OLKB Preonic Review: An Ortholinear Oddity

Reading Time: 10 minutes.

This was a hard review to write. Mostly because I insist on writing my keyboard reviews with the keyboard I’m reviewing. That’s actually why it took me so long to start writing: I was dreading it. I know, I know, that makes is sound like this is an awful keyboard. It’s not. It’s actually pretty cool. It just takes some massive adjustment. In fact, every time I go back to it I have to re-learn how to use it after using a regular keyboard.

This was a kit from Drop (formerly MassDrop), a partnership between OLKB and the company. The kits were a build-your-own 50% ortholinear keyboard affair that I just couldn’t pass up. A chance to have such a cool looking compact keyboard? How could I refuse? Plus it comes with nice thick PBT keycaps and a handy carrying case, along with a hot-swappable PCB, which means I can toss any switches on here that I want. The firmware is incredibly customizable. The Preonic is also the first keyboard I’ve had that has a built in speaker, and even has a music mode and turn it into a little musical keyboard. It’s fun!

With cool keycaps, a nice aluminum body, and a unique design, what’s not to love?

Ortholinear.

Video Review

Ortholinear

This is my first ortholinear board. Ortholinear, if you haven’t guessed, is named as such because the keys are in lines, which is supposed to be more ergonomic. In practice, it’s just not. The layout is definitely more compact, which is great if you want to put a keyboard in a backpack or carry on bag, or if you want more space on your desk, but not so much if you don’t like having your thumbs touching at all times.

They just kind of overlap.

I think this is because the angle of the keys forces me to hold my elbows in more, my wrists more angled. It actually feels far less ergonomic. I have long fingers and that means I’m used to moving them around a lot. I never had a problem with the size of keyboards. But hands also don’t expand in a strict up and down motion. There’s some lateral movement.

Okay, stick with me. Hold your arm out, fingers relaxed, drooping down. Now angle your wrist up and extend your fingers upward. Are your fingers touching? Probably not. That’s why ortholinear is a bad idea, it forces you to cramp your fingers together at all times. Pair in the fact that you (likely) have shoulders and elbows, and you end up holding your hands close together at a weird angle. It’s really uncomfortable for your wrists over time. I broke my wrist over the summer, and I’m worried this could exacerbate the now healed injury. That’s how bad it is.

However, I could see this layout working well for a split keyboard, one that angles sharply in the middle. If you’ve ever seen the Ergodox EZ or Kinesis Advantage 2, you know what I’m thinking of. Those would allow me to type with my wrists straight. Instead, they’re bent as much if not more than usual, and it’s not very comfortable. Still, you’d have the issue that your fingers do not make parallel lines. They don’t make the same shape as your standard keyboard either, so, sorry humans, you’re just going to have to put up with weird keyboards no matter what.

Typing Speed

There’s no beating around this bush. My typing speed is usually around 90 wpm. I know, it’s quite fast, but not extraordinarily fast. I’ve been trying to get my pinkies more involved, but it’s difficult.

35.

35 WPM. That’s how fast I typed the first time I tried to type on this keyboard.

I typed faster when I had a broken wrist and couldn’t type much with my left hand! I was faster one handed!

With about a week of practice, my highest was 71WPM. After a few weeks of not typing on it, I recently went back to write this review. I was typing at 55 WPM. After about 20 minutes, I was able to get up to 65, and by the end of writing this, I’m up to the 70-75 range. But it’s awkward. It still just feels wrong, uncomfortable. I make mistake frequently, which slows my typing speed down. I would likely be much faster if I didn’t make so many mistakes with it.

When I looked at this board, I thought, “How could that be difficult? I can’t imagine I would have difficulty learning how to type on that!” But the fact is, freshly assembled, I could type faster with my thumbs on my iPhone. I’m much better now, but far more likely to make typos, and definitely not as fast or comfortable as I am with a standard staggered keyboard. This is trickier to learn than it looks, but you’ll likely be able to get up to close to your full speed on it in two to three weeks. I still am not quite there, but I take breaks often, going weeks using normal keyboards before coming back to this for a review. I bet if I had spent all that time typing on this, I’d be much better.

But would I still be able to type on a normal keyboard?

Different Strokes

I have heard that, once you get used to typing like this, it’s hard to go back, that you’ll love it. However, it’s my suspicion that this has more to do with the design, software customization, and unique, “cool” factor of ortholinear keyboards. Still, while this isn’t my taste, I can see how someone who wants a compact keyboard that doesn’t require much hand or wrist movement would like it. I prefer to move my wrists around more; they get stiff otherwise. This really does push me to take breaks from writing or coding to stretch out my wrists. That might sound like a good thing, but if it’s that necessary, something isn’t right.

