I fell down the split ergo mechanical keyboard rabbit hole thanks to a dear friend who was kind enough to loan me his Gergoplex (despite my incessant teasing about his hipster keyboard). The Gergoplex is on the deeper end of the rabbit-hole with only 36 keys and 12g switches but it demonstrated the value to me. I ended up getting a pre-built Corne and added the lightest switches I could find at the time: Gateron MX 35g switches. I’ve been pretty happy with the Corne (and it’s 3x6 +3 layout) but I very much enjoyed the lower profile and light action of the Gergoplex and wanted to chase it…

So, I got a Corne LP kit but went with an acrylic case (the aluminum case looks really nice but it’s quite rich) and got the 25g Purpz Choc switches.

Split ergonomic keyboard parts, pcb, switches, keycaps
Corne parts

It was fun to assemble the kit and the board looks great:

Split ergonomic keyboard with switches installed but no keycaps
Corne with purpz

I didn’t have any Choc keycaps so I had to wait a bit for the MK Ultra MBK Choc (vendor may be defunct) keycaps. I’m very impressed with the keycaps and the homing keys feel great. I’m a big fan of the look and feel and quite happy with the low profile and light touch which I was looking for.

Split ergonomic keyboard with black and white keys
Fully assembled Corne

The keyboard worked “out of the box” but I was able to flash my custom QMK firmware and was able to get up and going with my keymap. Now, maybe I’ll look into making the kit wireless? It never ends.