Review: ZSA Voyager, a split, ergonomic and programmable mechanical keyboard
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- A full review of the ZSA Voyager after 2 months of daily use.
Here are the clamps I used with the tripod kit: amzn.to/46VzTAL
I also think these would work well and probably give more mounting options: amzn.to/3G6Vr1i
And here are the electronic calipers used to measure the keycaps: amzn.to/49wzSoA
Here is my Configuration for the Voyager: configure.zsa.io/voyager/layo...
0:00 Start
0:26 Essentials
1:13 What you get (Apple levels of quality)
2:20 Attention to detail
3:34 Magnetic feet for tenting
4:43 Sounds with red linear switches
5:00 Height and weight
5:25 Doubts (no wireless?)
8:25 MX and not choc key spacing
10:13 What to do with the extra row of keys?
11:26 Home Row Mods
13:45 Long term comfort
14:44 Opinions on thumb keys
16:18 Tripod Mount
20:11 Software
22:08 Shortcomings
24:11 Summary and recommendations
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I'm surprised to see how few (
I wish ZSA had a warehouse in Europe. The single reason I haven’t ordered any of their boards is the uncertainty of the customs fees and charges… 😢
That should be a solvable puzzle. For example in Switzerland the customs charge a flat fee of about 20 to 30 bucks, plus the VAT (only 7.7% here) of the total cost declared on the bill (including shipping).
Got myself one delivered to germany. Pretty easy as they deliver via DHL express and they will handle all the customs and tax handling and charge it from you. As germany doesn’t produce and export any Keyboards, customs were almost 0, just 19% taxes and dhl handling fees, in total around 80€.
@@BallerBubi hi, I'm currently thinking about ordering one to Germany. Could you please tell me how long shipping took in your case?
I bought it from Switzerland and the customs fee was 36.-. No dealbreaker if you are already willing to pay this amount of money for a keyboard.
It was 25% VAT to Sweden sadly, with VAT and shipping fees it landed a bit over €500 for me but I still think it was well worth it.
Great review! I already bought my keyboard, but can't stop watching reviews for it until it gets here. It's just a day away!
Ha! Enjoy 👍
Thanks! I’ve really appreciated your detailed keyboard reviews and educational series. A great contribution to the community.
Thanks so much. Appreciate that 🙏
I finally broke down and ordered a Voyager. Thanks again for the convincing.
@@malpernlet us know how you find it when you have used it a while 👍
I'm definitely getting the Voyager at some point. Thanks for the review!
Loved the honest review with acid humor sprinkled on top, subscribed
Thanks for all the keyboard reviews. I don't know how you did it. I moved to the glove 80 about 3 weeks ago and I still have times where I feel very handcuffed trying to get work done. I won't let myself switch back or I won't make adaptive progress, but it is mentally taxing. It gets better each day, but I can't imagine doing this process with as many boards as you have tried.
Hi Jeff, thanks for the understanding 😉 Yes, it’s one of the reasons I’m keen to do less of them. I can appraise the hardware/build very quickly but to really know what a board is like I need to use it for at least a month, preferably two which means re-making your muscle memory each time and suffering some productivity hit. Easier with similar boards but still problematic if you want to get stuff done! Thanks again 👍
I switched to moonlander and colemak 6 months ago and I still struggle. But don't give up :D
@@benfrainukbuuut its perfect mental training. Srsly. Every typ of learning especially something new helps to keep it running longer and also better.
Thank you for this really good review and video in general. Love your reviews! I ordered Voyager last week and can't wait for it to arrive (in a couple of days) and now with your review, the wait will be just a bit harder :) Currently, I'm on Advantage 360 and always use only 2 thumb keys. The only thing I was worried about the Voyager is the cmd/alt keys. But I configured my 360 the way I expect to configure the Voyager and I love it. Home row mods work great and I don't need cmd/alt to use them with my thumb.
Again, thanks for the video, and all the best!
Great review. For the home row mods, what really worked for me was increasing the Tapping term value (under Advanced->Tapping) to 240, and enabling Permissive hold (under Advanced->Tapping [Dual functions]).
