Goodbye Planck EZ

General General Discussions
1

I opened my email today to find out some interesting news about plank keyboards and I just wanted to share my thoughts. If you couldn’t tell by the title ZSA announced they will be discounting their Planck EZ keyboard. I have started to dive into the 40’s community so this kind of made me laugh.

“This fun little keyboard never really sold too well, and was unable to commercially get off the ground despite years of effort and investment from ZSA (and despite it being dang cute, might I add).” - Erez Zukerman

Why does this not surprise me, a 47-key ortho-linear(niche crowd) that offers no additional layout choice and forces you to pay premium prices for major QC issues. If a product isn’t selling well, shouldn’t that tell you to reconsider or redesign it? Honestly, all they had to do was sell it as a fairly priced PCB and it would have seen some decent traction.

It’s kind of like they were just completely clueless about the community around them. A full Levinson is nearly half the price and offers split functionality with the same 47-key ortho layout.

So I guess in closing GOODBYE PLANK EZ!!! I can’t say I will miss you, but thank you for looking oh-so-tempting and drawing me into the 40% club

Full Announcement: Goodbye, Planck EZ | ZSA: The Blog

Feel free to share your thoughts. Also if you want a good 40% go pick one up from P3D there closing shop end of this month (07/23) and it’s way sadder…

4 Likes
2

Is this something different from the OLKB Planck that Drop offers? Doing a little digging, I get the impression that they are related (maybe historically), but different.

1 Like
3

I belive they are different but most of whats said here still applies besides it not having additional layouts

1 Like
4

They are different, but yet again not as much. I use OLKB Planck and Preonic, OLKB planck is way cheaper and you can get it at any time.

@xXiceXx

If you are trying to hop on the 40% train, start with OLKB Planck, you can check out Vortex Core (I have 2 of them) and you can check out KBDfans, they always have some interesting choices.

2 Likes
5

@SmallVille I have a few 40s coming mostly PCB and I’ll be 3d printing up some cases. I was trying the Gerkin 30% but she’s just a bit too small. Honestly, I’m not big on ortho layout, but I do like that OLKB has more spacebar options and knobs. I have these otw
-Training Wheel
-Spacey
-Karina
-CoffeeVan
-BeaterVan
All of them total were less than one plank ¯_(ツ)_/¯
But I do have to add switches, caps, cases

6

Oh, that’s great. Umm, 30% in my opinion is an exaggeration, 40% is a lower limit even for a die-hard compact keyboard enthusiast.

Orthos are definitely not for everyone, and the learning curve is a bit hard. But when I first tried it I knew that it was for me, and I have kept using it ever since. Nowadays I use Preonic more, but I carry my Planck with me to work.

Staggered boards like Vortex Core I use from time to time, a lot less than I used to :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

Agreed 30 was overkill its better as a macro pad. In my opinion, 65 is pretty much perfect, but I wanted to get good with some shortcuts and do some more DIY. Glad I’m not alone here for the 40% club :blush:

1 Like