A month with the Moonlander⌗

So it has been a month already. Many things have changed since then, the main one being that I learned how to use a keyboard after… IDK… 18 years or something like that?

This is going to be an overview of what happened, what I learned and what I still have to do.

A quick review of the month⌗

I was at awe when I unpacked the Moonlander. It looked otherworldly. Being split made it a bit weird at first, but that wouldn’t be what would trouble me the most. Over the years, I developed a certain tendency when typing that slowly but surely started to turn into pain into my left wrist. For more information on that, check the first post on the series.

I kind of expected it to dissappear completely after using the keyboard for a few days, but the opposite became true: it started to hurt more actually. How was that possible? Well, let me tell you, I didn’t know how to type correctly. On week three I started practising on keybr, which is a free tutor that teaches proper typing techniques, or at least the very basics. Since I hadn’t taken a typing lesson ever in my life, it quickly became evident that I didn’t know shit.

That was two weeks ago. At first, I typed frustratingly slow, but I practised every day for like 30 minutes (more if possible) until I started to notice my speed picking back up and even surpassing how it was before!

Right now my speed record on monkeytype is 80 wpm with a 96% accuracy if I’m not mistaken. I can’t remember how fast I typed switching to this keyboard, but I’m pretty sure it was a bit slower than right now, so win win.

Now that I type as intended, I type faster and without pains. Wowee!

How the hell did that happen⌗

Well, it seems simple enough if you think about it: in your arm, you have (hopefully) an elbow, a wrist, and a way to move the finger up and down and a bit to the sides. Say that before I used 3 fingers (thumb, index and fuck you fingers), to reach say “A”, I didn’t have to do much work because it was right there, but to type “b”, I had to pivot the elbow, maybe the wrist and press down with the finger (no lateral or vertical movement). Enter parallelism: I now have FOUR full fingers that only have to move up and down (maybe laterally) with (close to) zero wrist or elbow pivoting and thus, no pain!!!

How things are stacking right now⌗

Well, on Monday I start at a new (or rather old) job position, and it will likely result in some changes to my layout. Some shortcuts here and there and maybe something else, but I don’t expect much else.

I said close to zero wrist movement a moment ago. That’s because I’m still getting there! My left arm rests nicely at the moment, but the right one refuses to stay put. Maybe I have to do something with the shortcuts to reduce that…

Conclusion⌗

Since this is likely the last post on the Moonlander until something worth saying happens, here is a list of bullet points of the good and the bad:

The GOOD:⌗

  • No pain
  • I type faster
  • Programmable keyboards are KING
  • Autoshift to revive my pinky from the depths of hell
  • Columnar layout is how it’s supposed to be and I won’t back down from this hill
  • The thumb cluster is really nice
  • I can move the keyboard around and set it however I like it for each hand independently
  • Tilt adjustments (still have to really get into this)
  • Everyone at work tells me to unleash the mothership when I enter the office :)
  • Nobody else can simply take it and use it

The bad⌗

  • I can’t use a regular keyboard anymore
  • It took a lot of effort to get here
  • Not that cheap
  • Portable but still a bit heavy
  • Autoshift doesn’t work all that nicely with keyboard shortcuts
  • IDK

So yeah, the pros outweigh the cons. If you are considering the purchase, take a look at my other posts and if you still have questions, write me an email or something (you can figure it out).