This has made all the difference for me! I was trying to tap the closest thumb button for space, and hold for command, but I kept getting false positives. I increased to 300 ms and it totally works now! Thank you!!
@@MatthewSSchwartz glad it helped. Will probably increase mine as well. Thanks for letting me know.
I have a moonlander and one of these in the post. Home row mods are something I can’t get my head round. Like how do you do CMD + Shift + T if CMD is on the T key?
@@ness-ee have the mods on both halves, that's how I set it up on mine
@@raistdejesus nice 👌 I’ll do that thx
Been waiting for this and managed to miss the notification lol. Thank you for the great reviews! Been on a binge watching your various ergo keyboard reviews as my wrists have been starting to hurt a bit recently. I’m still undecided on what board to get but I’m now very much leaning towards the Voyager.
If it’s wrists, make sure you consider the Moonlander, Advantage360 and Glove80 as they all keep your wrist in a very neutral position which might just help you out.
@@benfrainuk Will do!
I love it, it is brilliant. I've been advocating at work for people to try it out, and so far only one taker, but she borrowed mine for a month. Plenty of time to get past the learning curve, and even though it's not for her, I know there are people who can benefit from it. Such a great product that it just has to be shared! :)
Ben, thank you. I would venture to say that this is the best review I've come across so far of the Voyager -- and I have seen a lot of great reviews of it. I believe that the difference for me is that you were able to convey your experiences (good, bad or indifferent) in such a way that I could "feel" that experience myself. I hope that makes sense. You also answered for me many questions that, as you were wondering about for yourself, I would have been looking out for for myself -- and I feel that these very issues/questions were not covered (well or at all) in other reviews. I cannot tell you how enthusiastic I am about your review, but to say that if I weren't, I would not have taken the time here to even write this comment. :)
Rick - thanks 🙏 That’s genuinely lovely to hear. Hope you enjoy yours - let me know how you find it 👍
18:40 Was about to ask for the clamps, found the link in the description, thank you mate! :)
Think these look pretty handy too. amzn.to/3G6Vr1i gives a few more options
Excellent review! Interesting layout. Thanks for sharing
Great review! I might pick this one up for work one day.
This is my first keyboard outside of a traditional mechanical keyboard, and whew the learning curves been alot. It definitely didn't help I decided to switch to colemak on top of it all. But finally getting used to it and my God I love this product.
Been loving ur content. Excited to see what you continue to make videos on.
I'd personally be interested in any sort of programming work flow videos. Maybe some monitor reviews as well. Cheers
Thanks for the feedback 👍
I've been using the moonlander for almost a year now, I just ordered the voyager to use with my tablet on the go. I cannot wait to try it.
Amazing review!! Thank you!
I have a Glove80, but wonder if I would type faster/more comfortably on a board like this that is flat. Thoughts?
Thanks - that's really interesting. And I think that's a good point re thumb strength vs dexterity.
Just got mine today and I'm already loving it. While it won't replace my Moonlander I think it'll be a good substitute to my Plank. I was kinda hoping that ZSA would make this for a while now. The keeb takes some time to get used to but I've found that I'm able to work fine in Emacs with this board just like I am in the planc.
Got one based on this review since I was in the market for a better keyboard. I’m a month in and absolutely love it. It was my first ergo keyboard and I don’t regret the purchase. Thanks for the review.
Fantastic, glad you’re enjoying it 👍
Ben, I want to say thank you for these reviews comparing keyboards. It’s been timely for me, as I’ve realised I need to Ergo up my life due to RSI, and it seems with this video you’ve reached a logical end to your journey (for now).
Having considered the Kenesis, glove, corne, ferris and moonlander, the Voyager was the last for me to compare - and now you’ve answered all my questions. I can’t wait to have enough money saved to purchase either a corne or a voyager - realistically it’s going to be the corne due to the lower price!
