Layouts part I – Full size or not – a philosophical debate with the boxing gloves equipped

One of the more interesting disputes on the internet is between the full size (100%) keyboard adepts and the minimalistic 40-65% keyboard enjoyers. 75% and TKL are generally tolerated by the full size crowds since there are dedicated numpads purchasable and there are also a lot of tiny desks in the world.

If we learned anything so far during our trip down the rabbit hole is that almost everything around here is a preference – and so is the layout. There are people who prefer to cruise into town in a Mercedes S500 whilst others prefer a Smart, and the purchasing power between the two may not be quite as large as the displacement difference.

What stops the full size keyboard users from understanding why a lot of people prefer a minimalistic layout is entirely the prebuilt keyboards manufacturers’ fault. Allow me to elaborate.

Prebuilt keyboards do not usually come with supplementary software. Any keyboard works out of the box with a few OS settings being necessary at most. The difference starts to become noticeable when it comes to more expensive keyboards. The ones displaying GAMING onto the packaging (I really wish there was a keyboard displaying OFFICE on the packaging in a similarly ostentatious manner) – the ones with lots of RGB LEDs. These keyboards come with software suites that over time have ballooned to concerning sizes albeit most of their function revolves around RGB customisation and less around customisation of the functionality itself. There has been macro functionality for a while however the process of remapping/assigning keys is often one that is unnecessarily complicated and arduous, not to mention there are few keyboards with internal memory and even those are dependant on this bloatware to run in the background at all times or the keyboard reverts to displaying a rainbow and being the more expensive equivalent of a Dell membrane board.

This manufacturer attitude is baffling to me personally. Over time I have purchased and owned a lot of keyboard and mice with on-board memory which did not need that software running in the background. I have more than enough system RAM available but I dislike losing functionality that was there and now it isn’t – being replaced by some form of cloud/bloatware. Trends change, project managers repair things that are not broken until they are, the glaciers keep on melting, and we have to get on with our lives.

We have to highlight here that even prebuilt manufacturers have started including in their offers smaller keyboards (usually 60%) however the software does not keep up with what it should be. They are trying to understand what makes these smaller boards as a hobby to be able to penetrate the market – indeed a niche one. Few make it albeit almost all are trying. We are going to get back to this and see what they do right, what they do wrong, and where they are in a completely different timeline than the users they are targeting.