The Advantage360 is an incredibly powerful keyboard and will be superior to the Advantage2 in just about everyway. But if you don’t care about adjustable separation or tenting, or you are in pain now, it probably doesn’t make sense to wait. Pre-order keyboards are sold subject to Drop’s standard terms and conditions so if you are not sure about the 360, you are probably better off waiting until 2022 and order direct from Kinesis so you can take advantage of our 60 Day Guarantee.

We are in the late stages of tooling the plastic and metal parts for the Advantage360 and the electronics for both the SmartSet and ZMK models are nearly complete. Due to current crises with the global supply chain and freight shipping there may be unforeseeable delays, but we are optimistic we can hit out target.

The Pro model has a number of advantages over the base 360 model, namely optional Bluetooth, wireless linking, and backlighting.  If any of those features are important to you than the Pro is a no brainer. Over the years our users have clamoured for an open-source option for their Advantage so for those folks the Pro will be a welcome sight. But we call it the “Professional” version for a reason, open-source has powerful tools but its not as user-friendly as SmartSet. If you prefer to use onboard programming, which is a hallmark of Kinesis’s SmartSet Engine, you’ll want to stick with the base model.

Dye-Sublimation PBT: These are premium keycaps that are resistant to sheen and and fade. If you don’t plan to use the backlighting then this is the set you want. You have a choice of Dvorak or QWERTY legends. Shine-Through ABS: If you want to work in a low-light environment you’ll need to select these if you want to be able to read the key legends. This set is only available with QWERTY legends at this time.

If you are using the keyboard with the backlighting on (a major power drain) the batteries should last for a full work day. If you have the backlighting turned off, you should be able to go several months between charges. The Pro has a 30 second timer so if you step away for your keyboard for a moment it will go to sleep to preserve battery life but wake up quickly when you return. And there is a handy on/off switch if you are travelling with your keyboard or want to ensure that it goes into deep sleep for maximum power conservation.

We designed the Advantage 360 specifically to be used as a fully separable keyboard for maximum ergonomic benefits. However, we know there are many long-time contoured keyboards users who want the new features but aren’t ready to make the jump to a split keyboard. We engineered the bridge to quickly snap into place to recreate the classic separation found on earlier one piece models.

We have done a number of “drops” over years and always had a good experience working with them. In this instance its easier for us to use their global storefront and distribution hub to manage the fulfillment of the intial batch of  Advantage360 keyboards. Once the keyboards are in full production the 360 will be available from the Kinesis Store, Amazon, and our usual network of resellers across the globe.

Source: Kinesis-ergo.com

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