How to Choose a Gaming Keyboard for Small Hands
Many gaming keyboards are designed for Westerners with large hands, but they can be difficult to use for those with smaller hands. In this article, we will introduce how to select a gaming keyboard for those with small hands.
Modified at: 2025.6.24Posted at: 2022.9.16
Gaming keyboards are often built rather large
Keyboards for hand use, like clothes and shoes, should be sized according to hand size, but currently there are no products that take hand size into consideration, and gaming keyboards, in particular, are often larger because the main users are men from overseas.
However, petite users have small hands and short fingers, so they have the disadvantage of having to move their hands more when typing.
Hand movement when typing not only tires the arms and shoulders, but can also cause tendonitis when typing in an unreasonable position.
Tips for choosing a gaming keyboard if you have small hands
Choose a keyboard with small keycaps and key pitch.
As a matter of course, the distance your fingers travel when typing is determined by the size of the keycaps. If each keycap is large, typing errors will decrease, but at the same time, the distance traveled by the fingers will increase.
In addition, a gaming keyboard with a short key pitch (the distance from the middle of the key switch to the middle of the key), which determines the key layout, is ideal for people with small hands because the distance between the keys is shorter.
Keycap size and key pitch are interrelated, and there are models with large keycaps but small key pitch, and models with small keycaps but not small key pitch.
In this area, it is best to actually try out several gaming keyboards with small key pitches to find a key pitch that fits your body.
Low-profile (low-profile) keyboards are also recommended.
There are two types of gaming keyboards: models with tall keycaps and models with short keycaps (low profile: low height).
If you have small hands, not only are your fingers shorter, but your palms are also smaller, so the distance from your wrist to the base of your fingers is also shorter.
If the distance from the wrist to the base of the fingers is short, a tall gaming keyboard will require the user to lift the arm against the keyboard, making typing difficult.
If this is the case, try a low-profile gaming keyboard. With a low-profile gaming keyboard, the distance to press down on the keys will be shorter, making typing easier.
Advantages and disadvantages of low-profile mechanical keyboards
In the past few years, companies have been expanding their lineups of "low-profile" mechanical keyboards. The following is a summary of their features, advantages and disadvantages.
Choosing a Compact Layout Keyboard is Also an Option
Keyboard layouts vary depending on the number of keys, such as:
- Full size
- Tenkeyless
- Compact (such as 60% of keys)
Summary of keyboard layout types and types
If you are particular about your keyboard, you will notice that there are many different keyboard layout types. In this article, we summarize the different types of keyboard layouts and the advantages and disadvantages of each type.
The only difference between full size and tenkeyless is the presence or absence of a numeric keypad, so it does not affect hand size, but in the case of compact size keyboards, there are also layouts that eliminate the number row.
In layouts with one less row than a standard keyboard, you will need to use the Fn key to input numbers, but since you do not have to move your fingers as far as one row, it may be easier to use for people with small hands.
It is important not to force yourself to use a gaming keyboard.
In the gaming keyboard genre, large mechanical keyboards are the main type of keyboard, but if you look at keyboards as a whole, there are plenty of keyboards with narrow key pitches.
Although the typing feel and input performance of a gaming keyboard are certainly hard to ignore, it is no fun to play games on a keyboard that is difficult to type on or causes physical pain.
