HHKB Type-S: Long-Term Impressions and a Buying Guide

A quick note: buying an HHKB had always been a life goal of mine, but I never thought I’d pull the trigger this soon. The layout really does take relearning, and then there’s the price — 24,840 yen for a single keyboard. At the exchange rate back then (roughly 0.3), that’s nearly NT$7,500 for one keyboard.

But a coworker complained that my red-switch typing was too loud, and in a fit of pique I went and researched how to order the HHKB Type-S and the HHKB BT. Then, during the National Day long weekend last year (2016), I took a trip to Japan and brought them home along the way. So sometimes plans can’t keep up with change — and change can’t keep up with one snarky remark from a coworker.

(The HHKB Type-S, overall)

(The HHKB mark)

(The Type-S mark)

Let me start with how I actually got hold of one. I did quite a bit of homework on the HHKB beforehand — I’d even hit a wall on an earlier trip to Japan when I tried to grab the latest model along the way — so I figured I’d share what I learned.

There are a few main ways to buy an HHKB:

1. Use a personal shopper and just pay up. Not much to explain here — find a shopper whose price feels fair and reasonable, and buy through them. One thing to make clear, though: the two newer models, the HHKB Type-S and the HHKB BT, aren’t something every store stocks, so make sure your shopper knows to keep an eye out.

2. Order from Amazon overseas and use a package-forwarding service. This is basically the same as any regular Amazon.jp purchase — it ships to a consolidation point, and you wait for delivery.

3. Go to Japan and buy it yourself. You may have to hit up a fair number of stores. As far as I know, Bic Camera carries the standard HHKB, but check stock online first. Other shops are hit-or-miss, and if your itinerary is tight, I wouldn’t recommend this route.

4. Buy through the official Amazon.jp store and pick it up at a convenience store. Before your trip, order from the official Amazon.jp storefront, then collect it at a convenience store once you’re in Japan.

Personally, I went with option four. I bought the HHKB Type-S (blank keys), the HHKB BT (blank keys), an HHKB carrying case, a set of special blank keycaps, and more — all in one go. Don’t ask about the price; all I’ll say is that I lived on instant noodles for a good while after getting home.

Why not just use forwarding or a personal shopper? Mainly because both tack on an extra layer of fees. I was going to Japan anyway, so of course I’d just carry it back — and for something this expensive, I was also worried about damage in transit.

Alright, on to my long-term impressions of the HHKB Type-S.

In one sentence: Bliss! Fantastic! Go buy one! That’s it, thanks everyone. (kidding)

Okay, okay — I’ll stop messing around.

My impressions of the HHKB Type-S come down to a few angles.

The first is the distinctive key layout, which takes more time to adjust to and unlearn old habits for — things like the different Ctrl position and all the key combos you now rely on. There’s a learning curve, but once you’re through it, the original Ctrl placement starts to feel genuinely awful — the kind that gives your left pinky cramps. As for the combos, personally I think they’re fine; most of them just become reflexive muscle memory anyway, so you just tweak your habits and move on. Of course, I touch-type, so if you’re a hunt-and-peck expert this might feel very different for you. The one thing I do find inconvenient is that the arrow keys and Home/End are also combos, which makes browsing PTT a pain.

The second is the Type-S’s quietness. Honestly it feels similar to fitting your switches with silencing O-rings, so bottoming out still feels a little different from usual — but after typing on it for a while, I think it’s something you get used to.

Third: you can’t swap in regular MX cross-stem keycaps (the HHKB’s Topre switches use a different mount). I’d actually count this as a plus. Sure, swapping keycaps is a lot of fun, and there are tons of gorgeous caps out there — but it also costs a lot of money and mental energy. With an HHKB, you can’t play those games; you can only focus on the typing itself.

The HHKB also has all the other perks you’d expect from a 60% keyboard, so I won’t go on about those.

The last thing I want to say is this: I think the world can be divided into two kinds of people — those who have never typed on an HHKB, and those who use one. Someone who’s never typed on an HHKB may have used a 60% board, but not one with the HHKB layout — and so they’ll never understand why an HHKB is an HHKB. Someone who has used an HHKB, on the other hand, may not be using one right now, but they’ll always know that a keyboard can be understood differently, that a key layout can be more ergonomic. They’ll have a clearer sense of what they actually want, instead of being drowned out by the mainstream standard.

I hope this article helps, and I welcome any HHKB questions — happy to discuss.