Last Updated on September 23, 2016
I just got a one handed gaming keyboard to test out if it’d be beneficial at all to use. In my experience I’ve found some pros and cons that I’d like to share!
At first I wasn’t really seeing the point behind getting a one handed keyboard, especially since I already had a full keyboard.
But after tinkering around with it I have found some good uses for it but I’m not sure if it’s entirely worth getting… it’d be up to the individual and what they are wanting to get out of a one handed keyboard.
Too Annoying or Only Situational?
The above one handed keyboard in the picture is not the one that I have, mine does not have a joystick deal on the side and it has more keys to push.
The first game I tried out with it was The Forest. It’s a survival game with lots of base building and what not so there are a lot of keys that you need to have mapped and to be clicking in order to do everything that you have to do.
I was able to move around and do the basic stuff but I found myself going into the key mappings about every minute to set something else so that I was able to do certain things.
To be honest I ended up giving up. There were too many keys for me to map and since I was playing multiplayer I didn’t want to waste more time mapping keys to different things.
After that experience I basically moved back to using a full keyboard because it’s what I am used to and again, I didn’t want my buddy to wait for me to do what I had to do. But I didn’t stop using it there fully.
A cool use that I found for it is actually in VR. I don’t like bringing my mouse and keyboard to the living room when I am hooking up virtual reality so I usually use my Steam Controller as a mouse/keyboard to navigate.
While playing Space Pirate Trainer there was a mode that got activated that could only be deactivated by pushing ESC.
Since the Steam Controller doesn’t have an ESC button I had to use some kind of a keyboard and my small one handed keyboard was perfect for doing just that.
But it doesn’t make sense to drop $40+ on a one handed keyboard just to push one button and for it to be entirely situational, right?
So today I gave it another go with Far Cry Primal (another game I picked up on the Humble Store End of Summer Sale.)
After a solid 40 minutes worth of playing with the keyboard I had found that I will thoroughly enjoy playing with a full keyboard instead of a one handed for a game like Far Cry Primal. I’ve finally decided what I think a one handed keyboard is good for.
Worth Getting At All..?
This is opinion based and there are people out there that would find a one handed keyboard way more useful for what they’re doing but I have to be honest and say that it is not worth it to get a one handed keyboard.
Where I see value in a good one handed keyboard is with people who are gaming on a laptop or if they are heavily into eSports and need a portable keyboard to carry around at different tournaments.
Maybe the keyboard that I have simply doesn’t have enough buttons and that’s why my experience was poor but the different ones that I’ve seen online don’t seem to have that many more buttons…
If you’d like to see the keyboard that I have then I’ll link it right below.
– aLLreLi T9 Plus Mechanical Gaming Keypad
It has some pretty awesome lighting effects, the material is solid and it’s comfortable to use but I just don’t see where the value is for me. As someone who games with a desktop and doesn’t need to travel with a portable keyboard – it’s just not for me.
So, do you see value in using a one handed gaming keypad for yourself?
Or would you also rather stick to the familiarity of a full keyboard?
Let me know in the comments below! 😀
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One use that immediately springs to mind is for gamers who only have one functional hand. A one-handed keyboard could be an effective accessibility feature.
For sure! There is definitely a better reach in general for those that are physically only able to use one hand.
I love it.
I have Razer Orbweaver, which has a little more buttons, then the one showed. I get fast problems in my wrist on regular keyboard, but never with a one handed keyboard.
I like that i can use it on my couch and don’t have to be on my desk all the time. I also like the way the buttons feel, i hate “slippery” keyboards and struggle to find a good mechanical keyboard with this feel to it.
But its hard with use on some games with to many keys. But i play mostly Overwatch, diablo, and games you could get on console. (tomb raider, uncharted, games with not to many buttons.) Note that you can switch profiles on the keys, so its not a struggle to switch between games.
Would not get this if you play mostly games like Wow.
True, when there are a ton of hotkeys involved then it’s almost impossible to fully utilize a one handed keyboard but it still has its merits like you said, able to switch profiles on the fly and what not. Super comfortable for sure, just not able to be used for every game out there.
I always wondered how this would work for a MOBA such as League of Legends, since you only use around 8 keys in a mouse. Do you think the one handed gaming keyboard would benefit this type of gaming?
Possibly, it really does come down to how many keys one needs to use in a game. As far as it being beneficial over a regular keyboard, I don’t personally think so. Maybe some people like having the space bar being placed on the side like the above one I linked but at the same time it doesn’t really feel a whole lot different.
Now for someone that is portable a lot or doesn’t like the laptop keyboard for gaming then I could totally see the value in using it!!
No, I don’t think a one handed keyboard sounds useful, maybe for some things, but it doesn’t sound very useful over a full keyboard.
However, I’d like to make a not I noticed from a response from a seller of the keyboard above to someone – You can use your regular keyboard with it, unless I’m misunderstanding what that response meant. Extra buttons for an extra, that sounds like to me.
Doesn’t mean I think it’d be worth it to me for the price, though. The keyboard tends to have enough buttons, and since I’ve grown up with one all my life, it is far to familiar to not use one.
Yup, I’m in the same boat. The extra keys sounds kinda cool but I’d have to move my hand from movement keys just to hit them, makes more sense for someone to get a mouse that has multiple extra buttons on it to map to different actions that way you’re not taken away from the game itself.
I definitely see the value for a portable gamer and some competitive FPS games don’t have nearly as many keys to map so I can totally see it as a competitive gamer’s portable solution.