halves
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of the keyboard, because this is a split keyboard design.
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So there's a little Allen key in here. My initial impression is this is way smaller.
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It's almost half as thick. Couple extra keycaps in there.
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Hold on. (James makes machine clicks)
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Boom. Integrated, connected, and included wrist rests.
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On the earlier one, everything was sold separately. You could buy this thing,
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and then this tenting kit was extra.
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They just help you to change the angle, so it can stand up. And then it was also extra
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to buy these completely separated, big, rubbery,
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dust magnet wrist pads. Now they've got these wrist pads just integrated.
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They just come with it. Now it comes out being the same price
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or a little more than a fully tricked out ErgoDox EZ.
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Ooh. What is that? Is it magnetic? That's just so it can click on to that. (laughs)
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Oh, it's a cover. Okay, as you can see, there's actually a little connector in there.
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Because this articulates, you only actually have one tent peg to adjust.
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Whereas on this one, you had three. Which gives you a lot of options.
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You can still decide if you want to put it there or on that side.
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And then that goes down like that. Eh, it's not too bad.
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(keyboard clacks) Cool, and the reason you wanna have that is so your hand is not flat.
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When your hand is flat like that, that's called a pronated position.
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When you're in pronation, your radius and your ulna bones actually scissor each other
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and they will pinch between their tissue in your arms.
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So that's why you can get sore, and you can get RSIs just from having your hands flat.
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What is this? Does this come out? Oh, I bet my past ErgoDox feet are compatible with this.
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I can have both. But what do I get, though, if I put this over here? You can super pronate.
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(James laughs) (crew laughs) Like yeah. You wouldn't want this.
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See. This is extension. This is another thing
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that ergonomic keyboards seek to solve. So take this off, flatten that out.
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Be like that. Tent it that way. That would be better. So just like on the past one, you've got this cable.
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And then you've got the long boy. What was it, mini USB before?
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Yeah, not a Micro B. Now it's a USB type C, and a change they made is it used to plug
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into the right side of this keyboard, now it plugs into the left side.
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And that is a selling feature on their website, because you can just operate it one half at a time,
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and give yourself a lot of mouse real estate on your Linus Tech Tips store.com.
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It's even more compact than before, because these aren't even double wide anymore.
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So yeah, it's kinda the same on the inside.
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These are smaller. They used to be double high. And then for the thumb clusters,
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we get a lot fewer keys.
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We had two, four, six keys before, and now we just have four,
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which is probably enough. I seem to recall not using all the keys in my thumb cluster.
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I had some pretty obscure keys in here. I really do use thumb clusters,
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and love ergo keyboards with thumb clusters. I wouldn't use one that doesn't,
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because there's your strongest digit, and you should be offloading as much typing as you can
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onto them. But I think that five is sufficient. They look like they're the principle buttons down here,
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just 'cause they're off color. You would think that's like the main one to use, but no, you have to shift,
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and that causes you some ulnar deviation. I found that the software that they offer
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to help you configure your layout is quite good, quite intuitive, and very visual.
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I went through 11 or 12 different configs
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before I settled on what I wanted on this thing. And that all has to do with the keys on the side,
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'cause you can see, you have a lot fewer keys here than you do on a standard, even tenkeyless.
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The other thing is it doesn't have an F row. That's annoying if you're an Office or Excel user.
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I like to use F four, 'cause it repeats the last action. So I've hit insert a row in a spreadsheet.
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I can just F four, F four, F, F four a bunch of times, it'll keep doing that.
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(James sighs) But if you want this tight, minimal look,
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that's the kind of the sacrifice you have to make. These are really cool keycaps.
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They're really gritty, and like, matte, and chalky feeling.
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I like them. This, I believe, I ordered with box whites from Kailh,
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a very popular switch. When we did our big key switch round up, that was one of the most popular ones.
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It's a clicky switch. And that's why this feels so awesome.
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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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5:43
(keyboard beeps) Sweet retro noise.
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These nice and spread. Ah! Look at the RGBs.
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All right, let's get to typing. (keyboard clacks)
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Oh, oh, they've got this... Ha!
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If you're coming from a QWERTY, it's probably easier for you than me,
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where I have my thumbs are so... Oh no, use...
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No, it's not escape. (laughs) My thumbs are so used to doing other things.
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I don't know where they have... What do they use for space on default?
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James, space. No, that's return. What do we got over here?
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This is space. Oh, I don't like having space on my left thumb. Not used to it. (laughs)
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Oh no, I minimized it. (laughs)
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Don't try any special functions or shifts. This is an adventure.
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See, unlabeled keys, you gotta get used to it.
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One thing that you'll have to used to, probably regardless, is this is an ortholinear or columnar layout.
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So in a QWERTY, these keys are actually staggered, instead of up and down like this.
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X and C. When I switch to a QWERTY, these days, I hit X and C differently.
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If I'm gonna write "cat," I hit C with my index finger on a QWERTY keyboard.
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But on these keyboards, you can see, it's actually underneath the middle finger.
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So on this, I would hit it like that. That'll take some getting used to, same with X.
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because the way they're staggered on a QWERTY, you kinda wanna just curl your finger down in that way.
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Oh yeah, another thing that I remember is kind of a drag to get used to is having your arrow keys split out.
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So you've got left and right on the left hand and up and down on the right hand. And that's just,
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you can get used to it, but it's kinda tough.
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Oop! You can see the switches come out. You can put whatever switches you want in here
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that are compatible with this pinout. I do notice now that, build quality wise,
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there's is a bit of a weirdness. Right in there is, like, a little janky
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on both of them. So it just looks like how they're made. It gets thinner right at that point.
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There's a little bit of a concave arc. And it just looks a little rough.
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For the most part, this is pretty nice, though. Like, even other parts of this curved rest look good.
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Then you've up these threads, which I didn't notice before.
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You could actually mount these to, let's say, the side of your chair.
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So you could just be, you know, way back here. Oh, why don't we look at the black one?
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Pretty badass. I will say that. This is called Dark Matter.
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(keyboard clacks) It might be more durable, in terms of discoloration and just marking it up.
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If your hands are dirty, this might look newer for longer. I don't know. I just like the white one.
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I feel like the product was designed to be white. There it is. I think that's basically it for this keyboard.
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Fold this puppy up. Got one pouch for each module.
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Feel like that is a good amount of Velcro to keep everything
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in together. And so that's about it. If you're asking yourself, "Should I upgrade my ErgoDox EZ?"
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It depends on what you got, because they iterated a bit,
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I believe, in terms of RGB. The one that we have here, actually, is not RGB on the keys.
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It's the Shine package, which is just LEDs that are RGB on the back.
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So it's like an underglow. But they did have the Glow variant later on,
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where it's actually RGB under each key. If you wanna upgrade just for RGB,
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just looks more modern, and it's more portable.
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It's easier to fold this up and put it in the case than it is to carry around all this cumbersome crap.
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They're not cheap. They're not cheap. They've never been cheap.
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(James sighs) But they're cool. If I was still using the ErgoDox EZ,
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I would definitely upgrade to this newer one. It looks like there's no downside to it.
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Sure, this thumb clusters have a few fewer keys,
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but I don't think that really matters. This just looks cooler and cleaner.
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It's pretty sweet. I'm happy with this. This is a worthy sequel, worthy successor.
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And you know what? You can use it for gaming, too. So, subscribe to ShortCircuit.
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Thanks for watching. And we're blasting off now.
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Bye.