How long does it take you to get to know a keyboard?

[Go-Kart]

How long does it take you to get to know a keyboard?

Having read/watched many keyboard reviews, it seems to be that one week is the standard period of time to have a new board on your desk before forming an opinion. Having tried a range a different keyboards over the past few weeks, I was trying to pin down how long I gave each one of them. Some of the poor things only lasted twenty four hours! However, I find typing something of reasonable length satisfies my curiosity; so although a day seems unfair, I'm hunting for an "essay end-game" keyboard. My daily driver and gaming keyboard selection is largely satisfied.

I'm curious, how do you audition keyboards?

[ddrfraser1]

Depends how foreign. I just built this.

9F33EBE5-68CC-4BC8-BDB3-B0CC2B8B44F0.jpeg (1.3 MiB) Viewed 4328 times

For someone who regularly pilots battleships, this is quite the adjustment.

[Go-Kart]

Depends how foreign. I just built this.


9F33EBE5-68CC-4BC8-BDB3-B0CC2B8B44F0.jpeg


For someone who regularly pilots battleships, this is quite the adjustment.

Whao, that's quite a departure! Half the time I find ergos to look ugly but that looks nice!

[Touch_It]

For most moderately standard keyboards with small/medium quirks and to get a really good feel for the switches I think a week of every day usage is my sweet spot.

Now if i were to try something more exotic like an ergodox or some weird custom i couldn't say.

[micmil]

For most... a few seconds. Anything that's relatively normal is no issue. Even the Redragon 60% I picked up a couple of months ago didn't have anywhere near the learning curve I thought there would be. I credit this to the absolutely amazing and perfect muscle memory that decades of playing guitar has given me. Except for all the typos and stuff. Ignore those.

Tiny left shifts? Screw that. It'll be years. With my existing ulnar fackery it's too much of a stretch. Will never happen. 0/10, would not capitalize. I think learning Dvorak would take me less time than figuring out tiny left shift. All my friends hate tiny left shift.
KIDS: "Hey mom, can we have SHIFT?"
MOM: "We have SHIFT at home."
SHIFT AT HOME: TINY

[Reshala]

For switches, about one or two days, a weird layout will definitely take much longer to get used to.

[paperWasp]

Clearly visible space bar surface wear (glossy spot). That's the right moment!

[Muirium]

So PBT caps make keyboards harder to learn, you say? Interesting…

[Bjerrk]

That's great good question. I find some things very difficult to get used to, such as the small Return key on ANSI boards.
Weirdly placed modifier keys, on the other hand, are not much of a problem.

[Go-Kart]

My question was more:

How long does it take you to decide whether you like a keyboard or not? Rather than get used to a keyboard.

For instance, a new keyboard arrived here this afternoon that I was really excited about. I put it on my desk, began typing and instantly knew it wasn't what I was after. It usually takes me an essay/typing an A4 page worth of text but today, I knew after a few strokes.

When I first tried a Topre board, I used it for about two days and thought that I liked it but wasn't sure. It was a HHKB that I ended up returning because of my distaste for the layout. However, I keep on thinking about the feel Topre, wanting to audition one for longer.

[Muirium]

I find my prejudice is healthy quick off the mark, too.

I kid, but I’m also serious. First impressions are really difficult to overcome. And reputations matter more than we like to think.

[Go-Kart]

Indeed. I think one thing that really put me off my HHKB as soon as I took it out of the box was the build quality. It somewhat harmed my first impressions. However, I keep on thinking about that little board none-the-less! With my Libertouch, I didn't think it was a looker or anything, and the build quality was satisfyingly weighty and Japanese. I think I was expecting to be blown away by the key feel but I was underwhelmed. My instant thought, "Like Topre but the tactility is not rounded enough for me."

It'll be tough for anything to dethrone my newly linearised Bigfoot for now!

[Rayndalf]

Something crazy like a Kinesis Advantage - took me 2-3 weeks of suffering to get most of it down, took me another month or two to get comfortable with brackets and tilde, and I still mess them up sometimes.

