Musings about the 60% keyboards

I must admit that curiosity got the best of me.  As mentioned, I have begun to venture into the 60% keyboard world.  Suffice to say that this is where a lot of creativity are taking place.  The basic premise of the 60% keyboard is completely eliminating the numeric pad and the navigation cluster and ending up with the classic “typewriter” such as qwerty layout along with some interesting ways dealing with the necessary navigation keys, function keys and other meta keys.  The 60% keyboard scene is probably the most interesting to watch as many of the boutique players put out their own unique spin on it.  So, this is probably one of the most competitive and innovative space aside from the gaming keyboard that I have seen.

Keyboard Paradise is one player in Taiwan already mentioned, but Ducky Channel is not sitting idly by and introduced the Mini not too long ago right after Shine 4.  Vortex Poker series is already on the 3^rd iteration with the Pok3r and rumors of the 4^th type is already in the works.  Even Filco has a Minila keyboard out there to compete in this space.  I am just naming a few off the top of my head, but there’s others such as Leopold, Tex, Keycool, Noppoo and countless others all have some product offerings in this arena.  And of course, there’s the most famous 60% keyboard of all, the Happy Hacking Keyboard.  So, it’s kind of fun to watch this space as it evolves.  I am thinking getting on to try out just to see how a 60% board compares to an 87 keys or 104 keys setup.