Review: The Kinesis Advantage Keyboard

Buy from Amazon.com

(Note: there are several models available; the above link is to the Kinesis Advantage USB keyboard in white, but the keyboard is also available in black, and Kinesis has several other models. Also, I wrote this review some time ago, and some of the features may have changed since then.)

This strange keyboard looks out of place compared to the standard input devices that are supplied with computers today. Based on the venerable typewriter, standard keyboards place the hands, wrists and arms in abnormal and uncomfortable positions. Many computer users suffer from repetitive stress injuries (RSI), which can be debilitating. While there are a number of alternative keyboards available, some which split the keyboard in two and tilt each half, others which move the two parts of the keyboard even further apart, the Kinesis Advantage takes a unique tack by turning the keyboard inside-out.Most ergonomic keyboards use a convex layout where the middle of the keyboard is higher than the sides. This allows you to keep your hands at a more appropriate angle, and lets your arms be more correctly aligned with your hands. The Kinesis uses a convex approach, splitting the keyboard into two wells, each containing half the keys. You place the heels of your hands on the rests in front of the wells, and your fingers move downwards to press the keys. This lets your hands relax much more – you don’t have to raise your fingers to press keys, and therefore use less energy. And the keys themselves in these wells are not in straight lines, but are staggered to match the lengths of your fingers.

In addition to the main keys being in wells, other keys, such as the space, enter, delete and backspace keys, are located under your thumbs. This lets you press these keys much more easily, and since they are very commonly used, it saves a lot of stretching. The command, option and control keys are here as well, but they become problematic – I find it necessary to lift my hands to use them. The command key is about a half-inch too far from my thumbs, and the option key even further. Using keyboard shortcuts that call for multiple command keys becomes rather difficult because they are split across the two halves of the keyboard. Also, the space bar is only on one side – I had some carpal tunnel problems that were partly due to my using my right thumb to press the spacebar; when I changed to using my left thumb, they went away. You don’t have that option with this keyboard.

But using this keyboard is a real pleasure once you get used to it. I immediately noticed a decrease in tension in my chest and neck, probably because of the position of my arms and the way they are spread apart. However, this is a one-size-fits-all keyboard, and I had trouble getting my large hands to be comfortable on the rests and fit in the right place in the key wells. A bit more depth would make this keyboard easier to use for people with large hands.

This type of keyboard is meant for touch-typists. If you hunt and peck you won’t get any of its ergonomic advantages. For the greatest benefit, using the Dvorak keyboard layout gives your hands even more of a rest, since more of the keys you press are on the home (middle) rows.

Some things do bother me about this keyboard. It has a hollow sound, and a slightly stiff action – I like keyboards that are smooth, such as the one on recent iBooks. It’s noisy too, and after a while the resonance of the keys gets to me. It would probably take nothing more than dampers under each key, but the constant click of plastic on plastic is fatiguing. It can take a few days to get used to the basic layout of this keyboard, and even longer to get used to the locations of the special keys (modifiers, arrow keys, etc.), but after a while it feels much more natural than a “normal” keyboard. Since you can remap any of the keys, and program the F-keys to do anything you want, you can set the keyboard up to fit your needs. You can also record macros – commonly used text, such as your name or a boilerplate signature text – in the keyboard’s memory.

Another drawback is the fact that you still need to lift your hands off the keyboard to use a mouse or other pointing device. For a while, I was using a Kensington Expert Mouse Pro trackball, which works well with this keyboard, because it is about the same height – moving my hand from one to the other is smooth. But using a mouse is much more difficult, since the keyboard is high off your desk and the mouse is generally at desk level. This keyboard would be ideal with a built-in trackpad so you could work without any extraneous movement.

This keyboard is pretty big – it’s 16 1-2 inches high and 8 inches deep, and stands pretty high as well, almost 3 inches. This is smaller than the other ergonomic keyboards I have, but only because of the lack of a numerical keypad (which is accessed by pressing a special key and typing on the right side of the keyboard, similar to the way PowerBooks and iBooks work). But it seems bigger, perhaps because of the wider space between my hands.

One other advantage is the presence of two USB plugs underneath the front end of the keyboard. You can plug a mouse and another device into these plugs, saving you from using a hub and keeping the wires out of the way.

The Kinesis Advantage is not cheap, but for people who type a lot and either have RSI or want to prevent it, it’s an investment that will be recouped very fast. I know several translators who swear by this keyboard and wouldn’t give it up for anything. The only real difficulty is taking the plunge and committing yourself to it. Like when you buy new shoes, it feels very strange at first, but once you get used to it you may never want to turn back.

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