In the mean time I built my own “rig” for my apple keyboard and trackpad that allows them to be as one unit, with negative tilt and a large palm rest, and can be sat on my lap. Even a usb hub built in. Then used Karabiner to change the two command keys to backspace and return, respectively. With caps lock as control and escape (depending if held), and a utility called warpd for controlling the mouse pointer, I’ve been able to reduce how far I need to move my hands away from the home row and it’s really helped.
My next step after eventually going split is to explore tripod mounts for tenting and experiment with the best hand positions for ergonomics, and then learning to give up the trackpad completely.
I wanted to suggest you try out Helix, the editor written in rust, since the motions are in my opinion “better” than vim or neovim, and it comes with more things set up out of the box.
Other than that, as a fellow designer/web developer I appreciate your detailed and balanced style and I’m sure I’ll enjoy watching you talk about/show us whatever is currently catching your interest.
Thanks for that, appreciate it. Keep looking at Helix but waiting to see where it goes with plugin support 👍 I’m going to let @DevOnDuty figure it all out first. Love his summaries
Hey Ben, great review, as usual. Nice work! 👍
Regarding Choc spacing, I think the biggest advantage it has over MX spacing is in the vertical direction. MX spacing is 19.05mmx19.05mm and Choc spacing is 18mmx17mm... which means there is a full 2mm less height in each keycap. The end result is less reaching and stretching to get to rows outside of home row. Yes that also means that Choc keycaps are rectangular and not square.
Damn. Good point. Totally missed that. My bad.
But I think my point would stand. For hamfisted folk like me, it’s not a big difference. Would concede for more sensitive folk may well be though. I’ve found them both equally comfortable
Great review! Leaning towards a Moonlander. Thinking that perhaps expoying/gluing a thin metal plate to the back of the Moonlander would allow it to be used with the Voyager tripod kit... to achieve that quick-detach and stil be able to easily pack it up or use it flat on a desk
Thanks for the review
From what I read one of the main benefits of a keywell keyboard is that it allows easy reach to the number raw, so you don't have to put it on a layer like with the corne.
How is the voyager comfortable for you in that regard? Especially with the pinky.
Thanks for the review.
I own the moonlander
for over a year now, using the platform tenting kit too.
It's just the perfect keeb in terms of comfort.
I look at other ergo keebs from time to time but they always seem much less comfy then the moonlander + platform, so i end up fallin back.
i thought the voyager could replace the moonlander but it's so different.
have you tried any comfier
keebs than the moonlander?
would love to know :)
Fantastic in-depth review, thank you!
It's so interesting seeing everyone's opinions on this and other good keyboards. Particularly surprising to me was your preference over something sculpted like the Kinesis 360 or Glove80. I've been using Advantage and ErgoDox style keyboards for 15 years, so it's probably no surprise my current favorite is the Kinesis 360 (wired). Though Glove80 rev 2 shipment is in transit, and seems promising given my preference - we'll see.
The Voyager is still growing on me, and for mobile use is a top contender. If it had 3 thumb keys I think it would be _the_ top contender, but for now I think the Moonlander takes up only little more room in the backpack, and is more flexible (literally), has palm rests, more keys overall and more thumb keys.
To be fair, I mostly work stationary with good keyboards at home and at work. This means the Voyager's main advantage (small size for mobility) is not as important to me. Also, I've only used the Voyager on my game PC, to slowly get used to it. When gaming, I mostly only use the left half, with the right hand on the mouse, and it works surprisingly well for that.
However, not using it cold turkey as daily driver for working as a software engineer means it takes longer to get used to, and has allowed me to delay more drastic changes, such as moving some modifiers from the thumbs to the home row.
Having had 6 thumb keys for years made me love having all mods on thumbs, plus a layer switch hold key for the single extra layer that I need, plus a few extra tapped keys such as backspace, space and enter. Tap or hold dual function keys help, but I'd need 3 thumb keys to avoid the drastic changes I mentioned. And since I have no issues reaching the far keys on Kinesis 360, ErgoDox and Moonlander the incentive to change this is merely curiosity rather than need.
I think if you are comfy don’t change. That’s part of the reason I’m trying to make a conscious effort to stop trying new keyboards. If I could only have one of 360, Glove80, Monnlander, Voyager etc I would probably be fine. Whatever you get, within reason, you adapt to, to make it as useful/comfortable as possible.
