I wish ZSA had a warehouse in Europe. The single reason I haven’t ordered any of their boards is the uncertainty of the customs fees and charges… 😢

I'm definitely getting the Voyager at some point. Thanks for the review!

Loved the honest review with acid humor sprinkled on top, subscribed

Great review! I already bought my keyboard, but can't stop watching reviews for it until it gets here. It's just a day away!

Thank you for this really good review and video in general. Love your reviews! I ordered Voyager last week and can't wait for it to arrive (in a couple of days) and now with your review, the wait will be just a bit harder :) Currently, I'm on Advantage 360 and always use only 2 thumb keys. The only thing I was worried about the Voyager is the cmd/alt keys. But I configured my 360 the way I expect to configure the Voyager and I love it. Home row mods work great and I don't need cmd/alt to use them with my thumb. Again, thanks for the video, and all the best!

Great review! I might pick this one up for work one day.

Thanks! I’ve really appreciated your detailed keyboard reviews and educational series. A great contribution to the community.

Excellent review! Interesting layout. Thanks for sharing

I love it, it is brilliant. I've been advocating at work for people to try it out, and so far only one taker, but she borrowed mine for a month. Plenty of time to get past the learning curve, and even though it's not for her, I know there are people who can benefit from it. Such a great product that it just has to be shared! :)

Amazing review!! Thank you!

18:40 Was about to ask for the clamps, found the link in the description, thank you mate! :)

Been waiting for this and managed to miss the notification lol. Thank you for the great reviews! Been on a binge watching your various ergo keyboard reviews as my wrists have been starting to hurt a bit recently. I’m still undecided on what board to get but I’m now very much leaning towards the Voyager.

I've been using the moonlander for almost a year now, I just ordered the voyager to use with my tablet on the go. I cannot wait to try it.

Great review. For the home row mods, what really worked for me was increasing the Tapping term value (under Advanced->Tapping) to 240, and enabling Permissive hold (under Advanced->Tapping [Dual functions]).

Got one based on this review since I was in the market for a better keyboard. I’m a month in and absolutely love it. It was my first ergo keyboard and I don’t regret the purchase. Thanks for the review.

Thanks for all the keyboard reviews. I don't know how you did it. I moved to the glove 80 about 3 weeks ago and I still have times where I feel very handcuffed trying to get work done. I won't let myself switch back or I won't make adaptive progress, but it is mentally taxing. It gets better each day, but I can't imagine doing this process with as many boards as you have tried.

This is my first keyboard outside of a traditional mechanical keyboard, and whew the learning curves been alot. It definitely didn't help I decided to switch to colemak on top of it all. But finally getting used to it and my God I love this product. Been loving ur content. Excited to see what you continue to make videos on. I'd personally be interested in any sort of programming work flow videos. Maybe some monitor reviews as well. Cheers

Thanks - that's really interesting. And I think that's a good point re thumb strength vs dexterity.

Ben, thank you. I would venture to say that this is the best review I've come across so far of the Voyager -- and I have seen a lot of great reviews of it. I believe that the difference for me is that you were able to convey your experiences (good, bad or indifferent) in such a way that I could "feel" that experience myself. I hope that makes sense. You also answered for me many questions that, as you were wondering about for yourself, I would have been looking out for for myself -- and I feel that these very issues/questions were not covered (well or at all) in other reviews. I cannot tell you how enthusiastic I am about your review, but to say that if I weren't, I would not have taken the time here to even write this comment. :)

Just got mine today and I'm already loving it. While it won't replace my Moonlander I think it'll be a good substitute to my Plank. I was kinda hoping that ZSA would make this for a while now. The keeb takes some time to get used to but I've found that I'm able to work fine in Emacs with this board just like I am in the planc.

