The Most BIZARRE Keyboard...
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,350 words · ~6 min read
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you wouldn't tolerate headphones that weren't designed to fit the shape of
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your head or a chair that wasn't designed to comfortably hold your ass so
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why then would you use a keyboard that wasn't designed to perfectly match the
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shape of your hands well Kinesis doesn't
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think that you should meet the freaky
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decky Advantage 2 a keyboard that aims
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to put ergonomics first without
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sacrificing productivity but at a bank breaking
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$350 is there any reason for you to use
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one of these unless your doctor says you have to Let's fingure It
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Out rose Will's cullinan midtower ATX
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case features tempered glass panels for a sleep aesthetic with ample expansion
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check it out at the link below so there is no doubt that the
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advantage 2 is bound to twist some necks
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it seems that in Kinesis is quest to make it all about the best ergonomic
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experience for your hands they forgot about your eyes their
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premium model has got this subjectively
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awful attempt at a brushed looking gray
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and black finish that they call graphite
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the LED indicators and the label are inexplicably off center the USB cable is
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unsleeved and this might seem like a nitpicky thing at this point but the
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devices overall low weight and plastic
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construction contribute to a less premium first impression than the price
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tag would suggest but Beauty can be more than skin
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deep there is absolutely no deck Flex
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the bottom feet keep it in place on your desk you can connect a foot pedal to it
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and all the switches are genuine
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mechanical Cherry MX or
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MLS okay fine so the build quality is
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good but let's stop footing around and address the elephant in the room why
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does it look like that well the
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advantage 2's layout is designed to mitigate the primary stresses that
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typing on a conventional keyboard imposes on the body so to achieve this
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they split the board into two key Wells
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one for each hand if you have more than two hands this is not the ergonomic
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keyboard for you # sorry not sorry
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anyway this split positions the user's
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hands closer to shoulder width apart
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reducing something called all deviation which occurs when your wrists
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are bent outward next they made the key Wells
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concave to keep your wrists straight and
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sloped to keep your hands from sitting completely pronated this increases blood
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circulation in your forearms and there are more customizations the keycaps
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themselves are at varying Heights so that your middle finger won't be
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overarched and your pinky can actually reach stuff and the control keys that
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your weak ass little finger would normally be responsible for have been
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offloaded to these clusters where your thumbs can straight up do work instead
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of sitting on the bench it's all sounds
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like sensible stuff but like stuff that
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nobody seems to have thought of right here let's drop another ergonomic bomb
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the number pad has been embedded as a secondary function in the right key well
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in an effort to reduce the board's overall footprint so you don't overreach
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to operate the mouse straining the neck and
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shoulders this all comes together then to make the advantage to a very
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comfortable keyboard one of our new writers James has actually been using it
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nonstop for 2 weeks without any need for
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shaking out the wrists or any kind of fatigue whatsoever I love it so
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ergonomic AF but that doesn't mean that those two
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weeks were completely painless contrary
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to kin's bold statement here this thing
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has a steep learning curve in theory I
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see their point but while at first
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glance it looks like all the letters are in their usual places hold on Hardcore
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typists May cringe at this but the vast majority of the people at our office
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actually use their index finger to type the letter c this is possible on a
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regular quiry layout because the rows are staggered but on the advantage two
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the keys are arranged in vertical columns so back to my point then if you
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were already a perfect by the book
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typist the transition would probably be
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fairly easy but if you also have to unlearn some nasty habits at the same
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time like using the wrong hand for the b key then your transition will likely be
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much slower another consequence of the
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concave design is that the keys are a bit closer to each other which again
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seems legit for both speed and stamina but my God you have no idea how easy it
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is to overreach when trying to type a comma or a period and furthermore a
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large part of keyboard productivity has to do with non- typing key strokes
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talking about hot Keys talking about home and end talking about the arrows
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and remapping the muscle memory that you've built up for these more advanced
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actions takes a lot longer the new way
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may be superior to the old way like being able to copy paste now without
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leaving the home row but that doesn't mean that you're not going to have the
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urge to smash every time a misclick on
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the now nearby Arrow key sends your cursor flying off the page
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so while some things are straight up awesome like having backspace and delete
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front and center other things like not having a space bar on the left side are
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not and what about Gamers all right well
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I'll tell you about Gamers every key on this keyboard is remappable without the
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use of any software you heard me this keyboard has a whole Suite of badass
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onboard options that make it pretty Alpha even without the fancy ergonomic
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layout you can store multiple layout profiles and macros on the keyboard
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itself so they work on any machine you plug into like really any machine that
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supports USB keyboards is compatible and your layouts and macros are saved as txt
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files editable and emailable by you
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macros can be over 200 keystrokes long and you can even change the speed at
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which they get executed not bad but should you buy this keyboard
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well the advantage to isn't perfect it's
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really pricey and honestly I wish the number pad was in the middle instead of
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making me press this button and me what
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is that sound even but if improved
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Comfort injury prevention and increased
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productivity eventually are what you look for in a keyboard well it just
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allowing you to use services that are otherwise geo-restricted but you don't
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tunnel bear does a couple of things it encrypts your connection and makes it
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appear to the services and websites you use online as though you are some
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Anonymous person in some random country and the best part is you can try it for
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free with 500 megabytes of data and no
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credit card required just head over to tunnel bear.com
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and when you upgrade to unlimited you can even save 10% by using our
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link so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or maybe check out the link
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to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description description also
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down there you'll find our merch store where we have cool shirts like this yeah
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like this one and our community Forum which you should totally join