About a year ago, my Microsoft Sculpt broke: one of the keys just fell off after what I consider a fairly short use (only about 2 years). I loved the shape of the Sculpt, but this short lifespan made it clear that I needed something more sturdy.

I started venturing around at our company to find that several people had good experiences with the ZSA Moonlander; a mechanical split keyboard.

So, do I like it? Yes, I do, but it didn’t happen instantly. Both the physical aspects (angling, split, mechanical) and the customisation (keys and functions) take getting used to. But once you do, it works amazingly.

Split keyboard with angles: 👍🏼

This is my first ever split keyboard, and I love it. I’m a tall guy so my shoulders are quite far apart and I have big hands. The Moonlander allows for me to align my wrists with my shoulders and I instantly noticed the difference in my back. The Sculpt already helped with a more natural posture, but I don’t think I can ever move away from a split keyboard again while I work on the computer 8h a day.

Also the fact that I could angle it to a comfortable position for my thumbs adjusted to my hand size has been great. That said, it did take a while for me to find the right angle and it included quite a bit of trial and error.

Mechanical keyboard: 👍🏼 (and a tiny bit of 👎🏼)

While the mechanical keyboard took a bit of getting used to, especially because my pinkies have to work harder than ever before, now that I am, I can highly recommend it. I had heard that the bigger effort and larger resistance of the keys actually improves the typing experience, but it’s difficult to fathom that until you’ve experienced it yourself.

The only downside is that – while I went for quieter keys – they still make quite a bit of noise and my partner (whom I share an office with) is not a huge fan, although it’s improving.

Customisable: 👍🏼/👎🏼

The keyboard is highly customisable: you can move keys around easily, you can change the colours of the lighting, you can programme the keys differently and add several layers of key functions.

I have a love-hate relationship with the custom options. The biggest reasons for the hate aspect are time and “blank” keys. It takes a lot of time to programme the keyboard to your liking. I don’t have this time, so I constantly feel that I’m not making good use of the keyboard. The keyboard also comes with several unlabelled keys (they just have a - on them); this gives a lot of freedom, but for buttons that are in a different spot because the keyboard has fewer keys and/or because I programmed them, I sometimes have to look up where it is rather than just looking at the keyboard.

What I like is twofold:

• I can move keys and functions around easily. That means that I could switch to Colemak as the keyboard layout (more about that in another post), and I could move some keys to positions that are more comfortable. For example, my thumbs now control not just “space” but also “backspace” and “enter” (next to a few other things).
• I can also control shortcut keys and make combinations. For example, I have a cmd+option and a cmd+ctrl key now. Many keyboard shortcuts I use require two of these keys combined with a number or letter. Instead of having to get into weird hand positions, I now only have to enter 2 keys: a combo key and a specifier. For example, opening 1Password (cmd+shift+space) now only takes me 2 keys.

You will also notice if you look closely that I added a bit of glue on my T and N keys. Not having the dots to identify where my indexes were supposed to rest was very problematic, and this simple trick fixed that.

My current keyboard setup is still rather simple, and there are several of the keys that I don’t use often (mostly because I would have to look up what they do).

No Bluetooth: 👍🏼

The Moonlander doesn’t have Bluetooth and it’s great. The Sculpt often had connection issues and you simply don’t get those when you’re connected via a cable. I try to reserve Bluetooth connections to an absolute minimum and that’s working amazingly.

Travel kit: 🤷🏼‍♂️

The keyboard comes with a travel bag. While it folds as small as it could possibly do so, it’s still a large piece to drag along. I’ve only done minimal work travel since getting it, and I’m not convinced I would take it with.