Ben, I want to say thank you for these reviews comparing keyboards. It’s been timely for me, as I’ve realised I need to Ergo up my life due to RSI, and it seems with this video you’ve reached a logical end to your journey (for now). Having considered the Kenesis, glove, corne, ferris and moonlander, the Voyager was the last for me to compare - and now you’ve answered all my questions. I can’t wait to have enough money saved to purchase either a corne or a voyager - realistically it’s going to be the corne due to the lower price! In the mean time I built my own “rig” for my apple keyboard and trackpad that allows them to be as one unit, with negative tilt and a large palm rest, and can be sat on my lap. Even a usb hub built in. Then used Karabiner to change the two command keys to backspace and return, respectively. With caps lock as control and escape (depending if held), and a utility called warpd for controlling the mouse pointer, I’ve been able to reduce how far I need to move my hands away from the home row and it’s really helped. My next step after eventually going split is to explore tripod mounts for tenting and experiment with the best hand positions for ergonomics, and then learning to give up the trackpad completely. I wanted to suggest you try out Helix, the editor written in rust, since the motions are in my opinion “better” than vim or neovim, and it comes with more things set up out of the box. Other than that, as a fellow designer/web developer I appreciate your detailed and balanced style and I’m sure I’ll enjoy watching you talk about/show us whatever is currently catching your interest.

Thanks for the review. I own the moonlander for over a year now, using the platform tenting kit too. It's just the perfect keeb in terms of comfort. I look at other ergo keebs from time to time but they always seem much less comfy then the moonlander + platform, so i end up fallin back. i thought the voyager could replace the moonlander but it's so different. have you tried any comfier keebs than the moonlander? would love to know :)

Great review! Leaning towards a Moonlander. Thinking that perhaps expoying/gluing a thin metal plate to the back of the Moonlander would allow it to be used with the Voyager tripod kit... to achieve that quick-detach and stil be able to easily pack it up or use it flat on a desk

Hey Ben, great review, as usual. Nice work! 👍 Regarding Choc spacing, I think the biggest advantage it has over MX spacing is in the vertical direction. MX spacing is 19.05mmx19.05mm and Choc spacing is 18mmx17mm... which means there is a full 2mm less height in each keycap. The end result is less reaching and stretching to get to rows outside of home row. Yes that also means that Choc keycaps are rectangular and not square.

Thanks for the review From what I read one of the main benefits of a keywell keyboard is that it allows easy reach to the number raw, so you don't have to put it on a layer like with the corne. How is the voyager comfortable for you in that regard? Especially with the pinky.

I have a Glove80, but wonder if I would type faster/more comfortably on a board like this that is flat. Thoughts?

Fantastic in-depth review, thank you! It's so interesting seeing everyone's opinions on this and other good keyboards. Particularly surprising to me was your preference over something sculpted like the Kinesis 360 or Glove80. I've been using Advantage and ErgoDox style keyboards for 15 years, so it's probably no surprise my current favorite is the Kinesis 360 (wired). Though Glove80 rev 2 shipment is in transit, and seems promising given my preference - we'll see. The Voyager is still growing on me, and for mobile use is a top contender. If it had 3 thumb keys I think it would be _the_ top contender, but for now I think the Moonlander takes up only little more room in the backpack, and is more flexible (literally), has palm rests, more keys overall and more thumb keys. To be fair, I mostly work stationary with good keyboards at home and at work. This means the Voyager's main advantage (small size for mobility) is not as important to me. Also, I've only used the Voyager on my game PC, to slowly get used to it. When gaming, I mostly only use the left half, with the right hand on the mouse, and it works surprisingly well for that. However, not using it cold turkey as daily driver for working as a software engineer means it takes longer to get used to, and has allowed me to delay more drastic changes, such as moving some modifiers from the thumbs to the home row. Having had 6 thumb keys for years made me love having all mods on thumbs, plus a layer switch hold key for the single extra layer that I need, plus a few extra tapped keys such as backspace, space and enter. Tap or hold dual function keys help, but I'd need 3 thumb keys to avoid the drastic changes I mentioned. And since I have no issues reaching the far keys on Kinesis 360, ErgoDox and Moonlander the incentive to change this is merely curiosity rather than need.

Another great review Ben will you review Dygma defy also ? (when it will be eventually delivered)

Great video! I actually encountered a similar issue to you regarding homerow mods a few months ago and the solution was to set IGNORE_MOD_TAP_INTERRUPT=true. Somewhere in past release or 2 of QMK ignore mod tap has been made the default behavior. I’d bet that the version of QMK oryx was using when you first got the Voyager was a few releases behind

Fantastic review as always, I love the design of the keyboard but I think the thumb clusters would throw me off.

Wonderful Channel.

I've watched this video about 5 times. Still can't bring myself to pull the trigger on a Voyager. But I can't stop thinking about it either.

