96% is the best layout. All the convenience of not having a bunch of dead space between your arrows and nav cluster, with all of the convenience of having a numpad with all the nav keys your heart can want. Yes I want Home and End right there on the first layer, I’d have to go mad not to.
You only need to choose one key to sacrifice, and I happily tucked Insert one layer under Delete. Print Screen is non-negotiable.
I’m always so surprised to see how unpopular 96% is.
As someone not into the hobby (although I have a cookie cutter mechanical keyboard), what is the point of having that few keys? Portability? Otherwise i find it more cumbersome than efficient having to constantly use modifiers to access the full range of keys I might want to press.
Edit: this was meant as a reply to the guy with a 60% keyboard
As a user of a small TKL keyboard, I can say from my own experience having a small keyboard makes it easy and less strenuous to switch between the mouse and keyboard since they are so close together. I also find I don't really miss the extra keys, I can do my job just fine if not better without them, because of the added benefit of moving fast.
I currently do a data heavy job and almost never use my keypad. Just can't come to terms with letting it go. 96% might be the step that gets me to ditch the numpad!
To me the main advantage of having less physical keys but a full layout available via modifiers is, that your hands won't have to leave the home-row. Working like this is not only much more comfortable but also a lot more efficient. (At least for me)
Are these new-ish? I was into it a good few years back and since getting my two full size boards I haven't really looked back.
This layout seems really interesting, I don't want to sacrifice the practical side of full size layout but this saves a bunch of space whitout removing anything, looks great.
YMDK truly does the 96% right. I have two of them that are my daily drivers. One for business and one for gaming. Both are basically endgame grails for me.
Well how about 98%. Looks the same except a 1/2u space moving the numpad to the right.. Keychron K4Pro. I actually carry it back and forth to work so it is my daily driver and I still haven't quite gotten used to the placement of Del/Home/End. I sort of miss the Insert key, I need to check the mapping and see if it is on or can be added to another layer.
Yeah, happy these have taken off more recently because they're a good setup. Nice compromise between the space of TKL and keeping the nunbpad of full sized keyboards.
Hells yeah! Although my 96% is a bit roomier than yours. I'm rocking the AJAZZ AK966; pretty much stock, other than the switches. I replaced the stock Kailh Creams with Akko Yellow Sponges (Spongebobs). For a prebuilt, it feels amazing.
My other one is a DasKeyboard Professional with custom keycaps, but quite honestly, I find the AJAZZ to be more impressive. I'm shocked Das Keyboard uses costar stabs. There's cheating out, and then there's cheaping out. You'd think for $300US they'd splurge on half-decent stabs!