KINESIS Gaming Freestyle Edge RGB Split Mechanical Keyboard | Cherry MX Linear Red Switches | RGB | Ergonomic | Detachable Palm Support | Fully Programmable | TKL | Available Tenting

I have a full time desk job. Ive always used an ergonomic keyboard, but this is my first split keyboard. Before getting this keyboard Id been having daily shoulder pain - I believe from the distance my right arm was having to travel between the keyboard and mouse. My shoulder pain went away almost immediately. I love the flexibility of the split keyboard. It is easy to move out of the way during meetings if needed. The wrist rest is comfortable and the key action was very easy to adjust to. My typing speed returned to normal within a couple of days of trying this new keyboard. The only negative to the keyboard is the software is clunky and the macros have been glitchy for me. If macros are a huge draw for you, this may not be the right keyboard to choose.

I bought this keyboard for business. I am not a gamer. I love the fact that its corded, as I have a habit of dropping wireless items on the ground. I love that it feels solid, not flimsy. This would travel better than longer keyboards, since it would fit into most bags. The colors are gorgeous, but lets continue on functionality. I studied and the Cherry MX red keys are supposed to be both quiet and tactile, allowing me to enjoy typing 70WPM. Thats what the experts say. Well, I enjoy the typing, but it is certainly not a quiet keyboard. Im keeping it anyway, hoping that folks on Zoom meetings wont notice or hear the clicking. One more thing: I either hit the right key combo in error, or it happened on its own, but one of the keys remapped. The letter k stopped typing k and instead was typing o. This cannot be resolved through Windows keyboard troubleshooter. It happened 1 week after my purchase and, with much exploration, I found the answer taped to the underside of the keyboard. Press 3 keys together (I forget which) to restore factory defaults. This cleared the problem. Heres the thing, though: My first stop was Amazon help. The person was helpful, but it took too long. Naturally--hes supporting a million products and is counting on knowledge articles. Its not his baby. Secondly, both he and Google encouraged me to download an app that works with the keyboard. I couldnt download it. To download, they want you to type the model # into a field. They even tell you where to find the model #. Well, I typed it and the page told me it was wrong, and would not let me go further. This is still an open issue.

The quality of the keyboard feels great, the best thing about it for me is that all the keys can be remapped, and macros created for all keys. Im a computer programmer, and use a Mac computer, its hard to find a programmable keyboard that is compatible for macOS. The ergonomics are wonderful. The back lighting is very adjustable. The pads are extremely soft and comfortable. The only thing negative I could say is that its a little pricey, and it should come with the lifts, but its worth it to me.

The w and the s keys simultaneously, and randomly, would quit working on my first one. Ive had bad switches before, and that happens, but never two at the exact same moment, so I didnt immediately suspect hardware. Sure enough, cycling the keyboards profiles would bring the keys back for a few seconds. Clearing the keyboards memory (with shortcuts on the keyboard) would bring them back for a few seconds. But theyd always fade back out... indicating this isnt just a switch needing to be replaced, but something within the components of the keyboards PCB/electronics. If it wasnt for this, and the fact the tenting hardware was $20 and separate - and looks like something you could easily 3d print, Id give it 5 stars. As a unit, its amazing. Ergonomics are perfect, especially with the aforementioned tenting accessory. Wrist pad feels great - I ended up throwing out my old one after this one came with its own. I adore this keyboard. I just dont trust it, yet. Few months later update: this ones still doing fine. no repeating keys, no issues. still easily my favorite keyboard, ever. Id love if they had a less glitzy LED splattered version with less crap to go wrong, but whatever. The split design has been fantastic for ergonomics, and Im quite addicted to it. Typing on anything else feels quite unnatural. The key positions DO take some time to adjust to, but once thats done, its just nearly perfect. A slightly cheaper, Cherry MX, non-64 trillion useless color version would be nice, but whatever. Raising from 3 to 4 stars.

