Inputs of Interest: SafeType™ Vertical Keyboard with Mirrors Puts Pain in the Rear-View

Yep, this keyboard is another ebay special. I can't stay away! This is a SafeType V801 from probably the early 2000s, although there is no date on it anywhere. I'm basing my guess on the fact that there are so many media buttons. I've been eyeing these weirdo mirrored keebs for a while, and when I saw how cheaply this one was going for, I had to have it. That's just how it goes. I was really excited to clack on it and I'm only marginally disappointed by it. But I can tell you that if my Kinesis were to suddenly die, I would probably reach for this keyboard until the new one showed up.

Yes, mirrors on a keyboard are weird. But if you can't touch-type the numerals and F keys, they're absolutely necessary.

So, why does it look like this? There are varying levels of ergonomics when it comes to keyboards. This one fights strongly against wrist pronation and forces you into a position that helps the shoulders and neck as well. You'd think it would be weird to hold your arms aloft at right angles, but it's actually not that strange in practice because you're pressing inward to type, kind of like playing an accordion or something.

The weird part is looking in the rear-view mirrors to accurately hit the numerals and F keys, though I'll be honest: in my test drives, I found myself using the mirrors mostly to make sure my hands were on the home row. And that's with three homing protrusions apiece on F and J! More about that later.

So yes, some of the keycap legends are backwards so you can read them in the mirror. If you don't like using the numeral row, there's a num pad in the center, along with the Home/End cluster, a quartet of comically large arrow keys, and a boatload of dedicated media and program launch buttons. All the buttons in the middle are fairly awkward to reach because you must either pull your hand down and around the bottom, or else go over the top.

The view from usage.

Let's Get to Clackin'

I kind of like this keyboard, enough that I wish it had more ergonomics going for it. I'm disappointed that it isn't ortholinear and doesn't have mechanical switches. I have small hands, so the staggering is pretty noticeable after using an ortho for so long and a laptop keyboard a few times a week. Beyond the split and the verticality, it's really not that ergonomic. Although this has rubber dome key switches, they're not completely terrible and mushy. They're kind of sproingy, actually, and because of the angle, they give off a pleasant popcorn popping or bubble wrap sound. Oddly enough, though, the sound varies. It's like the left half is higher-pitched or something.

Like any self-respecting split keyboard, the SafeType has thumb keys, but unfortunately, all that real estate in the thumb area is wasted on one Space and one Backspace. That's it. And look how big they both are!

I'm all about homing bumps to help with touch-typing and returning to the keys without looking. This is definitely not a keyboard for hunt-and-peck typers. Although this keyboard doesn't have nearly as many as the TypeMatrix, there are three different homing protrusions on both F and J: a bump in the center, a bar at the bottom, and something I've never seen before - a little fingertip-shaped arch across the top. All this homing help may seem excessive, but it's really quite helpful, what with the verticality and all. I would probably be lost without all the homing topography, but there's always the mirrors. Don't like the mirrors? Don't need 'em? They fold and stow away but do not appear to come off without dismantling the thing. I'll let you know when we get into the teardown.

Some Good Stuff, Some Bad Stuff

Like I said, I really dig the topographical features of F and J. I have nothing derogatory to say about those. Media buttons are kind of nice to have, especially if you can reprogram them. But the legends on those rubber buttons are terrible. Maybe we can put that one down to age.

Yeah, I could fit one of my legs through there.

I dig the massive arrow keys and don't really understand why they're so big. That's the main redeeming quality of the middle layout, which otherwise has its drawbacks. You have to go to the middle of the board for Delete, or else Backspace everything. I use Delete (and Home and End) pretty often, so that would annoy me constantly.

Another thing that would bother me is reaching in to use the number pad -- it's a little cramped, and you have to do unconscionable things with your wrist to use it. You know what would be nice? If it were at a 45° angle or something. Or you know what? They should have made the num pad and the Home/End cluster a separate piece and turned the middle into a mousing arena.

There is this pair of plastic humps that stick up into your palm hollows as you type. At first they feel kind of nice, but ask me again after a full day of typing -- not that that's happening any time soon. I will say that this keyboard is solidly built and doesn't move around on the desk. Plus, if you turn it over, it doubles as a small breakfast-in-bed tray.

Let's Talk About Those Mirrors

Can't touch-type the number row of or the F keys? The mirrors are nice to have, at least until they get in your way. The problem is that they are floppy and too easily knocked out of position, and you will probably run your hand into them at some point while flying to the mouse and back. If you can get away with not using the mirrors at all, they do swing around and stow away nicely in the middle.

