Kinesis Freestyle2 Ergonomic Keyboard For Mac

#Kinesis Style2 Ergonomic Keyboard Bluetooth Technology For

Kinesis Style2 Ergonomic Keyboard Bluetooth Technology For

These keys would be more useful if they could be remapped, which can probably be achieved with some hackery but is not officially supported by Kinesis. Kinesis KB800MB-BT Freestyle2 Blue for Mac is an award-winning split keyboard designed to adjust to your body and typing style. It features a familiar Mac layout and shortcuts, plus convenient Multichannel Bluetooth technology for wireless pairing with up to three of your Apple devices (e.g., iMac, Macbook, iPad, or iPhone).I'm quite happy with overall build quality, including good key switches you don't have to bang onto and never get stuck. The Mac version comes with Command and Option keys in all the right places, and quite a few goodies I've missed since I moved to laptops (Delete, Home, End, PgUp, PgDwn). I'll likely need a few weeks to get fully used to a regular keyboard again, after two years exclusively spent on a MacBook, but that would have been inevitable with any keyboard.Kinesis Freestyle2 Mac Keyboard.

By the time I manage to get my media player muted, IвЂ™ve usually missed the call. The problem is, my background ambiance becomes a foreground nuisance when the phone rings. (The Mac version 2, un-released as of this writing, will presumably be white like its predecessor.) Volume keysWhile working, I sometimes like a background stream of Internet radio. ItвЂ™s all sleek, incognito black now. Is a quarter inch less total thickness going to make a life-changing difference? Probably not, but the desk-hugging design of the Freestyle is just one more thing to like about it вЂ“ and yes, it does look pretty good as well.If aesthetics are an important point, you should also be aware that there is no longer any silver color visible on the keyboard. Thin keyboards undeniably look fantastic (see: Apple), but thereвЂ™s an ergonomic benefit here too: The thinner your keyboard, the easier it is to get your hands properly above it, which can help your wrists stay in a more neutral position.

Among these alternate functions are the volume keys, which, without Fn engaged, are simply F8-F10. One thing Kinesis didnвЂ™tВ change is the way the Fn key operates вЂ“ like a toggle switch, not a momentary button.In case youвЂ™re not familiar with it, the Fn key is the shifter that enables alternate functions on the rest of the keyboard. At one point I felt so strongly about it that I remapped a seldom-used button to the single function of вЂњmute.вЂќIncluded media control keys are volume up, down, and mute.Though itвЂ™s truly nice to have volume controls on the keyboard now, not everything is rosy in this department.

A few key changes Fn on the moveOn the new Freestyle, Fn has switched placed with right-click.The Kinesis engineering department made some good decisions when they reshuffled the FreestyleвЂ™s keys. That makes three вЂ“ count вЂ™em, three вЂ“ keystrokes to mute the audio every time the phone rings, and three more to un-mute it after I hang up on the telemarketer. Momentary button comparison? Once you hit Fn, it stays engaged until you hit it again. Worse, the Fn button is вЂњsticky.вЂќ Remember the toggle switch vs. On the Freestyle2, you need not only two fingers, but both hands the Fn key is located too far from the media keys to hit the combination with just one. And therein lies the rub.On an ordinary keyboard, the media buttons are single-purpose and work with one finger.

The old useless Search button has been removed from the left-hand special key area, replaced with a much more helpful Undo button. A new Undo buttonThis one was made to order for me. Now, itвЂ™s much more difficult to accidentally hit the grammatical self-destruct with your little finger while typing. It was entirely too easy to hit Fn by accident with your pinkie finger, turning the keyboard into a вЂњn5ght0are 6f n40bers and s-ec5a3 characters.вЂќ (ThatвЂ™s вЂњnightmare of numbers and special characters,вЂќ typed on a Freestyle with Fn engaged.)To prevent annoying fits of gibberish like the one above, Kinesis moved the Fn key to the corner, swapping it with the relatively harmless right-click.

To my chagrin, Kinesis decided that this relationship should be reversed with the Freestyle2. I canвЂ™t recall ever having used the Pause Break key in my life, but I do use the Insert key a lot.The Pause Break key, with Insert demoted to a Fn alternate.The Freestyle has always had these two functions on the same key, but until now Insert was the senior partner and Pause Break the junior, working only with Fn engaged. Hey, come back here with my Insert key!If anyone reading this regularly makes use of the Pause Break button on your keyboard вЂ“ or even has a clear idea of what itвЂ™s for вЂ“ please leave a comment to enlighten me.

This extra Delete is handy for me, but on the old model it was easily confused with the adjacent Backspace. I especially appreciate the one on the right-hand Delete button. The Freestyle2 adds new bumps to feel-mark other parts of the keyboard, such as the edges of the Home and End keys. More tactile ridgesMost keyboards, including the original Freestyle, have little plastic ridges to help touch typists find the home keys without looking down.

Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe that anyone in 2012 still wants a special keyboard key to open their homepage.These days, who closes their browser frequently enough to need a shortcut key for re-opening it? This isnвЂ™t 1999 the Internet is the center of everything now. I am sure these decisions are only made after much consideration by people with more degrees than IвЂ™ve got fingers. Why not change the Web key to something more useful?Kinesis Corporation, no doubt, has a great market research department. IвЂ™ll list my ideas here in the hope that Kinesis will consider them for future upgrades. Things I wish had been changedWhile I mostly like the Freestyle2 changes, there are a few other things I would have loved to see in the new model.

For instance, I might set Ctrl-4 to type my name and a greeting, and the keyboard would remember this shortcut even when plugged into a different computer. Driverless hot key programmingOne of the best features of the Kinesis Advantage keyboard is its on-board programming ability. To me, the Back and Forward keys are only slightly more useful, and should also be considered for new roles in the future. At least it doesnвЂ™t destroy my work when touched by mistake. I did follow up on that by remapping the key, with great difficulty, to a kinda-sorta-working Alt key.

Kinesis Freestyle2 Ergonomic Keyboard For Mac