Pros: Split-keyboard RBG Lighting Multi-function Macros/Keys Mutilple selections for type of keys Built-in wrist rest Stable Cons: Tenting kit is extra $$$ Tenting only has two levels (low and high) Ive used a variety of split keyboard designs over the years (including the recent CloudNine C989M) and Im in love with this keyboard. This is also my third Kinesis to date. Kinesis has gone to great lengths to improve on its past designs, incorporating elements from gaming keyboards, such as lighting, macros, swappable keycaps, and swappable key mechanisms. This means that you can configure the Freestyle Edge to suit just about any preference, including swapping the caps for Mac buttons instead of Windows. Even the key mechanisms themselves can be swapped for a lighter or heavier feel. My only criticism is that they dont include the tenting kit in any of their keyboards, adding a $30-50 charge to an already expensive keyboard. And the tenting kit is a MUST. Without it, you lose the ability to raise or tilt the keyboard and some of the more ergonomic advantages of a natural wrist-hand position. Advice: if you have hand or finger injuries that make typing for long periods difficult, get the low-weight keys. Your fingers will appreciate the rest.

This is an awesome keyboard, I love it. You can program it for Mac easily with a click of a button once you plug it in! which has Cmd, Opt, and multimedia controls with Fn, configured automatically at once. (though you have to eject and disconnect the keyboard hard drive first before you can use them. more on that below) I wanted the most top left key to be Mission Control, and it took me a bit to figure out how to do it, since this is my first programmable keyboard. The idea is, the keyboard itself has a hard drive on it so it saves your key mapping to it. To use them after saving the profile, youll have to properly eject the hard drive as youd normally do. Then press SmartSet button + F8 to disconnect the hard drive. the app will guide you. - download the SmartSet app first from https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-edge-rgb-support/ youll find the manual there too, they really stress you read it :) - click on the button you want to remap, select Macro, click on the Macro text box On the keyboard, press the key(s) you want the new mapping to be. Save the macro, save the profile, then follow app directions to refresh the updated profile, eject keyboard hard drive then disconnect it. And youre done! For me, Mission Control was Ctrl+up arrow, it can be F3 for you. Find out from System Preference -> Misson Control on your Mac, you can change it to whatever you want. I changed it to F3 so I can program the Macro, otherwise every time I was trying to press the combination Ctrl+up arrow it would show the Mission Control and the macro wouldt register.

TL;DR: I was very hesitant to spend the money and risk the loss of typing speed, but Im really happy with the keyboard and strongly recommend it for ergonomics. Im work exclusively from home at my computer, and I bought this keyboard after realizing I was spending too much time in a pretty bad posture for my upper back, neck, arms and wrists. My concerns before buying it were that Im a fast typist (+100WPM) and am a writer/editor, so a shift to my writing set-up could be really bad for my work and efficiency. I mean, Ive been writing on a standard keyboard for 30+ years! Its well beyond muscle memory at this point: its ingrained deep into my brain how my hands go on a keyboard. Also $200 is nothing to sneeze at. Even after 2 weeks of habitually missing the b key, Im happy to report Im VERY happy with the product. My hands, wrists, arms and upper back feel better, and my typing has not only returned to its previous speeds, but has probably improved. Im still working on my accuracy, but its improving rapidly. (the location of Delete, Home & End is particularly hard to get accustomed to.) For gaming, I thought that the recommendation to put the mouse in-between the two halves of the keyboard was a silly one. I was wrong. Its a huge improvement and lets me position my wrist at a 45-degree angle thats much more natural and accurate. Also: strongly recommend the (separately sold) tent/lifters. I was also very hesitant to purchase those and am really glad with them. But seriously: why not have B on both the right and the left half of the keyboard?