@@benfrainuk Oh aye, they're all very solid choices. Chasing the holy grail is somewhat fun though, as well. And regarding more minimal keyboards I do wonder (just a little bit) if maybe I'd actually prefer having more layers rather than doing more reaching? I suppose realistically either way will work just fine, like you said.
Maybe it's similar with keyboard layouts: I've been using vanilla Colemak for 15 years without issue, thus did not change to mod DH or even a completely different layout, because the small payoff might not be with the extra trouble (maybe even anything other than QWERTY is good enough).
@@shrugalicsounds like you have very sound judgement on these things 👍
Fantastic review as always, I love the design of the keyboard but I think the thumb clusters would throw me off.
Another great review Ben
will you review Dygma defy also ?
(when it will be eventually delivered)
Not sure. Recording a video course currently which is taking up all my spare time. If I do, it’ll be months away (late to the party, much like this Voyager review!)
Great video! I actually encountered a similar issue to you regarding homerow mods a few months ago and the solution was to set IGNORE_MOD_TAP_INTERRUPT=true. Somewhere in past release or 2 of QMK ignore mod tap has been made the default behavior. I’d bet that the version of QMK oryx was using when you first got the Voyager was a few releases behind
Hmm, that’s a good shout but regarding the versions it’s been the same (v22) all along as far as I’m aware. Glad I wasn’t the only one who has that issue though! 👍
The same thing happened to me and I actually solved it by switching "Misc > QMK Next" off. For some reason at some point it was automatically switched on and that prevented my home rows from working :S
@@RodrigoDAgostinothanks Rodrigo, I’ll keep an eye out for that
Wonderful Channel.
🙏
Nice review as always Ben, I've seen each one and ended up with the Moonlander. I "need" another keyboard as I think it's too much of a hassel to transport the Moonlander from home to work everyday and tinkering with the tilt (this is how spoiled we keyboarders become after awhile lol). Pretty sure I'll end up with the Dygma Defy, which is one of the few keyboards you haven't reviewed yet! But to be fair, it sounds as if more keys and bigger thumb cluster is probably not a ideal for you😂.
I’ve had a Defy on order since the Kickstarter but yes, not sure it will be for me. I’ll keep an open mind though.
Are we keyboardist or keyboarders hahahaha, I still live on the ergodox ez and it absolutely feels and looks like a dinosaur.
Great in-depth review. I'm surprised it compared favorably to the contoured boards for comfort so maybe I'll give it a shot. Lately I've been coveting the Svalboard, which is pretty out there but seems like it could have some next-level ergonomics. Any thoughts on that one?
Svalboard does look interesting but my understanding is it requires software on the host computer to run. If that’s the case it wouldn’t be possible for me due to corporate security policies. Would love to hear more people’s experience with it though
@@benfrainukI'm fairly certain it doesn't.
@@weirdlyspecific302my bad, must have got it confused with some other board that looked a bit ‘out there’ and had some software running client side that predicted words
@23.26 if I'm understanding correctly, this is called mod-tap in QMK
Hi Ben! I’m trying to decide between the ML or Voyager. This will be my first split, ergo, ortho keyboard and it will be permanently set up on my desk at work. I’ve heard from some people that the ML thumb cluster is ‘too far’, had this been your experience? Thanks!
I always found the thumb clusters fine on Moonlander but plenty of people say it doesn’t so sadly might be a case of trying it out
I enjoyed this review and your glove 80 one! I’m a long time Ergodox user, and I have a couple of random questions.
1) I’d love to see a short video on your layouts with these smaller boards. The home mods thing is something I’ve never heard of, and it seems really promising.
2) I’d really like to move to one of the Colemak layouts, but I wonder what people do for hjkl movement in vim. Do you remap it or use a layer to still allow ingrained memory?
Hopefully do videos on layouts in the coming months.
I use arrow keys rather than hjkl. Did that before switching to Colemak because I’m often in design software, or just entering text in the OS and cmd+arrows is everywhere.