Great in-depth review. I'm surprised it compared favorably to the contoured boards for comfort so maybe I'll give it a shot. Lately I've been coveting the Svalboard, which is pretty out there but seems like it could have some next-level ergonomics. Any thoughts on that one?

How does this one compare to the Glove80?

I enjoyed this review and your glove 80 one! I’m a long time Ergodox user, and I have a couple of random questions. 1) I’d love to see a short video on your layouts with these smaller boards. The home mods thing is something I’ve never heard of, and it seems really promising. 2) I’d really like to move to one of the Colemak layouts, but I wonder what people do for hjkl movement in vim. Do you remap it or use a layer to still allow ingrained memory?

Hi Ben, great video. Any chance you could link me to the clamps you are planning to use with your chair?

Hi Ben! I’m trying to decide between the ML or Voyager. This will be my first split, ergo, ortho keyboard and it will be permanently set up on my desk at work. I’ve heard from some people that the ML thumb cluster is ‘too far’, had this been your experience? Thanks!

Nice review as always Ben, I've seen each one and ended up with the Moonlander. I "need" another keyboard as I think it's too much of a hassel to transport the Moonlander from home to work everyday and tinkering with the tilt (this is how spoiled we keyboarders become after awhile lol). Pretty sure I'll end up with the Dygma Defy, which is one of the few keyboards you haven't reviewed yet! But to be fair, it sounds as if more keys and bigger thumb cluster is probably not a ideal for you😂.

I would love keychron to do one with a layout similar to this

You said you were having trouble with home row mods. I've you been able to make it work without compiling QMK, just by using Oryx. If yes, can you share the main element? I have a glove80 and kinesis 360 with zmk configured for home row mods and it work very well. Have you been able to achieve the same thing with QMK?

Thanks to ur videos i could stop my 3h hyper focus on split keyboards hahaha. Still have questions about rhe sound of the moonlander, I think the moonlander plus the platfrom still wins. Even though i would wish it be less straight. And more u or inverse u curved. Also it still seems like zsa does have the apple lince pay up price. Been using the k860 logitech until now. I'm just a bit unsatisfied with the thinny sound, feels like the moonlander is lacking the thicc sound other Mechanical have. Does anyone have tipps for this?

I have a similar intermittent issue when waking up my computer via the CalDigit TS3 hub (on an unrelated keyboard), so I also find that ‘offense’ easy to forgive.

If you had to pick between this or the Glove80?

Be honest, Ben -you ordered the bloody thing JUST for the Colemak homing keys! Been wondering how long it'd be before you got one. But I digress..... When I was ready to move beyond my MS Sculpt and ordered the ML, I did so based on the reviews from you, Halleck, and one or two others. I'm maybe 2 months in with it and I definitely made a good call. It's been just about a week now since I placed my order for the Voyager, which I'll be using whilst traveling with the laptop. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of other stuff I might want to see from you.

@23.26 if I'm understanding correctly, this is called mod-tap in QMK

Great video! You got it in only a few days? The site says 3 week lead time last time I checked.

Maybe one thing to acompany the amazing voyager might just be a Kensington Expert Mouse. step into the next area of the desktop. i have not check any of your neovim videos yet so i will. but it might be interresting having like a series of 10 minutes where you go into the different levels of functionality in vim/neovim. first episode can just be to get used to hjkl and how to skip to insert, replacle wrd you are hovering, and so on. next one could be the Virtual line selector and copy paste, and one of the final ones could working with remote files through ssh, adding plugins that lets you lazy search files in a folder or take a step into regular expressions and how to work in neovim with it. neovim has lots of tools, and we all need tips n tricks. :) Edit: nevermind, you did! great stuff, will consume. :)

I tested a lot of keyboards and I love the comfort of my glove 80 red pro. I have also a second one on which I soldered 25g key switches. But having all keys with 25 g is not so convenient. I was thinking it would be great for some keys to have 35g and for some 25g. The voyager allows to test easily this configuration and if you are not happy with it, it is easy to roll back. The location of arrow keys on glove 80 are really comfortable and do not require switching to a different layer. I am afraid that I would miss them by switching to voyager. In your case, do you consider voyager is better than glove 80 ? What is your daily driver now ?

Hi Ben, I'm super curious about which keyboard are you using daily? Want to choose between Glove80 and Voyager and I can't

could please you review dygma defy?

