Reviews
Read the original Datahand Testimonials (all 95 pages of them) here:
Datahand Testimonials (PDF)
Svalboard Testimonials
From a user in Japan:
"A month has passed since I started using a Svalboard as daily driver.
I write at least 10,000 characters (Japanese text) during work. This is why I've been suffering from tendonitis and lateral epicondylitis for a long time.
However, nowadays, I don't feel a lot of pain. Svalboard eases the pain and discomfort!
My fingers/hands/arms/shoulders/neck don't get tired easily, and I can continue typing at constant speed even if I work all day.
Svalboard is the best device for me. It's my grail!"
From Nikko in Michigan:
"Update on the svalboard. I'm up to 50-60 wpm and it has been my daily driver for 1.5 weeks. My typing pain is significantly reduced and its honestly super painful to switch back to normal keyboards."
"Thanks so much, this keyboard is honestly going to make it possible for me to finish PhD with 90% less pain than would have been possible otherwise. I'm planning on going crazy making design updates later this semester/early next semester."
From Will in Sweden:
"I have used many keyboards, many ergonomic keyboards, and even a handful expensive ergonomic keyboards. The only ergonomic keyboard I have ever truly felt deserve the prize of being the ultimate ergonomical keyboard, is the Svalboard. The adjustability of the board means that you can tailor it to fit any hand. Myself, I have wrist problems and my right pinky is damaged and has a weird angle and limited mobility. The Svalboard was easy to adjust in such a way that even using my right pinky felt useful and fun, instead of annoying and painful as it normally does. This is the one keyboard I will from now on recommend to friends and family if they suffer from RSI."
From Spider in Washington
Spider: "I've used a number of ergonomic keyboards but nothing has felt right like this"
From Piotr in Poland:
"Hi, if you're reading this, you're probably wondering if Svalboard makes sense, how fast you could possibly type on it, is it comfortable at all, is the price justified?
There probably are many more, but I'll try to address what was important to me when I decided to make the purchase and tell you if it was worth it (spoiler alert, it 100% was).
1. The Speed
I don't think it's going to be a surprise to anyone when I say this device has a learning curve. To my surprise, though, it's not so hard to get a grasp of it at all! I was using your typical QWERTY layout before moving to Svalboard. I could consistently get to about 120WPM in typing tests. Now, I thought that it's going to take me ages before I can work back up to that speed, but after only a week of being consistent, I am at almost 70WPM and use it as my daily driver.
This is my daily progress, I stopped running tests at this point because I'm fast enough not to be bothered by speed:
Three weeks in:
2. The comfort.
You'll notice right away that it is very comfortable to type on. I'd even dare to say it's on a completely different level compared to any other keyboard I've used before and there's been plenty (corne, ferris sweep, ergodox, microdox, and many others). Your hands don't have to move at all, every key is adjustable to your hand's shape. It's ergonomic poetry!
3. Using it for work.
I work as a software developer and I try to keep my workflow keyboard focused. I use vim, tmux, and i3, which results in having to use bunch of keyboard shortcuts, and that obviously begs for customizability. And that isn't a problem at all! You can map every key to do exactly what you want by using a simple tool. There're different layout's available through community members if you're not happy with the default QWERTY. It took me about 4 days total before I went in and started working in it. After two weeks I'm back to being fully fluent. Magic.
4. Is it worth the price?
This is a tough one to answer because it's so subjective. For me - 110%. For you - maybe not so much. From my current perspective I'd be willing to pay even more.
This device is solid and very well built. It includes a lot of electronics, advanced engineering and software development. The creator keeps improving it and is always available to help whenever there're questions. Let me say it like this - you can sit on both 5$ chair and 2000$ chair, but it's pretty obvious which one will serve you better long term and which one wont hurt your health. I hope this small review will make the decision easier for you. If you have any questions to a regular user, you can catch me on discord @piotrbrzezinski
