I hate all this keyboard fetishism mostly because IMO they don't care one iota about ergonomics. Always colors, keycaps and how clicky/noisy they are. I use an adjustable split and tented keyboard and I guess I'm just jealous that people pour all their energy into seemingly useless crap.
Ergonomics is different for anyone. Personally, I hate split keyboards. And if I have to use them, two things happen: First, I slow way down. Second, after an hour my arms hurt.
Why do I slow way down? I am a very fast typist, but I have one bad habit: I move my hands across left and right, depending on what needs to be typed. The extreme example is: when typing things that are a mix with an unusual large number of digits, I'll keep my right hand on the numeric pad, and type all text with my left hand. But even in normal use, my hands cross over in the middle, regularly.
Other people say that this slows you down. They may be right FOR THEMSELVES. It doesn't slow me down. On the contrary, having to not move my hands back and forth slows me down. Another extreme example is: For about 3 months, I could not use my right hand, and for about 2 years I couldn't use my right index finger. I can type with just my left hand quite fast, definitely faster than most computer users.
I also get no wrist pain or arm pain at all from typing, and I sometimes am at a computer for 12 or 14 hours per day.
How can that all be? Since I was 5 years old, I've been playing the piano extensively. When I was a teenager (before computers existed in households), I often practiced piano for 3-4 hours per day. Not only can I type with just my left hand, I can also play Ravel's left hand piano concerto. And when using both hands, much of the romantic repertoire. So a little bit of pressing buttons on a relatively small thing (about 50cm wide) is much less exercise for my arms and hands than 88 keys spread over a meter and a half.
What I do like is really good, accurate keyboards. At home, I have a Bechstein grand. At places where I occasionally perform (I still play in various orchestras and wind ensembles, although more commonly percussion and timpani instead of keyboard), I usually find a Steinway or Yamaha, and occasionally I get to enjoy a Boesendorfer. Strangely, I can tolerate (although not enjoy) various electronic keyboards, and I'm quite fond of the Nord Stage Piano (saving up to buy one for myself) and the high-end Yamaha electronic keyboards. Cheap electronic keyboards really annoy me, and when faced with them, I try to trade with someone (I'll take the xylophone part, if you take the keyboard).
For computers, I really like the IBM model M (I've used it since the mid 1980s, and I was an IBM employee for nearly 20 years). Today, I have one model M in my office, and several at home (they are today Unicomp branded and USB connected, with a Macintosh key layout). Strangely, I can tolerate the current (2022 generation scissor-based) Mac keyboard. I actually liked the pre-butterfly Macbook keyboard: while it was a little spongy, without a crisp feedback point, it was very accurate and well built. The old-style (T20 through T60 era) IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad keyboards were also very good, and I'm very fond of the 7-row layout on the T2x models (I used one for nearly a decade, even after my colleagues had switched to T4x and T6x).
There is in my (not at all humble) opinion only one keyboard that is better than the model M, and it is the original buckling spring used in the 5150, 3278 and PC model F. Before PCs existed, I used to use an IBM 3290 terminal (with a plasma screen! no flicker!), which had a gigantic keyboard with over 120 keys, both PF keys (I think at the top) and F keys (at the left, or the other way around). Today you can actually buy a reproduction model F keyboard with original-style buckling spring keys, and even with the solenoid that the old IBM 5150 used to have. I don't own one (yet?), but I've tested a colleagues, and they are indeed fabulous. They are to keyboards what a Boesendorfer is to pianos.
So now you ask, why a solenoid? It turns out that many typists learned how to type on either electric typewriters (the ubiquitous Selectric), or on keypunches (the even more ubiquitous 029). Both have in common that there is a lot of mechanical and sound feedback to the user: When you successfully type a key, you KNOW it, because the whole mechanism shakes, and you hear a loud noise. When switching to electronic keyboards, many typists slowed down, because they didn't get that feedback to know that you've actually hit the key. So IBM added a solenoid (electric magnet) to the keyboard, which literally slams a metal bolt into the side of the keyboard case, making a loud clanging sound, and shaking it. And yes, you can still buy these solenoid mechanisms to add to keyboards, and the reproduction model F can be ordered with it (if you have a few hundred $ sitting around).
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