Me and my wood: testing the Keychron K4 Walnut Wood Palm Rest
5/4/2022
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
Having some walnut wood in front of your keyboard certainly looks nice. Time to test whether it’s also suitable as a palm rest.
I bought a Keychron K4 Walnut Palm Rest and tested it intensely at home for a few weeks. My most important discovery in advance: I didn’t make a mistake in buying it. On the contrary – right now I’m more than proud of my wood, which also comes in two other sizes.
Before we start, please check out this German classic to get in the right mood:
Why use a palm rest at all?
Depending on the size of your hands and the height of your keyboard, working without a palm rest can lead to an unnatural misalignment. That’s not only uncomfortable, there’s also a risk of tendonitis. This happens when a joint suffers from too much weight or incorrectly placed loads.
I struggled with this «occupational hazard» last year. Since then, I’ve always used a pad. Nevertheless, the inflammation accompanied me for three quarters of a year.
Why wood, and who is it suited to?
If you want an outdoorsy office, feel free to put a leaf in front of your mouth, get a plant, or grate some liquorice. However, if you want to combine beautiful with useful, a walnut palm rest might be just the thing for you.
As evidenced in its name, the «Keychron K4 Walnut Wood Palm Rest» is especially recommended to owners of the K4, which has been my absolute favourite keyboard for a few months now.
Keychron’s K4 palm rest, with a height of up to 1.5 and a width of 37.9 centimetres, is suitable for compact full-size keyboards – so-called 96 per cent or 1800 keyboards. There’s a silver Keychron logo and two flat rubber pads on the bottom to keep it from slipping.
How does a solid piece of wood feel?
The palm rest is hard, room temperature and ensures an ergonomically correct typing posture. Compared to a soft palm rest, the wood does make you sweat less. In turn, it feels less cosy.
Walnut wood is relatively scratch resistant – it’s harder than spruce or pine, but less hard than oak, beech or ash. Wearing a ring didn’t leave scratches so far, but still: if there’s something wooden, be careful.
Verdict: a noble piece of forest
There’s a lot of wood in front of my Swedish stove. It looks good, but still not as great as Keychron’s walnut wood. It looks classy and proves useful. Purely in terms of function, wood doesn’t really perform any better than plastic or other materials. Therefore, if you want a different material, you’ll find it with the competition at half or even quarter the price.
But since this one more than pleases me, getting it was worth it.
Martin Jud
Senior Editor
martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.chI find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.