Only buy a magnetic keyboard for gaming

I just don't get the obsession with eliminating the numpad. There are tons of interesting looking and innovative keyboards now and they all insist on making them as cramped as possible.

It makes sense on a laptop. But, if I already need to have a clear place on my desk for the keyboard and mouse, I'd rather just use an extra 2 inches to have the full size keyboard with the numpad and arrow keys that are not crammed against the rest of the keyboard.

if you have your left hand on WSAD and right hand on the mouse then having the numpad in the way makes the sitting posture less natural

that's the reason

I want the option of having the numpad at the left side of the keyboard.

The asymmetric nature of having it at the right side drives me crazy.

I want my hands at the middle of the keyboard, not cramped to the left side, with so much space at the right, for keys I almost never use.

Having said that, my current keyboard has no numpad.

I don't like moving across the numerical keypad area with my right hand every time I switch from typing to mousing. That extra few inches adds up over a long coding session.

I don't get the tiny keyboard obsession either, I've got a tenkeyless so no numpad but an area for arrow keys, page up/down etc. and it's a good compromise. For me, the numpad would conflict with what I already put next to my keyboard--my trackpad.

If you're right handed and use the mouse right handed, the increase in angle of your right arm is a lot harder on your shoulder over time.

Using Razer as an example, the full size keyboard is 6 inches wider than a 60%, and 3.5 inches larger than the 80%.

You said 2 inches but it’s actually half the width of a 13” laptop.

I can fit a compact keyboard and a trackpad in the size of a normal keyboard.

I've thought like this before but it's nice having a smaller keyboard, you can keep your hands closer together which is nice and unless you’re doing a lot of accounting, you don't really regularly use the numpad. Best configuration I've found is to have a separate numpad/macro keypad that you can keep off to the side on your desk.

Same. I use my numpad constantly - Excel, programming, VoIP, calc, etc.

I don't use the number row above my keyboard except on rare occasions or to type the shifted characters. If I need to quickly type a number without looking, the numpad is the only way to do that (for me).

I tried a friends "compact" gaming keyboard, and then to the right of his keyboard was a separate "macro" keyboard which was basically just a numpad... so why not just have a numpad?

I strongly recommend learning to mouse with your nondominant hand, at least for tasks that don’t require a ton of precision. Saved me a ton of shoulder pain.

What's especially bad is those that remove FN keys. I'm convinced that anybody that's okay with that doesn't use keyboard shortcuts very often.

I want a separate numpad on the far side of the mouse (or left side of the desk) for RSI reasons.

Or use a touchscreen in combo with the mouse -- touch for simple button pushing or gestures. Works great on my laptop, I use the trackpoint stick, trackpad, and touchscreen for various tasks whichever one makes the most sense at the moment.

I agree. I really like the Keydous NJ98 CP he V2 something that's full sized with hall effect, BUT ut also is compatible with regular mechanical switches. It really should be a standard.

I have never missed the numpad, as I am not an accountant.

The problem is mainly that normal numpad placement is for left mouse users.

Numpad forces you to move the more important piece of input equipment - mouse - further away. And with a properly aligned keyboard (none pictured in the article) it's better to have numpad near your right hand home row keys anyway to use with a modifier. Even more so for the cursor keys - instead of having to move your wrist back&forth you could just use the home row keys for that

This layout exists, it’s a little rare, it’s called a “Southpaw” layout - vendors like Keychron have ready to ship models.

Some keyboards come with a wireless numpad which can be freely repositioned, such as the old MS ergonomic keyboard. Although, wireless does come with its own battery and responsiveness issues.

Well, I personally don’t mind removal of numpad because it is badly designed. Telephone style numpad are a much better design. I have no idea on why we are stuck with such a bad design.

I bought a keyboard without the numpad about ten years ago and rarely miss it (I do have the arrows and keys above them). I would miss it with my work keyboard, but I don't miss it on my personal use gaming PC.

There’s a loud category of people that are obsessed with looks and symmetry (over function) that a numpad breaks.

I doubt these folks do any meaningful numerical work, so they do not understand the convenience of the numpad.

Same man. Reduced size keyboards are absolutely awful to use and I have no idea how anyone can stand them. 100% or nothing.

I was given a 75% keyboard and I just can't get used to the spacing. Plus I miss my numberpad.

They should put the numpad on the left side then, people can learn to hit numbers with left hand, I used to do this with a dedicated usb numpad

A full size numpad keyboard gave me wrist pain, since my hands were spread out while using the mouse! Plus I like having more desk space.

