Do you love to tinker with your keyboard layout? Do you love trackballs and think that one that attaches magnetically to your keyboard would be the coolest thing ever? Are you willing to completely blow up your setup in pursuit of possibly huge — or possibly marginal — gains in comfort or efficiency? Then I have a keyboard and trackball recommendation for you, with some caveats.
In early September, I started dabbling with ZSA’s Voyager keyboard and new Navigator trackball attachment. The Voyager is a low-profile, wired, split mechanical keyboard with 52 hot-swappable keys in a columnar-staggered layout. When you buy it, you can pick from one of four types of Kailh Choc v1 switches. The one shipped to me has Pro Red linear switches, which feel a little mushy in comparison to the Cherry MX Brown switches I’m used to. The Voyager has RGB lights, too, if you want to add a little color to your days.
The Voyager came out in 2023, but the interesting new thing is the Navigator trackball, which was announced in August. The trackball module snaps magnetically onto either the right or left half of your Voyager, just above the thumb cluster. (You pick which side at checkout.) The ball, which comes in a color that I might best describe as “trackball red,” feels really smooth to roll around. It’s nice having it right next to your typing fingers, because it means you barely have to move them from your keyboard.
ZSA says the Voyager is “designed with a laptop in mind,” and I can see why: the keyboard is small enough to toss in a bag if you want to bring your laptop somewhere but would prefer to type on a more custom setup. (It even comes with a carrying case.) If you want to ever-so-slightly tent the two sides, the keyboard comes with four little nubs that attach magnetically to the bottom. I mostly used the Voyager flat and was fine with it, though I would have preferred if the included nubs were able to tent the keyboard at a steeper angle like other ergonomic keyboards that I’ve used.
You can buy a tripod mount that lets you totally customize the tilt and pitch angle, or even mount the Voyager halves to your desk or the arms of your chair. But you can also make or buy other magnetic tenting accessories and attach them to the bottom of the keyboard yourself — you can even remove the magnets from the included nubs to use them in your own solution.
The tenting nub. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The real magic of the Voyager and Navigator, as with ZSA’s Moonlander keyboard that I reviewed in 2021, is how much you can customize them using ZSA’s Oryx configurator software. The software lets you program any key to be any other key, or a macro, or a media playback button, or even a mouse click. Keys can have different functions when tapped, held, double-tapped, or tapped and held. You can even set different layers of keys that are activated by pressing another key. This type of customization is pretty standard for enthusiast keyboards, but I’ve found Oryx’s software to be particularly easy to use. Once you’ve decided on a layout, you can flash it to the keyboard using ZSA’s Keymapp app.
I should say here that the Voyager and Navigator are not cheap. The Voyager is $365, while the Navigator is $169, so the total cost is $534. If you want the tripod mount, that costs an additional $89 — and the tripod itself isn’t included. These are accessories for people who have very specific typing needs or who really want to go deep on customizing their tools.
ZSA’s Voyager keyboard without the wires. This is a wired keyboard; it has one cable to go to your computer and another connecting the two halves. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Usually, I fit both of those criteria. My typical current setup is a split ergonomic keyboard, the 95-key Kinesis Freestyle Pro, and a vertical ergonomic mouse, the Contour Unimouse. I taught myself Colemak after spending my entire life on QWERTY. At one point I alternated between a regular mouse and a full-sized trackball. For a while I used a rollermouse as my daily driver. And I went really deep with the Moonlander, even making a layer dedicated to shortcuts for watching YouTube videos. I’m no stranger to the fun and suffering of switching up my computing input devices, or to going to great lengths for a more ergonomic setup.
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