If you’re up for the challenge of learning ortholinear, or if you’re already a fan of the layout, this won’t be much of a problem for you. However, despite the fact that I almost got up to full speed, I never quite felt comfortable on it. Returning to my 65% keyboard feels like putting my head on a pillow after a rough day.

The Rest of the Layout

Usually my layout section is something along the lines of “I’m not a huge fan of 60% keyboards,” or “ah, yes, 65%, just right.” But so far, it’s mostly been about how this keyboard completely destroys my muscle memory. So, let’s pretend I’m a perfect typist on this. I’d be perfect on a 50% keyboard. Yes, 50%. It’s missing some keys you might find on common keyboards, like minus or underscore, plus or equals. No keys besides the spacebar are larger than a single square. The spacebar is only two spaces. Most desktop spacebars are 6.5 units. The keyboard on the MacBook Pro keyboard is exactly 5 units. This is two. It’s a little cramped.

However, this gives you a 50% layout with more functionality than a 40% keyboard, in about the same amount of space. You have dedicated number keys, most of the keys you’d expect, and all of the letters.

I only really have a problem when looking for keys like symbols. Underline or hyphen? That’ll be raise or lower (layers, like shift) and… J. Escape key? That’s where the caps lock—which is another function layer on most of my other boards—key usually is. That ‘—’ symbol I use for fast sentence breaks? It’s Raise + Alt + Shift + J, or Lower + alt + J, but both feel awkward. The ‘+’ I just wrote too many times? It’s Lower + K. It’s a little difficult to figure anything out without a cheat sheet present for a few days, and even once you memorize them, it’ll take another week just to build up the muscle memory so you can type a + or a — with ease. As of now, it still takes me about half a second.

Just keep that cheat sheet nearby, okay?

Arrow Keys

Finally, there’s the arrow keys. These are on one row, but it’s at least a standard one row configuration. Left, Down, Up, Right. It’s the right way to do single row arrow keys, but it can feel a bit difficult. Because these are not DSA or XDA caps, you can’t shuffle them around. OLKB did include some blanks, so you could make your own inverted T arrow keys by moving the /? key down to where the stock Left key is, but you’d lose the legends on three keys. On this board, you might not want that right away. That’s why I think the best configuration for an ortho board is DSA keycaps. They just make so much more sense for customization, especially if you can get them with blanks.

Of course, blanks on this keyboard? It’ll take you months to learn.

Customization

Besides insanely cool looks, there’s something the OLKB folks really pride themselves on. Customization. The Preonic V3 has a hot-swappable MX-compatible PCB board that also can take Matias switches. Though you’ll have to solder those. It’s powered by open source QMK firmware, which means besides the default configuration, you can make it do just about anything. It also has dedicated raise and lower keys, along with a function key, so you can easily make multiple layers. You could use one layer for software development, another for photo editing, one for video editing, and one for writing. Then you could swap between them, using macros to make otherwise tricky keyboard shortcuts easy.

It Plays Music

For real, guys, it plays music. Simple midi music, like you’d find in an old NES game (at one point, I accidentally recreated the original Zelda theme music), but music. Do you need a keyboard that can play music? No. But you want one. Having a frustrating day? Office getting a bit loud? Break out some midi jams. And if it can do this, imagine what else you could program it to do.

The PCB

This isn’t just the standard firmware customization. Oh no. The PCB has footprints so you can add LEDs, DIP switches, a power adapter for wireless builds, compatibility with Sparkfun’s Qwiic system, and even a rotary encoder. You can use this as a platform for some extreme projects. Due to its size, you won’t even mind adding the additional components. You will likely need a custom case or plate, but the options are there. Basically? If you want a crazy custom build, this PCB will give you the ability to make something really wild. I’ve got this idea for a “hot coals” look with red and orange LEDs and translucent black DSA keycaps. But it would take soldering, and I’m just not quite there yet.

Now, when a board gets hot-swappable LEDs, then we’ll be talking!

Appearance

I would love to use this with some DSA or SA keycaps. Something with a spherical keycap design. However, as I’ll point out below, this actually came with some amazing keycaps. They look great and you can color match them to the aluminum, as I did, for a very cool look. The appearance of the anodized aluminum and those rows of keycaps? Awesome. Plus the case, while still being quite slim, comes up over the switches. This is a perfect look for a keyboard like this, giving it a sort of sunken-in, compact appearance. It’s such well balanced design, you’d think Apple made it, if Apple actually made any good keyboards.

This is just a cool looking keyboard. Slap this on your desk at work and people will ask you about it daily. It’s a keyboard that I might put in a public area of my apartment just to use as decoration and a conversation starter.

Plus? Need an emergency keyboard? Boom, keyboard within reach at all times.

