Ah, okay good to know you’ve seen those. Just wanted to check in case you missed something that suited you perfectly. It sounds like you have a clear image of what your ideal keyboard would be. 👍
Also I have no idea if I’m using the terms right either but I think the roller is the same as the scroll wheel? And rotary encoders would be those dial knobs.
I’m with you on having a trackball on the right half and a scroll wheel on the left, that sounds amazing. 😁
This is lovely. I’m currently using a lilty58 while leaving the number row empty, and have been looking for a board to downsize to. I don’t feel ready to go down to as low as 42 keys, so the corne is still a bit intimidating.
This? This looks like the Goldilocks medium I need at the moment. 😆
Does the Lily58 or Iris fit your needs better then? Or is there something else about this board that trumps those other 2?
The primary difference to me seems to be roller vs rotary encoder and number row. And while I too, prefer rollers over rotary encoders :D… if the number row is critical to your use case those boards seem to be a better option.
I appreciate the in depth writeup! Made me want to relate and share my experiences too. My journey took me from choc v1 whites -> robins -> sunsets -> browns -> pro reds…
Whites I really liked the whites, but like you, the inconsistent and occasional pre-bump activation drove me nuts.
Robins I thought these were supposed to be lighter than the whites but are actually heavier. I was mistaken and disappointed. The colour and sound is really nice though.
Sunsets The sunsets were really hyped up and also really good, but I realised I like a little bit of pre-travel rather than a bump right at the top, and I like the lighter, crisper clicky feeling of the whites than the seemingly heavier bump on the sunsets.
Browns Meh. Their reputation precedes them and while I don’t think they’re as horrible as the memes make them out to be, I don’t really feel any unique value it provides that would make me pick them over the others.
Pro Reds Right now my daily driver has pro reds installed, and I’m surprised by how much I’m adapting to linears. I’ve hated linears on MX-switch based keyboards so thought I would hate it here too, but I actually don’t mind it with the shorter travel of the chocs compared to MX switches.
This is also my first attempt at going with significantly lower actuation weight switches and at first I was skeptical, but like many others, after adapting to it I really like it. I can imagine pinks being way too light though. I’m considering trying the 40g greys/silvers sometime? Don’t know how much of a difference 5g will make, but I do feel like it might suit me a smidge better since I like to rest my fingers on the keys and I still get the occasional unintended keypress with the pro reds.
v2 Browns I’m really surprised by what you’be described about the v2 browns, it sounds like a whole different beast from the v1 browns and much closer to the sunsets in overall character. Now you have me tempted to look for a choc v2 board to test it with.___
Also wanted to chime in that I appreciate a more conservative pinky drop, as a compromise between ergonomics and keeping it useable while gaming with minimal rebinding (keeping the vertical stagger between the a and s keys in the usual wasd navigation cluster within a reasonable threshold since it’d be used with the ring finger instead of the pinky in those context)
I feel this is also inline with the apparent (I’m making some loose assumptions here) goals of being a little more newcomer friendly, along with the fact that it has a bit more thumb keys than what many consider optimal for ergonomics and other details. It really feels like the intermediate step between the typical entry point split ergo boards like the Lily, Iris, or Sofle and the more optimal ergo boards.
Pushing those additional eronomic quality of life tweaks may improve the board, but it also brings the board much closer in target demographic to existing boards like Hillside or Cantor/Piantor for example, and arguably makes this board less uniquely appealing.
I hope I don’t come off too strong with my opinions here; The design middle grounds picked in this board so far really resonates with me in a way few others have that I can’t help but get excited. 😁
on a different note entirely: Good callout/reminder on the pitfalls of over-relying on that tool in a way that reinforces existing habit that may not always be optimal.