75% keyboards

Why this layout took over

One hundred and fourteen boards from 11 brands, against 61 for the next-largest compact layout. That is not a fashion; it is the industry deciding that the function row is worth its width and almost nothing else is.

The price floor is $29 — the lowest of any layout we track, including full-size — with a $99 median and a $279 ceiling. That range is the real point. There is a competent 75% at nearly every budget, which is not true of 60%, where the floor is $69.

97% are hot-swap and 69% offer wireless. Both numbers are near the top of the table, because this is where manufacturers put their effort.

Two things that vary between 75% boards

The gap. Some 75% boards space the function row away from the number row the way a TKL does; others pack everything flush. Flush is a few millimetres narrower and slightly easier to mis-hit. Neither is wrong, but if you touch-type the F keys the gap is worth having.

The knob. A large share of 75% boards ship a rotary encoder in the top-right corner, usually mapped to volume. It is the most-used extra control on any keyboard and the one people miss when they move to a board without it. If a knob matters, filter for it before you narrow anything else down — it eliminates a lot of the 114 boards immediately.

What you actually give up against a TKL

Width, and the dedicated navigation cluster. A TKL keeps Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, End and Page Down as a separate six-key block with a gap around it. A 75% squeezes two or three of them into a column and puts the rest on a layer.

If you use those keys constantly — heavy spreadsheet work, code navigation without Vim bindings — the gap matters. For most people it does not, and the 6 cm of desk you get back does.