KINESIS Gaming Freestyle Edge RGB Split Mechanical Keyboard | Cherry MX Linear Red Switches | RGB | Ergonomic | Detachable Palm Support | Fully Programmable | TKL | Available Tenting

The w and the s keys simultaneously, and randomly, would quit working on my first one. Ive had bad switches before, and that happens, but never two at the exact same moment, so I didnt immediately suspect hardware. Sure enough, cycling the keyboards profiles would bring the keys back for a few seconds. Clearing the keyboards memory (with shortcuts on the keyboard) would bring them back for a few seconds. But theyd always fade back out... indicating this isnt just a switch needing to be replaced, but something within the components of the keyboards PCB/electronics. If it wasnt for this, and the fact the tenting hardware was $20 and separate - and looks like something you could easily 3d print, Id give it 5 stars. As a unit, its amazing. Ergonomics are perfect, especially with the aforementioned tenting accessory. Wrist pad feels great - I ended up throwing out my old one after this one came with its own. I adore this keyboard. I just dont trust it, yet. Few months later update: this ones still doing fine. no repeating keys, no issues. still easily my favorite keyboard, ever. Id love if they had a less glitzy LED splattered version with less crap to go wrong, but whatever. The split design has been fantastic for ergonomics, and Im quite addicted to it. Typing on anything else feels quite unnatural. The key positions DO take some time to adjust to, but once thats done, its just nearly perfect. A slightly cheaper, Cherry MX, non-64 trillion useless color version would be nice, but whatever. Raising from 3 to 4 stars.

As a developer, Im constantly battling with the perfect desk position to stop an aching shoulder, elbow, wrist, etc. Wrist hasnt been a problem in a long time but I noticed I began to lean to one side (left) as I used mouse. This helped me open up my shoulders and chest by splitting the keyboard. I can comfortably lean back now, no hunched shoulders. I also switched to a trackball mouse for less movement and center position to stop reaching over. I now hold a very central position, its amazing! Dont forget to get the lifts (for that slight angle) Lifts: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B077J7ZBM7?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Mouse:https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0B4RPF5GS?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Mouse pad: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B011MIP6TI?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

This keyboard seems to need a good bit of power. I had a physical KVM switch and the switching was around 5 seconds before the keyboard was available for use. Now, I am running the KVM through a Dell monitor and the darn thing takes up to 20-30 seconds before it is available to use. Pretty frustrating, especially since I reached out to the company and their answer was yeah, we have that issue too. :/ I am getting a powered USB hub and am hoping that the constant power to the keyboard via the hub will keep it warm and ready to go when I switch the KVM....fingers crossed. Waiting for 30 seconds for a keyboard to work is mind numbing. Update:. It worked! The powered USB hub made all the difference!

Been using the keyboard for about a week and was all excited to set it up with custom colors and macros. Took off 2 stars for ergonomics because they require you to purchase the tenting kit separately, which is the accessory that is essential to the ergonomic capability of this product. Once the kit was installed, the comfort improved greatly. Very satisfied with the MX red switches. They feel good, are smooth, and provide a little bit of resistance to feel secure about my keypresses. Havent had issues with any rattling keys. The key caps seem a bit thin to me, and so does the plastic of the keyboard body. Im surprised that this was $200. Had a couple of glitches with the software when I was first playing with it, but its pretty intuitive and the bugs went away with a reboot (eject and remount VDRIVE). Im happy to have the capability of custom lighting per key and all the macros, profiles, and remaps in my control. Overall, a worthy upgrade, and I dont regret spending the $$, but it is overpriced due to low competition.

I like this keyboard. The included wrist rests are nice, though I wish lift kits were included. I bought the lift kit separately and have them set at 10 degrees; they work nicely. The build quality feels decent. Not being someone who owns a whole ton of keyboards, its hard for me to comment on this; but in my opinion, the keyboard feels OK. Not cheap, but not super solid. Feels like a typical mid-range name-brand mech, but at a high price. This is OK, since the higher price is reasonable given the fact this is one of the view split mechs on the market and a good one at that. The customization software is fairly intuitive. I have left space set to access the FN layer, which is customization, just like the standard layer. This allows for handy remaps like space+ijkl for arrow keys and leftspace+rightspace for backspace, allowing me to stay on home row more often. You can also set up macros. Everything is saved to the board as far as I can tell. I wish all keyboards had two spacebars and layering functionality. Its amazing what a simple feature can open up as far as convenience goes. All in all, a really nice keyboard. Ill probably get one for work too at some point. Keep in mind that the spacebars are a non-standard size (3.5 I think), so finding alternative keycaps for them might be tricky. 8 month-later update: I still like the board. I got the wristpads and lifters that are sold separately, and like them. My only real complaint with this keyboard is the stabilizers. I believe these use cherry stabilizers, which are noisy and make the stabilized larger keys feel a little mushy and less-satisfying.