Spacing Savings and Gaming

This keyboard might feel cramped sometimes, but that does come with a trade-off. I now have much more space on my desk. There’s more space for my mouse, or to have a small notebook on my desk, I can keep my mouse closer to my keyboard, there’s space to securely have my camera nearby, it’s pretty great. I bet this would be excellent for gaming. Between the WASD keys being more naturally configured in an inverted ‘T’ design and the fact that you have more space of your mouse, this may just be the ultimate gaming keyboard. Set up the layers just right, and you’ll have a ton of macros available at your fingertips, without ever having to move your hand. Pair it with a gaming mouse, and you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll be able to set up macros for quick builds in Fortnite or abilities or combos in your favorite MOBAs or MMORPGs.

Construction

Whoever put this together is a genius. Likely tall. And beautiful. With shiny hair and… okay, it was me. I ordered it as a kit! It was a fun project, almost like putting together Lego, but when I was done, instead of having a toy or a cool looking model, I had… huh. Well, it’s kind of a toy, and it looks really cool. But, no, it’s a keyboard. A tool for some, but basically a toy for people with this unique hobby. Still, it was a lot of fun to build this as a kit, I’m definitely going to get more keyboards unassembled so I can put them together. In fact, my next keyboard is coming in parts from different companies so I could do just that!

The Preonic is incredibly sturdy though. A solid aluminum base that comes up high enough to protect your switches and give your keyboard a nice typing sound. There’s a stainless steel plate to add rigidity and heft. This is a solid keyboard. OLKB did a fantastic job designing this kit for Drop.

Keycaps

The keycaps that come with this keyboard are thick PBT with dye sublimation, so the legends won’t wear off. These are wonderfully hefty keycaps, with a fantastic sound. Combined with the aluminum and steel in the baseplate and case, and they produce a nice thock noise while typing. Check out the typing sound in the video at the top of this review. It’s just a nice sound, from a good, thick, quality keycap. I wish all keycaps were made with this kind of thick plastic, with its nice matte texture and crisp legends. These were some quality keycaps, it’s surprising that they came with a kit.

Another benefit these keycaps have is that they were designed for this board. It’s tough to find single space modifier keys in a sculpted profile. That’s why these keyboards so frequently use DSA or XDA profile keycaps. So if you want a bit of shape to your profile, but also want a compact keyboard, these offer a huge benefit over a lot of keycaps.

Finally, and this is a matter of taste, but they feature centered legends! I just love when keycaps feature prominently centered legends in a large font. I don’t need to look at my keyboard to type, I just like the look of it.

Switches

You can get this with just about any switch. The fact that it works with Cherry MX style switches or Matias mount switches is a huge plus. I love Matias’ alps mount switches, despite reliability problems. Since this is so highly customizable, and you can use it with just about any switches, it’s kind of pointless for me to review switches on this board. But I did throw on some Halo Clears, which are fantastic tactile switches. They sound great in this sturdy board and thick keycaps.

Honestly, a nice sounding thick feel tactile switch like Halo Clears or Zealios V2s would be perfect with this board. Although I have not tried it with a clickbar switch, like Box Navies or Box Whites, I do think it would work well for those as well. It just feels like a board that’s made for fantastic tactility, perhaps because of that sturdy construction and compact size. Though I hate the layout, I do love the tactile feel of this keyboard, even more than the one I’ve had with the same switches on different boards. Still, I could see using some linear switches on this for gaming, especially since its compact size and programming makes it an excellent gaming keyboard.

Overall

This is definitely a keyboard for enthusiasts only. The fact is, you’re not going to be able to just buy this and start using it unless you’ve been using an OLKB keyboard for some time now. The layout, the organization of the keys, the small keys, the cramped size, it all makes this a very difficult keyboard to type on. By the end of this article, I was about up to about 70 WPM in a typing test. However, one minute with a standard keyboard, and I’m already back up to 75 with a standard keyboard. Give me another 10 minutes, and I’d be up to 90 again. Typing on the ortholinear keyboard just doesn’t feel natural, but I’m getting better at it.

However, if you have learned how to type on one of these keyboards or if you are interested in learning because you like the compact size, extreme customizability (it has a speaker), and looks, give it a go! If you’re experienced with these keyboards, you’ll definitely love it. However, I didn’t feel more comfortable typing on it. It’s really just a super compact and cool looking keyboard for me. Which, really, is alright. I have so many other keyboards anyway, what’s one just for novelty’s sake? After this test, I’ll likely mostly use it for travel, gaming, and display. I just can’t imagine using this as a primary board without replacing every single keyboard I’ll ever use with ortholinear. It’s just not worth it, to me, to go so hard against the grain, especially since I don’t find it very comfortable on the wrists over long periods of typing.

It is really cool though, and by the end of this review, I grew to love it.