The Best Ergonomic Keyboards

“Ergonomic keyboard” covers three quite different interventions, and they address three different joints. Buying the wrong one for your problem is common and avoidable.

The three angles

Ulnar deviation — your wrists bending outward to reach a keyboard narrower than your shoulders. Fixed by splitting the halves so each hand sits at shoulder width.

Pronation — your forearms rotating to put your palms flat. Fixed by tenting, raising the inner edges so your hands angle inward.

Extension — your wrists bending upward over a thick keyboard. Fixed by a low profile and a negative tilt, not by a wrist rest.

Work out which one describes your discomfort before choosing, because a board that splits but does not tent will not help a pronation problem. The Kinesis Advantage360 (at Amazon, opens in a new tab) is our pick because it addresses all three at once.

Fixed split versus true split

A fixed split — one board, angled halves — gives you most of the ulnar correction with essentially no learning curve. It is by far the easiest recommendation to make, and the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard (at Amazon, opens in a new tab) is the one we make.

A true split, two separate halves connected by a cable, lets you set the width and angle to your own shoulders and put an ergonomic mouse between them. It is better, and it costs you a fortnight of slow typing. Of the true splits, the Kinesis Freestyle2 for PC (at Amazon, opens in a new tab) is the one we would put on a small desk. The split keyboard guide separates the other axes — tenting, stagger, thumb clusters — that vendors tend to bundle together.

Be honest about the adaptation cost

Fully split, column-staggered boards genuinely disrupt your typing for one to two weeks. Most people who abandon them do so in that window. If you are going to switch, do it when you can afford to be slow.