ZSA Voyager keyboard and Navigator trackball review: For tinkerers

Do you like tinkering with keyboard layout? Do you love trackballs and think one that magnetically attaches to your keyboard would be the coolest thing ever? Are you willing to blow your entire setup in pursuit of huge — or perhaps marginal — gains in comfort or efficiency? Then I have a keyboard and trackball recommendation for you, with a few caveats.

In early September, I started working with ZSA Voyager keyboard And new Navigator trackball accessory. Voyager is a low-profile, split, wired mechanical keyboard with 52 hot-swappable keys in a staggered vertical layout. When you purchase it, you can choose from four types of Kailh Choc v1 switches. The one shipped to me has Pro Red linear switches, which feel a little mushy compared to the Cherry MX Brown switches I’m used to. The Voyager has RGB lights, too, if you want to add a little color to your days.

The traveler left In 2023But the interesting new thing is the Navigator trackball, which was announced in August. The trackball unit attaches magnetically to the right or left half of the Voyager, just above the thumb assembly. (You can choose the side at checkout.) The ball, which comes in a color that I can best describe as “trackball red,” feels really smooth to roll. It’s a good thing to have this device next to your typing fingers, because it means you barely need to move them from the keyboard.

ZSA says the Voyager is “designed with a laptop in mind,” and I can see why: The keyboard is small enough to throw in a bag if you want to bring your laptop somewhere but prefer typing on a more personalized setup. (It even comes with a carrying case.) If you want to shade the sides a little, the keyboard comes with four little protrusions magnetically attached to the bottom. I’ve mostly used the flat Voyager and been fine with it, though I would have preferred if the included ridges had been able to hold the keyboard at a steeper angle like other ergonomic keyboards I’ve used.

You can purchase a tripod that allows you to fully customize the tilt and tilt angle, or even mount both halves of the Voyager to your desk or the arms of your chair. But you can also make or buy other magnetic camping accessories and attach them to the bottom of the keyboard yourself — and you can even remove the magnets from the included protrusions to use in your own solution.

The real magic of Voyager and Navigator, as is ZSA’s Moonlander keyboard Which I reviewed in 2021is how much you can customize it using ZSA’s Oryx configurator software. The software allows you to program any key to be any other key, macro, media playback button, or even a mouse click. Keys can have different functions when they are clicked, held down, double-clicked, or pressed and held. You can also set different layers of keys that are activated by pressing another key. This kind of customization is pretty standard for enthusiast keyboards, but I found the Oryx software particularly easy to use. Once you’ve decided on a layout, you can transfer it to your keyboard using ZSA’s Keymapp app.

I must say here that Voyager and Navigator are not cheap. the Voyager is $365while The navigator is $169so the total cost is $534. If you like Tripod mountthis costs an additional $89 – and the tripod itself is not included. These are extensions for people who have very specific writing needs or who want to really delve into customizing their tools.

Usually, I fit these two criteria. My typical current setup is a split, 95-key ergonomic keyboard Kinesis Freestyle ProErgonomic vertical mouse Contour Onemouse. I taught myself Colmac Having spent my whole life on QWERTY. At some point, I alternated between a regular mouse and a full-sized trackball. For a while I used it Roller mouse As my daily driver. I delved into Moonlander so much, I even created a layer dedicated to shortcuts for watching YouTube videos. I’m no stranger to the joy and agony of swapping out my computer input devices, or going to great lengths to get a more comfortable setup.

But with the 52-key Voyager, I still find myself a few keys short of a layout that works for me. The thing I missed most was a reliable set of arrow keys. I could use a fancy layer or shortcut of some sort, but it’s so important to my day-to-day work of manipulating text and cursors that I don’t want to trip myself to get to it. The trackball unit does not come with mouse keys. I place the left and right mouse buttons under my thumb on the left side of the keyboard. But this removed two keys from the default layer that I could use for something else.

Unlike my Kinesis, which is basically a standard telescoping keyboard cut in half, the Voyager is a vertical keyboard, meaning each finger’s keys are in a straight line above and below each other, and my fingers sometimes intertwined when I used it. The Moonlander is also a vertical keyboard, and it took a few weeks to get comfortable with it as well.

I’ll be honest: I was frustrated with Voyager after a week and didn’t use it at all during a busy period of events like the iPhone 17 launch or my Meta Connect trip. In my job, I have to be a very quick writer and communicator, and as much as Voyager and Navigator were fun to use, I was much slower with them than with my usual setup. Although I love spending hours after work or on the weekend perfecting my setup, as a parent of a very busy toddler, I don’t have the time or energy to make it happen.

This might just be my thing. I think before my baby was born, I could have done everything I could to make Voyager and Navigator work. I did do so with the Moonlander, after all, which has a similar vertical design, and I only moved away from that because I realized the Kinesis fit my hand better in the long run. Much to my surprise while writing this draft, I returned to using Voyager and Navigator with ease. I still had problems with my planning, but I thought coming back after a long break would be more difficult.

For the right person, I think Voyager and Navigator can be a great desktop upgrade to tweak and customize. I’m not that person now. But I want to go back – having the trackball connected directly to my keyboard is a lot of fun.