@@benfrainukthat would be great! Arrows would work - I have a layer that assigns arrows to hjkl, so I could keep the layout as is while experimenting with colemak
Be honest, Ben -you ordered the bloody thing JUST for the Colemak homing keys! Been wondering how long it'd be before you got one. But I digress..... When I was ready to move beyond my MS Sculpt and ordered the ML, I did so based on the reviews from you, Halleck, and one or two others. I'm maybe 2 months in with it and I definitely made a good call. It's been just about a week now since I placed my order for the Voyager, which I'll be using whilst traveling with the laptop. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of other stuff I might want to see from you.
Ha! If you notice I got the blanks so the legended homing keys are irrelevant to me. Because I always struggled to get legends with the bumps for Colemak I just started to go with blanks and have them on most my boards. Occasionally problematic but probably not as much as you’d think. Hope you enjoy the Voyager 👍
Hi Ben, great video. Any chance you could link me to the clamps you are planning to use with your chair?
Sure, using these amzn.to/46VzTAL
I would love keychron to do one with a layout similar to this
Maybe one thing to acompany the amazing voyager might just be a Kensington Expert Mouse. step into the next area of the desktop.
i have not check any of your neovim videos yet so i will. but it might be interresting having like a series of 10 minutes where you go into the different levels of functionality in vim/neovim.
first episode can just be to get used to hjkl and how to skip to insert, replacle wrd you are hovering, and so on. next one could be the Virtual line selector and copy paste, and one of the final ones could working with remote files through ssh, adding plugins that lets you lazy search files in a folder or take a step into regular expressions and how to work in neovim with it.
neovim has lots of tools, and we all need tips n tricks. :)
Edit: nevermind, you did! great stuff, will consume. :)
I have a similar intermittent issue when waking up my computer via the CalDigit TS3 hub (on an unrelated keyboard), so I also find that ‘offense’ easy to forgive.
I've watched this video about 5 times. Still can't bring myself to pull the trigger on a Voyager. But I can't stop thinking about it either.
The way I always think about such decisions now is that I’ll never know unless I try it. And if I don’t like it, I can just sell it on eBay and recoup the majority of the money and then I’ve just paid a ‘rental’ fee, which is less the amount of money I’m losing watching my time watching that guy review it 5 times 🤣🤣🤣🤣 good luck whatever you decide 👍
could please you review dygma defy?
What are the two keyboards you have on the wall in the background (like the yellow one)? I quicky looked through your video history and blog, but couldn't find any info. Sorry if you've answered this before.
No problem. They are both HMKB 60 with a boardwalk PCB. I’ve got used to split boards now so rarely use them. Don’t want to part with them though because they look so good!
How does this one compare to the Glove80?
Hi Ben, I'm super curious about which keyboard are you using daily? Want to choose between Glove80 and Voyager and I can't
Hmmm quite different boards with different goals. What’s the main problem you are trying to solve?
Thanks to ur videos i could stop my 3h hyper focus on split keyboards hahaha.
Still have questions about rhe sound of the moonlander,
I think the moonlander plus the platfrom still wins. Even though i would wish it be less straight. And more u or inverse u curved. Also it still seems like zsa does have the apple lince pay up price.
Been using the k860 logitech until now.
I'm just a bit unsatisfied with the thinny sound, feels like the moonlander is lacking the thicc sound other Mechanical have. Does anyone have tipps for this?
Great video! You got it in only a few days? The site says 3 week lead time last time I checked.
When they have stock they use UPS so quick delivery of 3-4 days from that point. Not surprised they are out of stock currently though! Great board 👍
@@benfrainuk Thanks for the info! Really great video. Extremely helpful.
You said you were having trouble with home row mods. I've you been able to make it work without compiling QMK, just by using Oryx. If yes, can you share the main element? I have a glove80 and kinesis 360 with zmk configured for home row mods and it work very well. Have you been able to achieve the same thing with QMK?
BTW: I found Choc browns to feel surprisingly "hard" to press on the Voyager, as in: it requires more force than I expected, compared to MX browns. Anyone else got this impression?