I do have a full size keyboard in my closet just in case I have to use excel someday!

Just add a USB 10 key keyboard. Actually, it'd be neat if they made a keyboard with a detachable 10 key portion. Add a USB port so it can plug into the larger keyboard as an accessory.

But why would you need to relearn that when you can continue to use your right hand in a better position???

Yes, but not doing a numerical work is perfectly fine use of a PC.

Edit: thinking more about it, I’d rather use a solar cell powered ble enabled calculator with all the usual buttons (M*, +-, C/AC, <, etc) and a screen, rather than having a built-in or separate numpad which sucks for one-hand input anyway.

Considering most of the typing you do is with your left hand, I would think that would really decrease the efficiency of your typing.

My keyboard has no influence on mouse placement though? My mouse is not positioned laterally to the keyboard, it's diagonally in front and to the right or on a completely separate pullout with mouse pad. Not to mention, I almost never use it.

My GF loves this setup and always has the numpad in a random spot on her desk depending out what she's doing. She loves the idea that if she's doing excel stuff she can put it right in the middle of her hands below the keyboard. Not using it all? Move it completely out of the way. Doing Data Viz stuff? She likes it on the left hand side of the keyboard.

Not sure why this option isn't more popular tbh since you can put the numpad where you want it.

My reason for using a no-keypad keyboard on the desktop is entirely functional: reaching for the mouse (a very common motion) is faster.

And as a bonus, I can type numbers faster on the top row than I could on a keypad since I'm using 8 fingers, and my hands stay in home position for mixing with letters and other symbols. Combine that with being easily able to switch to a laptop keyboard and still type at full speed -- I've just never seen the point of a keypad.

Agreed. This is my preferred setup, and over the years I've bought several of the MS ergonomic keyboards the GP mentioned.

With the separate numpad you can position it just above the mousepad so it's still easily accessible, but you have minimal movement distance between typing and using the mouse. To me it's the best of both worlds, and it's strange to me that it isn't more common to sell the two as a package. I suppose the assumption is that people who want numpad will just buy a 90% keyboard and numpad separately.

It is popular in PC FPS gaming to have a smaller keyboard so you can go more distance to the left with your mouse hand before running out of space. Have you never hit your keyboard with your mouse? More likely to happen when playing with lower DPI/sensitivity. I don't use numpad for anything while gaming so it's extra space I'm happy to get rid of. All these people saying they don't get why someone would want a smaller keyboard are probably confused because they don't play FPS or games that require mouse space beyond their 6 inch mousepad.

Some gamers even position their keyboards at very harsh angles or nigh perpendicular to their body all just to make more space.

They are not awful, you just don't like them for your use cases.

Your mouse not positioned laterally to the keyboard is atypical for gaming.

There's the Everest line of keyboards by MOUNTAIN that does that, although they've recently had very massive sales (like 60-70% off type stuff) so idk if the company's doing alright.

If you have programmable keyboard then it's trivial to throw numpad into a layer if you so wish and avoid the ergonomic problems of conventional numpad. Especially if you have ortholinear layout then the difference between real numpad and a layered one should be small.

Overall the ergonomic trend seems to be towards reducing wrist movement, thats why layouts like Corne are relatively popular, you can basically keep your hands at "home row position" all the time.

I do also think that numpads are also simply just less useful today than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Back in the days lot of data was still on paper or some other disconnected form. But these days? Where are you getting all those numbers that you are entering on numpad? What numeric data are you handling that is not already on your computer? I really do believe there has been shift in workflows so that people are far less typing in strings of numbers all the time.

Makes me wonder if with practice I could switch from numpad to the number row for numbers. Currently my brain doesn't work like that, but I had to learn how to type letters all those years ago, so it has to be the same. But I have to "unlearn" how I currently type numbers.

I was laptop only for several years. I thought I’d be able to unlearn. Once I got a proper desk setup again, using a numpad was like riding a bike.

I got a nice numpadless mechanical keyboard to conserve my deskspace, and because I never used the numpad anyway. Then I promptly got into Blender, which makes great use of the numpad for zooming, rotating etc.

Off to buy another keyboard...

You could just get a separate numpad...

Numpads are specialist equipment now that data entry is much less common than the past, as everything is digitized/scanned.

The other advantage of a separate numpad is that you can position it for better ergonomics; a full sized keyboard usually forces either the mouse or the keyboard into a more awkward position.

> which sucks for one-hand input anyway

Wait, what?

Unless you’re hunting-and-pecking, a numpad IS the job for one-handed number input.