Logitech announces an ergonomic keyboard with no learning curve

We don't mind a little weirdness in the pursuit of better ergonomics, but we really dislike funky mice and keyboards that require you to relearn how to type and/or mouse. That's why we're particularly excited about Logitech's Cordless Desktop Wave desktop set, which the company announced this morning.

For $89 when it hits stores this August, the Cordless Desktop Wave will give you two major ergonomic features. The first is that, as the name suggests, the keys are arranged along a wave-like pattern that ripples across the keyboard. This design is supposed to account for the fact that your fingers are not all the same length, thus the keys the keys near your little fingers and your thumbs rise up to meet your shorter digits. The other feature is the gradual arc of the key tray. The arc is not as pronounced as Microsoft's classic Ergonomic Natural Keyboard, but Logitech's design also doesn't distort the basic size and shape of any of the main letter keys.

We're especially happy about that last part. We typed this very blog post with this new keyboard, and we've been surprised at how the new layout didn't slow us down. With other ergonomic keyboards, any design tweaks usually result in certain keys that are bigger than others, which means we have to retrain our fingers if we want to maintain our standard rapid typing pace (77 wpm, but we don't like to brag). That hasn't been the case with the new Logitech board, at least after about 200 words or so. We'll have a full review of this thing, soon, but so far so good.