The spring seems to have the same force nominally, but it still feels heavier somehow. I wonder if it's the shorter travel distance in general, or maybe because the tactile hump comes earlier, almost right away?
Most of my other keyboards had Cherry Clears or equivalent, so I can definitely manage to press keys with some extra "determination" let's say. I'll have Choc reds on a Glove80 to compare soon, and wonder if I should try other (tactile) Choc variants.
Tricky comparison because I hated red chocs in the glove (really like the whites in the Glove) but really like them in the Voyager
I've got browns on my Voyager (and browns on my Moonlander) and I know what you mean. What I found was the choc style switches are very inflexible when not pressed straight down so even pressing them "slightly from the side" causes them to firm up a lot. The MX style switches you can hit almost perpendicular and they still slide down with ease. It's like they catch onto the side of the stem and friction makes them sluggish almost. I had to just hate that enough to force myself to type better and hit the keys dead on and not "swipe them".
@@hglbrg thanks for the hint, I'll pay more attention to how/where I press them.
The Choc effect. Chocs with the same spring weight usually feel 10-20gf heavier than their MX counterparts due to shorter travel distance.
Your fingers have to build up the same force in a shorter distance.
If you had to pick between this or the Glove80?
man this sold me on Voyager so badly, particularly the software... considering switching from glove80. I just wonder how hard it is gonna be to readjust from a keywell
I tested a lot of keyboards and I love the comfort of my glove 80 red pro. I have also a second one on which I soldered 25g key switches. But having all keys with 25 g is not so convenient. I was thinking it would be great for some keys to have 35g and for some 25g. The voyager allows to test easily this configuration and if you are not happy with it, it is easy to roll back. The location of arrow keys on glove 80 are really comfortable and do not require switching to a different layer. I am afraid that I would miss them by switching to voyager. In your case, do you consider voyager is better than glove 80 ? What is your daily driver now ?
I’ve long argued the case for dedicated arrows and you will miss them a lot if you move to a board without them. I certainly did but have grown accustomed to them on a layer. Took a couple of months solid use though!
I'm curious, how sensitive are the 35g switches on the glove 80? Can you comfortable rest your fingertips on the keys or do you have to be vigilant not to accidentally trigger?
35 g are really confortable, no accidentally key presses. It happens with 25 g. I get used to having 35g with my keyboards. I cannot use keyboard with 50g all day long.@@urbantwilight
@@urbantwilightpersonally, I find the red pros too light. But plenty of people love them. Sadly I imagine you’ll only know when you try them!
I have a moonlander and could not get the home row mods to work. I also kept getting false inputs. To get the ctrl to work I would have to pause for one second before pressing the next key which was very frustrating. The shift also would not work and needs a dedicated key. I do a lot of excel work and really need a dedicated key for functions (f1, etc), delete, backspace, enter, tab, space. I want to get the voyager, but hesitant that it won't be able to work.
That sounds like exactly what I was getting!
I am trying to get into home row mods, but the slight lag bothers me. From what I understand, a normal key is evaluated at the moment it's pressed, while a dual function key is when it's released. So there is always going to be some lag on dual-function keys 🤔
I want to love homerow mods, but seeing this delay drives me crazy. I gave it a good go again trying to disconnect my brain from what is echoing, but I just couldn’t do it.
on the moonlander there's a setting in Oryx that will switch on one of the LEDs when caps lock is on. Maybe the Voyager supports that setting too?
Yes, it does, I’d like it for Caps Word though, not just Caps Lock 👍
@@benfrainuk is there not a way for the LEDs to light up differently based on different layers that are active?
I'm researching ergonomic keyboards because my husband is an editor and works on his laptop all day so he has developed an injury on his hand. He needs a portable, comfortable keyboard for his wrists and hands, that is also IOS compatible. I am torn between the Voyager and the Glove80 but so far I'm leaning toward the Voyager since it's so small and more affordable than the Glove80. Thank you for these review videos, they are so helpful. If anyone has some recommendations or comments about their own keyboard I'd appreciate it very much.
