Closer Examination

There are so many features in this keyboard I am using for the first time that it is hard to say what is the most distinguishing. The most obvious one is the split keyboard design, with two halves that are meant to be positioned at shoulder length for you so that your arms are straight and most comfortable. This does mean having two cables instead of one, and it does not help that the provided cables are fairly long at 0.7 and 2.1 meters respectively for the TRRS and USB cables. Replacement USB cables are easy to find for the desired length, but TRRS is another matter entirely with only some boutique artisans offering replacements, albeit customizable ones.

This is not a full size keyboard, and nor would it qualify as a tenkeyless (TKL) model. It is closer to a 60% keyboard in terms of the number of keys available but ends up being more effective given the layout. There are grids of keys on each half in what is referred to as an ortholinear layout with the keys in neat rows and columns as opposed to being staggered in most layouts otherwise. This helps your fingers move up and down, left and right more easily. It was extremely difficult for me in the first week, having been used to the staggered arrangement for years now, but from the second week onwards it has become almost second nature to the point where I now miss it on other keyboards. I also found the thumb keys to be extremely hard to get used to, especially since they are not printed to allow for full customization and not be held back by legends, but here too the provided printed layout helped tremendously.


Not a whole lot going on the back relatively. Both halves have a thank you label to their Indiegogo backers, and the Shine has 15 addressable RGB LEDs on each half as well. These are located on the top to provide an underglow as opposed to backlighting. The Tilt/Tent kit comes pre-assembled as we saw, with the washers provided separately, and I would recommend starting off without the washers as it is easier to match up the two halves with distinct steps of travel. There are so many combinations here that I suspect everyone will be satisfied already, and if not you have the washers for full 360° control. The final picture above shows how I started off each half, with wrist rest included, but I kept playing with it till where I was most comfortable. It is really hard to put via words, or even videos, since this is something you have to try out yourselves over a few hours of typing but again I am left with a feeling of wanting this level of customization of all keyboards now as standard raised feet seem inadequate in comparison.


As mentioned before, ErgoDox EZ has gone with Signature Plastics for keycaps and Gateron for key switches and this is perhaps my favorite combination ever. Yes, Gateron is a Cherry clone but their moulds and plastics used in the housing and sliders are noticeably smoother- especially for the linear switches. It also did not help that ~2014 onward Corsair and Logitech ended up taking all that Cherry could make and more just among the two of them so smaller customers faced a long delay to receive their switches. I have here Gateron Brown switches, and this is one switch type where the original and most clones are the closest to each other. These too actuate at 45 cN and 2 mm of travel with a total travel distance of 4 mm, and I could not tell this apart from a Cherry MX Brown in a blind test. These particular switches have black housing, so they must be from an earlier production since the recent batches all use a translucent or clear housing.

The keycaps themselves also differ depending on if you go with blank (no printed legends) or printed ones. I have the latter here, as I was not all that comfortable going touch typing on a keyboard so different from any other I have tried so far. These are doubleshot ABS with 1.3-1.35 mm wall thickness and feel extremely solid. They also have a DSA profile similar to what we saw on the Vortex Core keyboard before with no sculpting and lower than OEM profile height. This, along with the ortholinear layout, aids in finger movement a lot and no sculpting means you can move the keycaps around if, say, QWERTY was not your style and you wanted to try out Dvorak or Colemak instead. Note that only the 1x1 unit keycaps come printed- the alphabets and some special characters- with the larger keycaps remaining blank. If you go with the black keycap set, then you get a DCS (sculpted) profile of PBT keycaps instead since moving keycaps does not make any sense there. These are arguably better in the long run, but does mean an even steeper leaning curve.

The largest of the keycaps are a 2x1u size so there are no stabilizers anywhere, but this also means replacement keycaps are not that easy to obtain. The choices are increasing thanks to Massdrop working with ErgoDox and the Input Club, but it is a good thing then that the stock keycaps are among the best you can get- and color coordination helps too!