I first saw this keyboard on Instagram and Pinterest. And it immediately piqued my interest as it has multiple knobs and a display! However, Work Louder is a very small company (three men) and its supposedly poor workmanship and slow customer service have been widely documented on the Internet and Reddit for months.
Furthermore, its rather expensive pricing of US$379 (without shipping) deferred my decision to buy it. That is, until I found someone selling it in Carousell (“Like New” status) for S$250. I bit the bullet and splashed the cash!
- Price: US$379, get it at Work Louder
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB-C
- Compatibility: Mac, iOS, Win, Linux, and Android
- Display: IPS TFT, 1.9 inches, 170 x 320 pixels
- Backlight: RGB
- Battery: 2,100 Li-battery
Out of the box, the Nomad [E] keyboard comes with a USB-C-to-USB-C braided cable as well as a small pack of four extra keycaps and a USB-A Bluetooth dongle.
The keyboard is available in four colour ways of atomic purple, chalk, graphite and atomic (basically transparent). The review unit is the atomic version, which I think looks really cool and geeky as you can see the ports and switches from the outside.
| PROS | CONS |
| Looks geeky good | Very expensive |
| Three knobs and a display! | Atypical keys layout |
| Switches have nice tactile response | Spotty Bluetooth connection |
| Low-profile keycaps smooth to the touch | Poor battery life |
While the top enclosure is obviously plastic, the bottom enclosure and switch plate are made of aluminium. So it should be quite sturdy in terms of build. There is a big rubber base at the bottom of the keyboard. At the top of it, you will find a magnetic rubberised ruler that doubles up as a stand – tilting the keyboard by only 4 degrees.
While I applaud the novel idea, it literally doesn’t move the needle in terms of comfort as the typing angle is almost as flat as a laptop. I highly recommend adding those laptop kickstands you can buy in Daiso to get a better and more optimal typing angle.
Like I mentioned previously, the Nomad [E] keyboard has a small control knob on the top right. But on the top left, it has two control knobs above the 1.9-inch display. Below the display are four buttons, that can be used to navigate the display’s menu interface.
There is a “fp” button that sits beside the left control key. Press this button and move the left control knob above the display to toggle through the different screens or widgets as it makers call it. These widgets range from Clock, Wallpaper, Pomodoro timer, Kebogotchi and Settings.
The Pomodoro timer is essentially a timer clock that lets you focus on your tasks and give you a beep when the time is up, while the Kebogotchi tracks your typing speed.
Each widget will have different functions that correspond to the buttons below the display. For instance, you might see “Cancel” or “OK” options appearing above the buttons and you can press it accordingly. Also, you can use the right control knob above the display to adjust the timer in the Pomodoro timer widget, or change settings.
Personally, I end up using the clock widget the most, as it has all the information, such as time, profile, Caps Lock and battery level, at a glance.
Apart from possibly being a 75% keyboard, the Nomad [E] has a rather unorthodox keys layout. By default, the “Esc” key is the first key on the numeric row, while the “~” key sits besides the “|” key. It just doesn’t quite make sense to me.
Luckily, you can remap every key, knob and button to your liking using the Word Louder input app (available on both Mac and Windows). The input app also lets you update the firmware and adds different profiles with different key maps.
The thing is I really want to like this keyboard. It features “Atomic” MX Gateron hotswap mechanical switches that offer really great tactile response. I also like the low-profile reverse dye-sub PBT indented keycaps that are smooth to the touch.
However, I have been using this keyboard for nearly a month and my typing still isn’t as accurate as any other keyboards I own. The major beef I have is the Caps Lock key. It is bigger than any usual Caps Lock key. And being sited beside the commonly-used “A” key, it means I often end up pressing the Caps Lock instead. It becomes a vicious cycle as I tried to press the Caps Lock key again and end up pressing the “A” key again. It is seriously frustrating.
Not to mention, I found the Bluetooth connectivity to be really iffy. It gets disconnected from my Mac for no good reason at times. And it also gets too long to be reconnected after the computer wakes up from sleep.
Finally, the battery life is pretty diabolical. With the keyboard’s backlit brightness at 70% and set at static white, this keyboard’s battery life plummeted to 50% in just two days. To be safe, I have put this keyboard to wired mode ever since.
VERDICT: Being a mechanical keyboard enthusiast, the Work Louder Nomad [E] is probably a model I want to include in my collection for the sake of experimentation. For creatives who might find the control knobs useful, it might worth a try. For the rest of the working class, with its abnormal key layout and hefty price tag, it might not be your cup of tea.