The fact that there are mirrors at all was a great idea considering that you can't see the keycaps at all while you're typing, and don't seem so absurd once you've got this keeb under your fingertips. The backwards and rotated legends are kind of hilarious on their own, but sadly, you don't get to look at them because they're vertical.

As huge as the mirrors are, you'll still want a separate blind spot mirror to catch people sneaking up behind you at work. The mirrors themselves seem cheap, and the arms are stiff and feel easy to break. Moving them in and out of storage is a bit of a time investment. They're also cloudy, and both have fallen out of their holders. I put them back in place with double-sided tape.

The Teardown

I can't believe how many screws are holding this thing together, so I'm really glad that I was able to use an electric screwdriver for most of them. I'm not sure where I expected the controller to be, but it's on the bottom. And although there are only two screws holding it down, there is a whole bunch of hot glue around the connector that prevented me from flipping the board over. Still, I could lift it up just a little, enough to see a black blob. So really, the guts are rather unremarkable, except for the engineering that went into making a split membrane keyboard with two right angles. And I don't think you can take off the mirrors without breaking them.

Semi-Safe Typing

You know, I could have maybe seen my way to using this thing instead of the Kinesis when I was first in my keyboard crisis. But there seems to be a lot more hand movement required of this keyboard, most likely because of the row staggering.

And this keyboard is fairly easy to get used to. This would be an awesome alternative if you like Natural keebs but they aren't doing it for anymore, or if you aren't ready to go ortholinear, but think that Backspace on the thumb is a great idea. Control + Backspace is one of my best friends, but I wouldn't use it on this keyboard because they're both under the pinkies.

They really should have used mechanical switches. Aside from the split and the verticality, this is barely an ergonomic keyboard if you ask me. Ergonomics go deeper than shoulder width and wrist pronation. Switches matter. Heck, springs matter. Do we need to do a post about that?

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TypeMatrix EZ-Reach 2030 is Better Than Your Laptop Keyboard

Maybe you're not ready to take the leap into a full-on ergonomic split keyboard. That's okay, that's cool, that's understandable. They're weird! Especially ones like my Kinesis Advantage with the key bowls and such. But maybe your poor pinkies are starting to get tired and you're ready to start using your thumbs for more than just the space bar. Or you want to be able to type 'c' properly, with your middle finger.

In that case, the TypeMatrix could be the keyboard for you. Or maybe for travel you, because it's designed as a quasi-ergonomic, orthonormal layout travel keyboard to pair with your laptop, and as such it sits directly over a laptop keyboard without blocking the track pad. (How do people use those things, anyway?)

Of course, you could use this as a desktop keyboard as well, although it's unfortunate that Control and Shift are stuck on the pinkies. More about that later.

First Impressions

When I saw this keyboard on eBay, I was attracted by two things: the layout, and the dedicated Dvorak light. (And, let's be honest -- the price was right.) I've always found myself generally turned off by chocolate bar-style ortholinear keebs because they're so incredibly cramped, but this one seemed a more acceptable because of the slight split.

The first thing I noticed was the fantastic number pad integration. The different colored keycaps are a nice touch, because the gray makes the number pad stand out, and the red Delete is easy to find since Num Lock is squatting in the upper right corner. Why does Delete always feel like an afterthought on compact keebs? I also like the location of the arrows, and it makes me think of the AlphaSmart NEO layout. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of burying the right hand Enter down in no-man's land where you can't exactly hit it blindly with great accuracy right away. If only you could swap Shift and Enter without messing up the number pad!

Home Sweet Homing Bits

The vertical Shifts, Enter, and Backspace are interesting, as is the forced relocation of Caps Lock, which has been relegated to the middle top between F5 and F6. There are a ridiculous number of homing bumps and bars on this thing, which I think is really cool. Ten of the keys have homing bumps, and seventeen of them have homing bars. One has both -- the left hand Function key, to distinguish it from Control. That makes 30% of the keys with homing bits, compared to just two homing anything (F and J) on TKL keebs or three things (the 5 in the number pad) if you have a full keyboard.

In theory, the homing bar would help you hit that right hand Enter if you wanted to use it outside of the number pad. I did read a review of the EZ-Reach that said the homing bits are a tad sharp when the keyboard is brand new, but these feel fine to me.

Note that all the inside keys except the Fs have a homing bar to help you navigate the middle keys without looking. I hesitate to call them thumb keys, because I doubt you're supposed to use your thumb to hit the middle back space, though I suppose if your fingers are long enough, suit yourself. I myself cannot. I so wish that TypeMatrix had not wasted so much real estate on the space bar, which is really more like a space slab. It's a sidewalk of a space bar. And then there's all that unused space underneath the space slab? Infuriating.