If you want it to work with iOS then the Voyager is probably not the best choice as it is wired only.
Super curious if you find yourself gravitating towards the glove or the voyager these days.
Mostly on the Voyager currently but that’s no insult to the Glove, just I am fickle and mostly using layers rather than extra keys at present. They are two hard to compare boards as they solve different problems. One has a lovely keywell, all the keys you need and a lighter feel and wifi, the other has less keys, but hotswap and very solid feel.
So what if you need one of the missing keys? I don’t get it
Do you think it's doable to use the Kinesis 360 as your daily driver and switch to the voyager while traveling or are the differences in key positions too big?
I think it’s doable but really depends on how much of a pain it is for you, cognitive burden wise, to move between the two.
My opinion on these things is that with enough practice, you can do anything. It might not be an easy process but if this is a usecase you'd like to have then you can absolutely do that no matter how different these keyboards may or not be.
Obviously I don't have quite this exact predicament, but I've learned to be able to type well on both qwerty and colemak-dh with maybe 30 seconds of adjustment time. It took me a while to get to that point, but practice is king :)
@@Psoewishyes. Agree 100%
I'm still greatly in love with my Atreus keyboard, but this is intriguing… Maybe I'm more socially impressionable than I care to admit to. I'm in nirvana with mine and have no 'need', but I feel myself losing the battle of surrendering $400 for yet another keyboard…
Of to EBay to see if I can sell of some wares to soften the blow..
Actually I am also having home row mod problems: It makes the moonlander type really slowly. Is it the problem with the holding (tapping) delay?
Can you copy the tapping settings I have (config for Voyager in the video description) and see if it works that way?
I have the same issue with the home row mods, for the love of God I cannot figure out how to fix it. It messes my home row up to a point that you can't type above 60 WPM. Had the same experience on the ZSA Moonlander. Never was able to use the home row mods because of this.
Have you tried the things the others mentioned? I haven’t needed to so far as mine still working well
@benfrainuk what are your thoughts on the Voyager compared to the Defy? I have the defy and enjoy it, but looking for something the is better to travel with + less key travel.
Voyager is a great board and certainly easier to travel with and has less key travel. No wireless is the only negative for some
I prefer wired to a standard wireless. However the best of both worlds is still the gaming keyboard styles USB receivers, where you get the convenience of wireless and the reliability and plug and play of wired
You touched a bit on Voyager vs Cornish Zen, but not in too much detail... Is the Voyager the clear winner?
Also I haven't had any doubts about key wells until you mentioned the thumb position, thanks for bringing that up!
Cornish Zen is no longer being made so that makes the choice a bit easier. But in terms of best. Couldn’t say for sure. Like them both a lot for different reasons. If it was a ‘hand made’ Corne v the Voyager, I would pick the Voyager every time
@@benfrainukare you not missing the third thumb key from the corne on this voyager? Thanks for the review.
@@rb.xno. Thought I would but after a little bit of swapping stuff around it’s been no problem
@@benfrainukthanks for this, and really sorry because I hadn’t listened to that part of your review yet!
Hope someone decides to make a Cornish zen again, I’d love a premium corne with tripod tenting - that would be my perfect keyboard.
Will you ever review the digma defy?
Yes, my review went up a few days ago 👍
Dont home row mods slow you down ?
If the choc reds are your least favorite choc switches, what's your favorite?
Whites if I don’t need to be around other people 😉 other than that I like sunsets
thats really cool but you can diy this for approx 80 quid and have enough parts left for a second one you can make em wireless too using zmk software and cosmos keyboard software
Been there done that ;) I’m at the point where I’ll happily pay more for the build quality you don’t get with a custom build. Decent keycaps like these would set you back about £80 alone! It’s like comparing a Dacia to a Porsche; they both get the job done, but they are not the same
I just don’t see how this board is superior to a Lily or a Sofle or an Iris, which all can come with choc. Thoughts?
