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We type a lot here at PCMag, so we’re always on the lookout for the latest ergonomic keyboard technology to ease our aching wrists. Kensington’s Pro Fit Ergo KB675 EQ TKL is an affordable ($69.99) wireless keyboard with a built-in wrist rest and a wave pattern that forces your hands into a more comfortable position. It’s a pretty good solution, but some quirks keep it from supplanting our current Editors’ Choice award winner for budget ergonomic keyboards, the Logitech Wave Keys.Design: A Comfy But Large WaveThe Pro Fit Ergo is a tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard, meaning it jettisons the numeric keypad found at the right of full-size keyboards and beloved of spreadsheet jockeys. A TKL usually saves desk space, a benefit many PC gamers appreciate for flailing their mice to and fro. The Kensington doesn’t deliver on that score, however, as it measures 1.4 by 14.8 by 8.7 inches (HWD), giving it a much larger footprint than something like the NZXT Function 2 Mini TKL (1.5 by 13 by 4.8 inches). Of course, the split key layout necessitates the extra width to an extent.
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(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Considering its low price, you won’t be surprised to learn the KB675 EQ TKL is a rubber-membrane keyboard with thinner keys than those of a mechanical keyboard. It’s fairly light at 1.32 pounds, although its size and shape aren’t conducive to carrying in a briefcase or backpack.A fair bit of the Pro Fit Ergo’s size is in its wrist rest, which spans the entirety of the keyboard’s width and adds about 3.6 inches to its depth. While it loses some points for bulk, we can’t subtract any for its comfort; after an afternoon of typing, settling our wrists on the padded surface made for a sweet respite before getting back to work. It would have been nicer if it was removable, but that wasn’t a huge bother.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The wrist rest isn’t the only feature that makes this an ergonomic keyboard, as the keys themselves are placed for more comfortable typing. The two halves are split by a midsection adorned with three LEDs: one a Bluetooth connection indicator, one for Caps Lock, and one to show the battery levels (green for full, red for nearly empty, blinking green for charging).As on the Logitech Ergo K860, the divided design forces you to hold your hands a bit further apart than on a standard keyboard, helping reduce wrist and arm strain. Also, like other split keyboards, the keys are slightly different sizes (specifically the G, T, Y, 7, H, and N keys) to make them easier to reach for your fingertips.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Although the Pro Fit Ergo lacks a numeric keypad, it does provide some much-appreciated extra keys. Some of the more useful ones include a set of videoconferencing keys for applications like Zoom or Google Meet, hang-up and microphone mute buttons, a screen-share button for presentations, and a key to disable your webcam. There’s also a dedicated screen-capture key and a key to launch Windows Calculator.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
We connected the Kensington to our PC using the supplied USB dongle for the 2.4GHz wireless connection. There’s a small cutout to store the dongle on the bottom of the keyboard below the on/off switch. The Pro Fit Ergo also has Bluetooth connectivity, activated by default by turning on the keyboard. Angled feet on the bottom edge provide an optional typing tilt.Since this is a wireless keyboard, we knew we’d probably be charging an internal battery via the bundled USB-C cable. Kensington rates the KB675 for about two and a half months between charges, which seems underwhelming—Logitech rates the Wave Keys for 36 months. Unfortunately, the keyboard has no wired mode to work through the USB cable alone, even when we tried our own cable, which we knew could transfer both data and power.Verdict: An Effective, But Merely Average, Ergo EffortThere’s nothing inherently wrong with the Kensington Pro Fit Ergo KB675 EQ TKL Rechargeable Keyboard, apart from its mouthful of a name. We always appreciate a padded wrist rest, and the split design helped limit our arm strain. And we got some good use out of the meeting buttons during video calls, even if they didn’t save time over the keyboard shortcuts we’d already memorized. But the keyboard’s build quality felt somewhat cheap, and it takes a lot of desk space for a TKL keyboard. Ultimately, the Kensington is worth considering, but it falls short of our current pick, the $59.99 Logitech Wave Keys.
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