We're go for Dvorak mode, baby.

Dvorak, Sort of

It's interesting that there are no Dvorak labels on the keycaps given the built-in Dvorak layout. That would be a nice addition, and would probably make people like me practice Dvorak more often. There is a lot of function built into this 90-key layout, and some of the labels would be cramped, but I think labels would go a long way toward me actually taking the time to practice Dvorak.

If you already know Dvorak, you could leave it in DV mode and change the keycaps around, although that would mess up the whole inner keys homing bars thing and the number pad.

I think more people in general would try it out if the labels were there to remove the mystery. Fortunately, the company sells keyboard skins -- rubber overlays that keep dust and dirt out of the crevices and come in your choice of labels. TypeMatrix claims that the typing experience is even better with the skin on, and people seem to like them quite a bit.

It's wafer-thin.

Fit and Fully Functional

This extremely portable keyboard would likely fit in any backpack or laptop case. Once you put it on top of your keys, it stays firmly in place on rubber feet.

It's small, nearly weightless at just over one pound, and is slightly less 1/2″ thick, but it's not lacking for functionality at all. This thing has three Shifts, two Controls, two Alts, two Backspaces, two Functions, two Enters, and all the F keys.

The built-in copy/cut/paste functions are nice in theory, but actually using them would be in-ergonomic unless maybe you used the right-hand Function key and used your left index or ring finger to hit the cut/copy/paste keys.

Would you remove and replace 90 of these?

Standard Scissor Switches

At first clack, the switches reminded me of the Alphasmart NEO. After trying it out a few times, I decided the switches are merely okay and not as satisfying. They pretty much just feel like laptop keys, but at least they're not staggered.

The keycaps actually feel nice. I think they might be PBT because they have that fine sandpaper finish to them. Plus, there's no shine on the keys at all, and this thing is old enough to have a PS/2 connection. Maybe it didn't get used much? Who knows.

I like the use of color to help you take in the layout at a glance and help you see the number pad easily. I'm not sure why some of the keys are a different color, though -- the 5, 6, Y, G, and B are way less yellow than the others, but it's probably just from age.

The Bad Stuff

This keyboard's worst design crime has got to be the giant space bar, because it wastes so much precious thumb key area. The unused space underneath is kind of an odd choice as well, though I suppose that it helps you find the arrows and bottom row keys without looking. My problem is that I can't use either one of the Backspaces or Enters without looking.

If I were to redesign this keyboard, I would start by breaking up the Space slab to make room for more thumb cluster keys. I'd move Backspace to the left thumb, Enter to the right thumb, and probably relocate Delete and one each of Control and Shift. As it stands, Control and Shift are easiest to hit with the pinkies, which takes ergonomic points off in my book.

I'm conflicted about the number pad. I like the idea, but the execution is poor because that's the only right-hand Enter. I don't know or understand why there are two number locks. The one on F4 doesn't seem to work in either QWERTY or Dvorak mode, and it doesn't light up the Num LED. The Num key in the upper right does in fact unlock the number pad in both layouts and lights up the LED. The newer version of this keyboard is down to just the one Num key, and it also has Delete in the top middle, which is a great improvement. Although the TypeMatrix isn't inherently programmable, there's always AutoHotKey and other key-mapping programs.

Can confirm, it's laptop-sized.

This keeb is designed sit perfectly atop a laptop keyboard without blocking the track pad. I would say it does a really good job of that, but isn't great for other settings. Since I'm normally on a desktop, I did all my typing tests there, and I had to put a 1″ binder notebook underneath to provide a bit of an angle so I could type at all.

Sorry, But There's No Teardown Section

It's easy enough to get into -- there are only six Phillips-head screws on the back, after all. But of course, nothing happens unless you remove all the keycaps, and quite frankly, I'm afraid of breaking them or the scissor mechanisms underneath.

EZ to Reach for a Different Keyboard

I think I could eventually get used to this keyboard if for some reason I needed to leave the house and didn't want to take my curvy girl out into the world. However, I find myself typing pretty hard on this thing because of the unsatisfying scissor switches, so it would likely be just as loud. I tried to give it a fair shake, and I will say that it was easy to mess up certain letters even though I'm used to an ortholinear layout. I'm still faster on a standard, staggered keyboard than I am on this one, which is definitely saying something.

#hackadaycolumns #peripheralshacks #reviews #dvorak #dvorakmode #ebay #ergonomic #ergonomickeyboard #homingbar #homingbump #ortholinear #portable #scissorswitches