Working as a developer, I spend quite some time in front of my keyboard. So after years of lurking and checking out keebs, I am finally typing these sentences on my first mechanical keyboard - a Mistel Barocco MD770 RGB BT Glaze Blue ANSI. I want to use this post to share some of my thoughts and experienc, to maybe help others along their path.
Layout:
- being from Europe, I am used to ISO layouts (ISO-DE to be precise). The reason I went for ANSI is the general availability of keebs and caps + the layout might be nice for developing. And so far I love it! Apart from the Umlauts, everything feels nicer to reach and within 1-2 weeks I managed to get somewhat used to it (for the Umlauts I use a custom MacOS layout, which makes them available via Alt combinations). Might never be as fast on normal german text, but spamming CTRL+Z with one hand already makes up for that.
- split is awesome! No regrets here, although it had me work on my touchtyping again!
- TKL is not a problem so far, although I don’t do much number stuff
Keyboard itself:
- love the clean look and everything feels pretty solid
- I am missing a tilt option. The keyboard comes with some feet you can screw on, but e.g. Keychron flip out feet look way nicer an easier to use
- wristrest is a must for me! The one on the photo was made by myself (and yes, I made it symetric on the first try. Couldn’t bear it, so I had to saw it apart and re-glue it)
- there is no extra B. Before then, I didn’t know that I was using the wrong hand to type it.
Software:
- no GUI/software for the computer. I am fine without, but would have been nice and easier to configure the board
All in all, I am happy to finally have made a move and I am looking forward to typing on the board every day. It is a very nice first keyboard to me, but looking at ortho layouts I am afraid it’s not the last.
Looks great! Love those wooden rests!
Tyvm! It's some oak with danish oil. Also I had my first attempt at filling some cracks with black hot glue, which I am really happy with
I’ll have to try the black hot glue filler trick. Sounds much easier than using dyed resin to get the same effect.
It is! Went on super nice, and with a sharp chisel I got a nice surface. Beats messing around with resin easily. I doubt it will hold up as good as resin, but that's fine for now.