I bought this keyboard not for gaming but for its ergonomics, as someone whose wrists had become sore from typing a lot every day. I should say right away that a big plus of this keyboard is that the soreness in both wrists and some fingers disappeared almost immediately upon my using this keyboard, so its ergonomic design definitely helped me. I use the keyboard with its optional lift kit set to a 10 degree angle. (I think anyone using this keyboard for ergonomics needs to buy the lift/tilt kit.) I also place the two keyboard halves about a shoulder-width apart so my arms and wrists are about perpendicular to the edge of the table. I find the large palm rests sturdy and quite comfortable and I have no trouble typing for many hours without strain or pain. So a great job to the engineers for making a well designed, comfortable to use, reliable keyboard. But the big plus is balanced by a big negative which is that, even after two months of steady use and despite a lot of tinkering with the Kinesis software that lets one remap keys and adjust responses of keys (see below), my typing speed is still way below (about half) of my typing speed on my previous keyboard, and I continue to make many typing errors that are mainly related to having mapped the Ctrl modifier key to a long-press of the thumb keys. I should point out that, before using this Kinesis keyboard, I have used Thinkpad keyboards for many years as my favorite keyboard. I am also an experienced and fast touch typist on standard keyboards. I feel that four changes, in decreasing order of priority, would change this good keyboard into a great ergonomic keyboard: 1. Split the large space key of each keyboard half into two separate keys, giving four keys altogether that the thumbs could type. It would also be better to place the split thumb keys along a short arc of the thumb so one thumb key is a little bit to the right and closer to the wrist pad on the left keyboard half, and similarly for the right keyboard half. (Just splitting the thumb key in half as it currently exists would not be as ergonomic.) Two of these four thumb keys could then be mapped to modifier keys like control or shift, and perhaps the delete key could also be mapped to one, leaving a remaining thumb key for space. Having just one key under each thumb is a greatly missed opportunity to make the keyboard more ergonomic since the ctrl, Shift, Del keys are badly placed on most keyboards (activated by the weak pinky finger). I use emacs heavily for writing and coding and so having quick easy ergonomic ways to touch ctrl and to hit the Esc key are especially important for me. 2. Use half-height short-travel non-mechanical keys or even a mouse-click switch under the four thumb keys so that the thumb keys can be activated as rapidly as possible, with the least amount of travel. (Thumbs are strong but slow.) This is crucial for fast accurate typing if modifier keys like ctrl and Shift are to be activated by the thumbs. My most common error on the Kinesis keyboard is not pressing the thumb fast enough to ctrl or Shift another key. 3. Offer a version of this keyboard that uses half-height non-mechanical shorter-travel silent dome-based switches (similar to what Lenovo uses in its Thinkpad keyboards) for ALL of the keys. After trying several different mechanical keyboards like the Kinesis, I found that I simply type faster and more enjoyably with high-quality non-mechanical low-height quiet keys. (And it doesnt hurt that dome-based keys are nearly completely quiet, no clacking of the mechanical keys that can bother other people or that are heard while talking on the phone.) I think the ergonomic keyboard market is big enough to justify this choice economically, although I would guess many gamers would prefer mechanical keys. 4. Modify the Kinesis software to allow long-press overloading of keys for all keys (see below for more details) and to allow simple chords (say press 2 keys simultaneously to create a letter or to emulate Shift, Alt, Ctrl). Right