Manufacturing quality is the big one
I'd argue the customer support, which ZSA does flawlessly, weighs in a little bit here as well. Not to say the CS is bad for the boards you mentioned, or even in cases where you assemble or even build the board yourself I've come across some really helpful individials behind them all but nothing compares to ZSA CS to be perfectly honest. They are in a league of their own.
@@hglbrg True - I owned a Moonlander at some point this year, and they are really helpful indeed.
My biggest beef is actually build quality: for a keyboard the price of the Moonlander, I expect quality. Sound, weight, keycaps. All very disappointing; cheap plastic for the case, iron screws going into plastic (it's gonna brake sooner or later) second if not third grade keycaps and overall a hollow, plastic-feel to the overall board.
I've modded it, was much better, changed switches and put some premium keycaps on but ended up selling it to a friend.
I'm concerned this keyboard is the same deal
Hmm, low quality was not something I ever felt about the Moonlander. I did put a layer of neoprene in mine for better acoustics but it’s one I don’t think I will sell, still use it for spells.
@@benfrainukI get where you're coming from. The split world is made of barebones pcb's and generally 3D-printed cases - some more premium aluminum stuff is coming out now, but pretty basic stuff.
Compare a Moonlander vs an entry-level keeb like a Tofu 65; quality it's night and day in favor of the tofu, and that's an entry level board. If we go up the food chain to stuff like Zoom65 or the likes, you see what I mean.
I have a feeling we're paying some money to the rarity of splits vs normal keyboards, with a generally lower quality
If they make a wireless version, I'll bite. Perhaps if they also add a third thumb button and function row, and no wireless, I'll equally consider it.
I will get one when it's wireless.
As far as choc vs. mx spacing. I completely don't get it. I am 193 cm high and my hands are not huge, but are not small either (like size 10) and I just can't type on those Sweeps, Cornishes etc. Who designed it?! Look at the spacing on Apple keyboards considered by many a comfy keyboard. I am now in a process of making my own keyboard using Ergogen and made a dozen of 3D printed mockups and it looks like a little bit of space between keys is just desirable. You make less mistakes while typing then, and notice that your fingers are spaced when you lay your hand on a table freely. BTW I am 100% with you on the number of thumb keys. Two for a English speaker is sufficient, I need to include characters like ł, ą, ę etc. so three looks better :D
I'm built similar to you and I have to say the Moonlander was more comfy for my pot lids for hands and as a Swede, the thumb cluster could have been 3 buttons and I'd be happier.
BUT after a couple of weeks with the board and retraining my hand position I can honestly say the above are very minor complaints and one does get used to it - in fact using the heatmap on the Oryx taught me that I don't actually use certain keys as often as I thought and that I used some keys (as in combinations) way more than I believed making me move those to more accessible positions.
Edit: Also moving the alphas up one row and eliminating the number row gave me tons of more thumb buttons on the lower row on both halves. It is a sacrifice and an acquired taste but it actually made a lot of sense after I got used to it.
In your case with the accented a, e, l etc. I'd recommend utilizing the double tap features in the Oryx configurator meaning double tap a gives ą. Try that for 2 weeks and then review. :) Might be the worst idea ever, or the best one ever, or something in between :D
@@hglbrg You mean Moonlander was better for you than Voyager?
@@marcin.sobocinski yes in some ways it was :) But now they are just sitting on a shelf in my office gathering dust as I have converted fully to the voyager life. :D For someone brand new to split keyboards and/or with large hands I'd recommend the Moonlander actually but for me I just can't go back to it after getting used to this new one.
QMK only is now a drawback now I got used to ZMK
ZSA make cool keyboards but pray you never have to deal with their customer support or you will regret the large investment.
That’s surprising to me. I have always found their support to be excellent, don’t think I’ve heard complaints in that respect before.
apple would never release something looking like that.
Principally mean presentation, build quality and attention to detail
"And then turn them off cause I'm not ten." 😀
😅 "PromoSM"
and then turn 'em off because I'm not ten lolol
Why anyone wants a wireless keyboard is beyond me. Total PITA. I'll never use one.
More money than brains...😅😂😊
I don't have time for this BS...