As someone who is just looking into split boards and intending to buy my first one if this drop happens... How do I go about comparing all of these boards and deciding which features are "must haves" on split boards? Does anyone who has used a few of these want to chime in? Any helpful links?
I currently use an ergodox EZ every day and enjoy it immensely. I liked it so much that I have one at work and one that I leave at home.
The one downside with them is that they're a bit bulky to travel with. I now enjoy typing on them so much that when I'm forced to type on a different keyboard it makes me sad. This had lead me to look into some of the smaller keyboards, the so called 40% keyboards. For these keyboards modifier keys are used to enable you to get more done with fewer keys, for example by switching layers to turn 9 of the numbers into a numpad. This mirrors the way I've started using the ergodox anyway (to avoid having to stretch my fingers to the number row) and would be a more lightweight option.
Other than size (something which might not be a concern for your first keyboard) one of the other differences is how the keys are staggered. Traditional keyboards are horizontally staggered. Fingers however are not horizontally staggered but there is some vertical staggering to your fingers (middle finger is longer than index finger which is longer than pinky). Layouts like the ergodox try to emulate this by giving the keys a slight vertical stagger but removing the horizontal staggering. In theory this is more natural for your fingers--but it does take some getting used to at first, so it's a consideration as far as what keyboard style you're interested in. You'll notice that some keyboard layouts like the plank are perfectly rectangular--no staggering at all. While other keyboard layouts maintain the staggering of the qwerty keyboards that most of use learned to type on. So it's partly a question of how willing to adapt and learn you are. It will vary for different people but I was able to adapt back to my regular typing speed in about a week.
Hope that helps!
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