now, the software allows a secondary long-press only on non-alphabetical keys like the space bars, Shift, CAPS, etc. But it would be extremely useful to allow long-presses on letters under the stronger faster fingers (letters d and f on the left, j and k on the right) so that, say, long-pressing an f on the left would be a ctrl modifier for the right keyboard letters, long-pressing a j on the right would be a ctrl modifier for left keyboard letters, and similarly long-pressing d or k would Shift the letters on the opposite keyboard half. If well implemented, this software fix would also get rid of the need to have multiple thumb keys. Since I believe the keyboard can be completely remapped configured in software, I just dont understand why Kinesis wont provide more flexibility for remapping, including providing some simple chords. The user can simply decide whether or not to take advantage of this more greater remapping capability. Here are some other miscellaneous comments: - To avoid making it too hard to switch back and forth between the Kinesis keyboard and my laptop keyboard (or using another desk keyboard when traveling), this is how I remapped just a few keys of my Kinesis keyboard (using the SmartSet app that works on MacOS or Windows but not Linux), especially to make it fast and easy to use when in the emacs editor: I used the Tap-and-Hold feature to add a secondary feature (long-press) to left space bar: short tap is space, long-press is ctrl right space bar: short tap is space, long-press is ctrl CAPS: short tap is Esc, long-press is ctrl (because I remap CAPS to ctrl on my regular keyboards) ;: key: short tap is Esc, long-press is Shift (so I dont have to move my right pinky for Shift) right Shift: is now the ;: key (a lower frequency key) But, again, using a long-press under the thumb keys for ctrl makes the timing difficult for activating the ctrl key quickly so is a major source of typing errors. This would be avoided by splitting each current thumb key into two separate keys (four thumb keys in all) since ctrl could be directly mapped to two of these thumb keys, also use a much shorter stroke to activate the thumb key. Or use simple chords for Shift, Alt, Ctrl like the original Fingerworks keyboard. Note: the SmartApp and the programming language allows one to adjust the number of milliseconds that have to pass for a long-press to be detected instead of a tap but I could not find a timing that removed my typing errors. I am using 250 ms for a long-tap detection. The extra thumb keys would also allow DEL to be mapped to a thumb, or simple chord like f and j pressed simultaneously could be mapped to DEL if the software were slightly modified. The DEL key on the Kinesis keyboard is really badly placed, far from the main row. - The IOS version of the SmartSet app works only on a large screen Mac, not on a Mac laptop, which is quite frustrating and should be fixed. - change firmware so lighting doesnt turn on and stay on when FN key is used, rather annoying. - redesign the plastic key caps so that the secondary characters are more clearly visible and readable when keyboard lit. Currently, secondary characters are dark when keyboard is lit. - add a 2nd B key to right side of keyboard so B can be typed with either hand. There is room for an extra B key on the right keyboard half. - a warning to future users: the Kinesis keyboard takes up a lot of desk space when the two halves are spread apart at shoulder width, there is little room to refer to documents on the table. Also tricky is where to place a mouse. Between the keyboard halves works but it is awkward to reach in between the keyboard halves over and over again. Maybe implement a Thinkpad-like finger mouse, so one can do some mousing without moving hands off the keyboard? - The tilt kit is overpriced as two simple pieces of plastic, although it is well designed. If Kinesis is finding that most people are buying the tilt kit at the same time as keyboard, include the tilt kit and reduce the total price.

