on that note, you can use remarkable w/ a keyboard attached. It’s not the cleanest experience since you’d have to find an upright mount and cable solution but I’ve tried it a few and works ok. I have the older R1 but I believe it works even more seamlessly with the R2 (in fact, the R2 has a “type folio” that Remarkable sells to turn it into a minimal writer).
I think my wife has a remarkable that she bought for work but may or may not use at all. How is it as an actual writing experience, i.e. refresh rate and font sizes, etc.
I think we’re all circling around the real solution: carrying around a 2kg bluetooth TKL to type notes wirelessly on our phone screens.
That’s uh, pretty much it really.
I mean I suppose I could slum it with a stock HHKB.
I keep placing the Comet Blue NK87 Aluminum Edition in my cart and then removing it. I don’t really want or need a full TKL (tray-mount), but I love the color and at $99 it’s so tempting. They also have the hot pink and neon green colors available with add-on brass and copper plates for $5 each. Some of you fiends should buy this so it sells out and I can stop hovering over the check out button like I have ten times over the past two days. I beg you.
Ha, I’ve had the hot pink one with a carbon plate sitting in my to-build stack for a minute, now. It’s a striking piece! I just haven’t decided which Cyberpunk 2077-inspired keyset is going on it, yet - GMK Awaken or MT3 Cyber…
Do I see myself ever using it much? No, I really don’t.
Am I gonna be glad it’s in the collection whenever I finally put a curio cabinet in the house? Yeah, choom!
…that probably wasn’t helpful.
Goddamnit.
E.L. James, the author of Fifty Shades of Grey, wrote much of the novel on her BlackBerry while commuting to her work at the BBC. She would beam the text into her Mac computer when she got home and then edit it.
James joins the list of authors who have in the past used their BlackBerry smartphones and their iconic keyboards to bring their creations to fruition. Juan Carlos Ortiz composed his book Shorts on a BlackBerry, Geordie Greig wrote the Lucian Freud biography Breakfast with Lucian on a BlackBerry Bold, Dylan Lauren, Daughter of Ralph Lauren and Founder of Dylan’s Candy Bar retail stores and brand, wrote her Unwrap Your Sweet Life entirely on a BlackBerry and the list goes on.
So yes, there is currently a whole in the market for such a device.
With all their bells and whistles, smartphones are too distractive and battery life is dismal compared to Nokia dumbphones of yesteryear.
What you really want, is a cyberdeck!
I am still hoping to build one day one off a Xbox ChatPad.
It’s not a mechanical keyboard solution, but… I often use a Logitech K380. It’s light, a tight 75% profile, connects via bluetooth, and the batteries last a long time. I wouldn’t use it on a metro commute, but on trains and planes it’s useful.
I’m going to ignore the rest of your valid point and joke that I too would end up writing a book about inflicting pain on others if I was trying to write a book via a BlackBerry keyboard on mass transit.
Absolutely killer summer sale going on at Novelkeys right now - too much stuff to list, but highlights include B2G1 on a bunch of base kits that are also deeply on-sale such as:
- Metropolis R2
- Serika 2
- Oblivion V3.1
- Awaken
- Cubed
- Dots
- Terror
- Olive R2
- KKB Signet
There’s also a bunch of artisans and other goodies. There are some base kits I happily bought full price that one could pick up for $50 today.
Edit: I’d like to take credit for extreme restraint in only buying one Salvun artisan… but it’s only because the stuff I’m most interested in is either sold out (CYL NTD, Bordeax, Mictlan artisan) or already in my collection (Olive, Signet, Awaken, Oblivion)
Nooir Noland N1 Mechanical Keyboard Kit
Just a quick cross-post to mention that Keycon 2025 will be held in Washington, DC. Main topic is here:
I thought these map block sculptures would make wonderful artisan keycaps.
More information about this project here
They are considering physical manifestations of this project and even have some resin prototypes. You should suggest the keycap idea to them.
CannonKeys posted an introduction to the PBS profile
Interested to see how pricing comes out. Honestly, I agree there is room for a flat profile that splits the difference between DSA and XDA, and Vortex used to have a profile, VSA, that does that fairly well, but it’s only available in one set on their site and one that’s all over AE marketed as DSA.
I know there are some proper DSA and KAM sets, but right now the clone makers seem to absolutely have cornered that market for unsculpted 1.5mm PBT dye-sub caps. I would love to see some more creativity in the space though, rather than simply seeing cloned sets and gamery graphics; a new Matteo profile might encourage that.
The blanks (though they’re listed as black on black) look really nice and I think I’ll get an all-black set at least to use with my HHKB.
PBS being manufactured by Keyreative may make this a pass for me. From to delays, to bad decisions, to over promising manufacturing ability/quality, to a poor reverse dyesub end product, their handling of KAT GB’s that I’ve been involved in over the years has really put me off.