Vortex Race 3

Vortex Race 3 — A Mechanical Keyboard for My iPad Pro

January 28, 2019 · 10:13

My Vortex Race 3 arrived while we were away on our vacation, so naturally I spent most of last night playing around with it, instead of sleeping like any sane person would. I’ve already preprogrammed the first layer and it seems to suit my needs perfectly, connected to both the iPad and Mac.

I’m very excited to go back to a mechanical keyboard, especially since I’m frustrated with the one in my MacBook Pro.

Rainbow backlight turned on only for the purpose of taking the photo — I don’t actually use it.

Jason Snell About His Keyboard — The Vortex Race 3 →

December 28, 2018 · 12:00

Jason Snell, on Six Colours:

[…] I’ve tried a lot of keyboards over the last few years, but I realized that I haven’t yet described my current choice for writing when I’m at my desk. It’s the Vortex Race 3. (The switches are my preferred Cherry Brown style, but other keyswitches are also available.)

This is the rare mechanical keyboard that’s civilized to come with a set of alternate keycaps for Mac users (Command and Option rather than Win and Alt), as well as a few variant color keycaps for modifier keys and the arrow keys. (It’s also got a Mac keyboard mode, so all the keys work properly without any remapping required.) The keycaps feature very pleasant capital letters dead center, and come in shades of gray. I’ve swapped in a red Esc key, yellow arrow keys, and a blue Enter key.

The Race 3 is a “75% keyboard”, which means it doesn’t have a number pad, but it does have dedicated arrow keys and a function-key row. […] It’s got an anodized aluminum base that doesn’t wrap around the bottom of the keys, so they “float” above the board. It’s a nice effect and sure makes it easy to extract crumbs and other detritus from the keyboard from time to time.

This is the keyboard I would love to buy but I can’t get over the fact that it doesn’t have Bluetooth. I’d love to be able to carry it around to use with my iPad Pro without the hassle of having to connect it with a cable.