A laptop keyboards I don't use very often with weird keysizes or a misplaced delete or backspace - probably never

[ollir]

I know quite quickly if I like a keyboard or not, but I take my time with any analytical reasoning about what exactly makes me feel the way I do. Picking up nuances and forming actual worded out thoughts about what makes the whole usually takes a longish period of usage over several rotations.

There's plenty of nuances to pick up in switch feel, keycap profile and feel, sound and all the factors that affect it, materials and construction, visual aesthetics and the overall typing experience that is made out of all of this.

[Go-Kart]

I've noticed only just today that the previous keyboard or two that I've used the days previous impacts how I perceive something new/different.

[Palatino]

A big part for me, whether I like it or not, is how long I've waited for it, how much I've paid for it, and how much hope I have pinned to it. If all those are high, it might take me days or weeks before I stop overlooking the niggles and realise I don't like it, or that it's good but not worth the premium.

[Muirium]

You sound all set for Topre!

Reputation—expectation!—really does play tricks on human perception.

(I was going to say "your perception" but it's not just you, and I'd prefer to foster my nascent reputation as a robot than be one of those people who says "one's perception.")

An example: I quite like Alps integrated dome switches, as found in the Zenith Supersport SX. The venerable Beardsmore sent me that keyboard once he'd written it up, and expecting nothing much, it really surprised me as a crisply tactile wee beaut. Mind, I'd need to build a chassis for it and hook up a controller to actually use it, so I've never been through the process of breaking it in and learning its foibles. Instead, I forget about it and occasionally re-encounter it, only to have that same positive first impression each time.

[ingmar]

I think learning Dvorak would take me less time than figuring out tiny left shift. All my friends hate tiny left shift.

I feel your pain: that's exactly how I feel about ANSI Enter. (Big Ass Enter is weird, but workable. ANSI Enter? No siree, Bob.) Ah, muscle memory.

[Bjerrk]

I think learning Dvorak would take me less time than figuring out tiny left shift. All my friends hate tiny left shift.

I feel your pain: that's exactly how I feel about ANSI Enter. (Big Ass Enter is weird, but workable. ANSI Enter? No siree, Bob.) Ah, muscle memory.

Yeah, agreed! I used an ANSI board for a few days, but after having prematurely sent a dozen half-typed messages to the Zoom chat by mistakenly pressing "Enter", my frustration level got too high.

I assume I'll give it another go some day ...

[matt3o]

How long does it take you to decide whether you like a keyboard or not? Rather than get used to a keyboard.

what is that you are looking for in a keyboard? Trying new keyboards for the sake of a fancy design or a weird new switch makes no sense to me.

I'm designing my own keyboard to optimize what I use the keyboard for. The layout, modifiers and certain keys are customized to my usage.

If you don't have this need, why do you need to "get used" to a new keyboard? I find a TKL layout is good for 90% of the population. Getting a HHKB just because it's cute and force yourself into liking it doesn't make sense.

Maybe there's the question of: "why everybody likes this keyboard when I don't". So you maybe want to try hard to get a specific benefit, but I don't think it's really necessary. The keyboard should serve you a purpose.

That being said, it takes me 2 weeks to get used to a new completely different design. At that point I can tell if it was worth it.

[Go-Kart]

My idea for this question came off the back of some of the thoughts expressed here on this thread about me only being able two justify owning three keyboards. Little backlit thing for gaming, a daily driver with elevated functionality and a keyboard expressly for serious typing sessions.

I've been searching keyboards to fit these three roles but, partly due to the nature of great eBay finds, I have been purchasing all manner of keyboards sporadically and was concerned that I wasn't giving some of them a chance to please me. As mentioned above, my rejection of my Libertouch was instant! Great keyboard but I knew it straight away it wasn't what I was hoping for. In posting this thread, I wished to get a few learned perspectives on how members of the community audition a keyboard, and how long for.

One thing that I have realised since my very first post is that I'm able to now largely ignore my cold, utilitarian leanings and own as many keyboards as I like

...and I blame DT.