What are the two keyboards you have on the wall in the background (like the yellow one)? I quicky looked through your video history and blog, but couldn't find any info. Sorry if you've answered this before.

BTW: I found Choc browns to feel surprisingly "hard" to press on the Voyager, as in: it requires more force than I expected, compared to MX browns. Anyone else got this impression? The spring seems to have the same force nominally, but it still feels heavier somehow. I wonder if it's the shorter travel distance in general, or maybe because the tactile hump comes earlier, almost right away? Most of my other keyboards had Cherry Clears or equivalent, so I can definitely manage to press keys with some extra "determination" let's say. I'll have Choc reds on a Glove80 to compare soon, and wonder if I should try other (tactile) Choc variants.

Do you think it's doable to use the Kinesis 360 as your daily driver and switch to the voyager while traveling or are the differences in key positions too big?

Actually I am also having home row mod problems: It makes the moonlander type really slowly. Is it the problem with the holding (tapping) delay?

on the moonlander there's a setting in Oryx that will switch on one of the LEDs when caps lock is on. Maybe the Voyager supports that setting too?

I have a moonlander and could not get the home row mods to work. I also kept getting false inputs. To get the ctrl to work I would have to pause for one second before pressing the next key which was very frustrating. The shift also would not work and needs a dedicated key. I do a lot of excel work and really need a dedicated key for functions (f1, etc), delete, backspace, enter, tab, space. I want to get the voyager, but hesitant that it won't be able to work.

I am trying to get into home row mods, but the slight lag bothers me. From what I understand, a normal key is evaluated at the moment it's pressed, while a dual function key is when it's released. So there is always going to be some lag on dual-function keys 🤔

Super curious if you find yourself gravitating towards the glove or the voyager these days.

I'm still greatly in love with my Atreus keyboard, but this is intriguing… Maybe I'm more socially impressionable than I care to admit to. I'm in nirvana with mine and have no 'need', but I feel myself losing the battle of surrendering $400 for yet another keyboard… Of to EBay to see if I can sell of some wares to soften the blow..

Dont home row mods slow you down ?

I have the same issue with the home row mods, for the love of God I cannot figure out how to fix it. It messes my home row up to a point that you can't type above 60 WPM. Had the same experience on the ZSA Moonlander. Never was able to use the home row mods because of this.

You touched a bit on Voyager vs Cornish Zen, but not in too much detail... Is the Voyager the clear winner? Also I haven't had any doubts about key wells until you mentioned the thumb position, thanks for bringing that up!

I prefer wired to a standard wireless. However the best of both worlds is still the gaming keyboard styles USB receivers, where you get the convenience of wireless and the reliability and plug and play of wired

If the choc reds are your least favorite choc switches, what's your favorite?

Will you ever review the digma defy?

thats really cool but you can diy this for approx 80 quid and have enough parts left for a second one you can make em wireless too using zmk software and cosmos keyboard software

I just don’t see how this board is superior to a Lily or a Sofle or an Iris, which all can come with choc. Thoughts?

If they make a wireless version, I'll bite. Perhaps if they also add a third thumb button and function row, and no wireless, I'll equally consider it.

As far as choc vs. mx spacing. I completely don't get it. I am 193 cm high and my hands are not huge, but are not small either (like size 10) and I just can't type on those Sweeps, Cornishes etc. Who designed it?! Look at the spacing on Apple keyboards considered by many a comfy keyboard. I am now in a process of making my own keyboard using Ergogen and made a dozen of 3D printed mockups and it looks like a little bit of space between keys is just desirable. You make less mistakes while typing then, and notice that your fingers are spaced when you lay your hand on a table freely. BTW I am 100% with you on the number of thumb keys. Two for a English speaker is sufficient, I need to include characters like ł, ą, ę etc. so three looks better :D

I will get one when it's wireless.

QMK only is now a drawback now I got used to ZMK

ZSA make cool keyboards but pray you never have to deal with their customer support or you will regret the large investment.

apple would never release something looking like that.

"And then turn them off cause I'm not ten." 😀

😅 "PromoSM"

Why anyone wants a wireless keyboard is beyond me. Total PITA. I'll never use one.

and then turn 'em off because I'm not ten lolol

More money than brains...😅😂😊

I don't have time for this BS...