I have been using a Microsoft Sculpt which I have liked but they always crap out on me. My latest MS Scuplt keyboard crapped out after just 4 months. I was in the middle of a meeting where I needed to be typing into a document that I was sharing and it was awkward to have to switch out the keyboard in the middle the meeting. This keyboard had high marks for ergonomics and thought I would give it i shot. I like the idea of having my arms out straight in front of me as opposed to scrunched and huddled over a single integrated keyboard. It feels much more natural. However, flip side, it is messing with my brain a little trying to get used to remembering which keyboard to hit, if that makes sense. I actually play piano and am a touch typist so the notion of hands operating independently isnt a foreign concept. But still -- for typing, it is still a little discombobulating. However, Im confident Ill adapt. I went with the brown switches because the red were unavailable and it seemed based on my typing style, that these might be more akin to what Im used to -- typing with purpose! However, these are loud... much louder than I expected. So loud, in fact that Im going to have to go back to wearing a headset during conference calls so as not to cause interference with the speaker. I do like the wrist rest -- very comfortable. However, after spending so much on the keyboard itself, would it have killed the manufacturer to throw in the riser system? I guess that will be my next purchase. The cables are heavy braided cord and build quality feels solid. Wish it was bluetooth so that I didnt need to have a cord on my desk but thats life. I dont game so not really going to be using those capabilities too much. Also, the funky technicolor backlighting is not really my taste. Hopefully I can make it just a regular color. My touch-typing accuracy has gone down -- getting my fingers lined up on the home row is critical. However, once again, hopefully, this will bounce back once I have more hours with the keyboard. [LCAR]

I bought this to replace a Kinesis Freestyle Edge (non-RGB with blue keys) that met an unfortunate accident. Ive been using Kinesis split keyboards for years as they are the most comfortable for my wrists and shoulders. Standard keyboards force my arms to angle inward in a way that is not quite natural, and causes some fatigue. Though you mostly get used to the standard keyboard arrangement, it is always so much better to be in control of the angle as you can when your keyboard is split in half. The older Kinesis split keyboards were membrane keyboards, so I had switched to a standard mechanical once mechanicals were available, as I prefer the feeling. Also, I like backlit keys as I tend to keep my office dark to reduce glar. When Kinesis started offering mechanical, backlit, split keyboards, that was excellent as they combine the three main features I look for in a keyboard. This RGB has a bit different layout to the previous Freestyle, so if you are switching there will be some learning as the ESC key is now small and placed next to the F keys instead of being big at the top of the macro keys (though you can reprogram that top large macro key to be ESC if you want, but youll have to avoid accidentally hitting the real ESC key when you reach for F1). Also 7 is now moved to the other side. Overall, they are very similar. Some points of interest: -when the keyboard is in FN mode, by default, there are no LEDs. This is normal. You can use the configuration utility to assign LEDS (I recommend a different color scheme so you can easily see if your keyboard is in FN mode or normal mode). -the keys themselves have a slightly dusty coating on top for better traction. My previous Freestyle either didnt have that (or maybe it had but wore off over years of use) -this keyboard comes with a wristrest, so you do not need to buy it separately. It is detachable should you not want to use it or use a different one. This wristrest has cushions built in instead of the flat plastic Kinesis ones. They feel nice, though it took a little adjustment as I switched from my old keyboard due to it raising my hands just a little. -You can turn LED backlighting on/off with a toggle switch -The arrow keys are in proper inverted-T layout and have a raised bump on the up arrow for touch placement. This is a small but nice feature; no keyboards Ive used before have had the touch bump on these keys. This keyboard is great not just for gaming but for general computer usage and typing when you want something that is easier on your wrists and shoulders, and has mechanical switches for accuracy.

I really like this keyboard. I changed from Das and magic keyboard. The big upside is the comfort and integrated palm rests. I did purchase the extra kit to have the tenting setup. I dont really game, so cannot comment. There are a couple downsides: Sometimes there is a small ping noise depending on how you hit the key. It does take up quite a bit of room on my desk. The escape key feels way too far away.