So I've been postponing the purchase of my first split keyboard for a while now. I had things like the Kinesis Advantage360 on my radar, but the price is quite steep (I live in Europe, so it's around 550€), and I'm not sure it will be "the one" for me, so I would prefer to get something a bit more affordable for a start.

I've seen those two boards on keebart.com:

A few questions for everyone:

Does anyone have experience with this store?
Are those boards model generally good? I've heard that the first version of the Dactyl Manuform could actually be quite bad for some nerves (pinching the thumb nerve?), would it be the case here too?
Do you think that a well is necessary, or is tenting "good enough"?

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Both are great keyboards, but the lack of column stagger (particularly on the Corne) may bother you. The sofle is quite feature complete - and more than enough in terms of key count.

The corne is very easy to build, the sofle is an order more difficult. They are all better than the Kinesis, and the Glove80, if you are trying to avoid spending hundreds of €. For that money you could get a build from bastardkeyboards.

I have never ordered from that store. For EU I used to order more from splitkb.com (check out their kyria.)

I think that many people going down this path get a sofle, or a lily58, and then move to a smaller 36 or 34 key. I recommend looking at miryoku.

I have some favorites that I will add to a new comment.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago

Thank you !

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I recently built a "pepper and salt" from an Estonian designer (https://pipar.koit.dev/) which is a great 36 key wireless which uses a third PMC as a dongle to save battery life on the units. Great unit, and great dev.

I should mention that he has a newer version incoming with LEDs and screens, but the original unit is a great working KB with good battery life and mostly by default.

I built mine for cheap by odering PCBs and components of Ali, and I just use foam feet instead of a case.