Programmer here, writer of design docs, etc. Not a gamer. My old Microsoft Natural 4K encountered some coffee one day, and I had to get another ergonomic keyboard. This was one of the few ergonomic & mechanical keyboards on the market; one of the extremely few from a reputable company. I chose the Blue variant, along with the lift kit, etc. This keyboard is very nice. I do miss the curvature of the MSN4K, but other than that, it provides almost the same experience. The feedback provided by the Blue keys is much nicer than most of the membrane keys on the market; I dont regret purchasing it at all. I did have a customer support issue (PEBCAK, turns out), and their Twitter rep was very helpful. I appreciate that, a lot! The RGB system is mostly tacky, I found a reasonably pleasing pattern. I havent gone deep into the macro system: its not something I care about generally speaking. I do note that the split design is a bit funky, I have to adjust both sides of the keyboard just so, or I wind up with a host of illegible characters. The primary ergonomic issue with this keyboard is the location of the arrow keys; my hands have to force down to manipulate the arrows. Ive appropriately remapped my editors to handle key actions, but its pretty frustrating having keys that arent sustainable to be regularly and at speed. I anticipate that this will be my daily driver for a long time.

I bought this to replace a Kinesis Freestyle Edge (non-RGB with blue keys) that met an unfortunate accident. Ive been using Kinesis split keyboards for years as they are the most comfortable for my wrists and shoulders. Standard keyboards force my arms to angle inward in a way that is not quite natural, and causes some fatigue. Though you mostly get used to the standard keyboard arrangement, it is always so much better to be in control of the angle as you can when your keyboard is split in half. The older Kinesis split keyboards were membrane keyboards, so I had switched to a standard mechanical once mechanicals were available, as I prefer the feeling. Also, I like backlit keys as I tend to keep my office dark to reduce glar. When Kinesis started offering mechanical, backlit, split keyboards, that was excellent as they combine the three main features I look for in a keyboard. This RGB has a bit different layout to the previous Freestyle, so if you are switching there will be some learning as the ESC key is now small and placed next to the F keys instead of being big at the top of the macro keys (though you can reprogram that top large macro key to be ESC if you want, but youll have to avoid accidentally hitting the real ESC key when you reach for F1). Also 7 is now moved to the other side. Overall, they are very similar. Some points of interest: -when the keyboard is in FN mode, by default, there are no LEDs. This is normal. You can use the configuration utility to assign LEDS (I recommend a different color scheme so you can easily see if your keyboard is in FN mode or normal mode). -the keys themselves have a slightly dusty coating on top for better traction. My previous Freestyle either didnt have that (or maybe it had but wore off over years of use) -this keyboard comes with a wristrest, so you do not need to buy it separately. It is detachable should you not want to use it or use a different one. This wristrest has cushions built in instead of the flat plastic Kinesis ones. They feel nice, though it took a little adjustment as I switched from my old keyboard due to it raising my hands just a little. -You can turn LED backlighting on/off with a toggle switch -The arrow keys are in proper inverted-T layout and have a raised bump on the up arrow for touch placement. This is a small but nice feature; no keyboards Ive used before have had the touch bump on these keys. This keyboard is great not just for gaming but for general computer usage and typing when you want something that is easier on your wrists and shoulders, and has mechanical switches for accuracy.

In the past Ive shied away from a keyboard like this because I did desktop support for a living and needed to be able to use what my customers were using. But do to a recent change in my work I no longer support hundreds of people. So I can focus on just using one style keyboard. I was interested in in one that could be adjusted to the angle of my forearms to keep my wrists in alignment. This fit the bill perfectly. I can tilt the keyboard outward as well as angle the keyboard to match my forearms. It did take my a few days to adjust to the keyboard. But, it seems like I can actually type faster on it now. I really need to do a speed test to find out. But it does feel better. Pros: Being able to adjust the keyboard as I needed for ergonomics. Cons: The kit to do the tenting of the keyboard is a separate purchase. Also, do a bit a research if you want this to make sure you get the correct one. Cost, this is not a cheap keyboard. But, I do think it is worth the price.

I bought this keyboard because I was having trouble finding a mechanical ergonomic keyboard that featured RGB lighting. Cherry Blue switches are the cherry on top that makes this board actually fun to type on. TLDR: While some functions are a bit lacking, overall this keyboard is a winner. It is a joy to type on. Setup is fast and easy. The software needs additional features and updating. If youre looking for a mechanical keyboard, with RGB lighting, and is the epitome of ergonomic, THIS is the board for you. PROS: - Easy to go from a regular keyboard to this one. Start with the two halves closer together to get that classic keyboard feel. - Looks and feels great. Keys are responsive, and nice and clacky (if you like that kinda thing). Key travel is right where it should be to feel natural. - RGB backlighting is well executed. The glow is definitely noticeable, especially at max brightness. The lighting is dimmable and can even be turned off if thats your preference. - You dont NEED to download any software. Simply plug it in, let it install itself, and youre up and running. The additional control software is necessary for remapping of keys, macro creation, and tweaking the RGB lighting to your preference. - This has built-in storage on the board itself. Set your profiles in the control software, save it to your board, and take those configurations anywhere. Switching profiles is as easy as pushing the Profile button. Profiles can be set with different key mappings, RGB lighting, and macros. - The onboard memory can be accessed via File Explorer and looks like a small flash drive. The files on your onboard memory are simple text files (.txt extensions) and can be edited in a simple text editor like Notepad, Wordpad, or Notepad++. The files are very straightforward and easy to decipher. - The keyboard looks unlike 99% of other boards out there. I have received SO many comments and compliments on this board when I take it to LAN parties or out in public. CONS: - The software lacks some functionality and can be a little confusing at first. Just know that you have to save profiles before the change is reflected on the board itself. I wish updates on the screen were reflected instantly on the keyboard (lighting, for example). - You can only have one RGB effect/layer at a time. I wish there were a way to combine additional layers to layer the different RGB effects (example: rainbow wave going at all times, but Ripple effect on each keypress). Layering effects is done by other companies already (like Razer), so hopefully Kinesis will add this in later. - At this price point, I would have hoped that the risers used to tent the keyboard would have been included. They arent terribly complex, and simply including them in the purchase price would save a lot of aggravation and expense. (I accidentally ordered the wrong Lift Kit for the Freestyle keyboard instead of the Edge RGB).