The people at Durgod have very kindly sent me one of their brand new Fusion keyboards to try out.
These 68 key, retro-styled keyboards come in three colourways: Navigator (blue, white, and yellow), Original (grey, white, and orange) and Steam (grey, black, and red). The Steam (which I got) is inspired by the original 1985 NES, but it also reminds me very much of the BBC Micro, which many of us in the UK remember from our 80s and 90s schooldays.
The idea behind the Fusion keyboards is to give users something which is small, light, and portable enough to carry around for use with a laptop, tablet, or phone, but which gives you the same feel as a desktop keyboard. As I’m currently switching between working at my desk, at the dining table, on the coffee table in the living room, and on my phone every day — trying to write when and wherever I can, while also attempting to keep three stuck-at-home kids occupied — this seems like the Fusion is pretty much aimed directly at me.
You can connect via Bluetooth, WiFi, or via USB, which is really easy to do and to switch between. I’ve written this post in Grammarly (which I’ve been using a lot these past few months because it’s great for when you’re swapping between devices multiples times a day), switching between a wired connection to my desktop PC and a Bluetooth one to my laptop, with no problems at all. 
Having typed on a Tenkeyless (basically, a standard full-size keyboard minus the number pad) for a good while now, I expected it to take a bit of time for me to get used to a more compact, 65% keyboard, but actually, there’s been no problem with that at all.
The Cherry MX Silent Red keyswitches I picked mean that the Fusion is quiet to work on. Considering that the very loud MX Blues on my previous keyboard were driving my wife, writing partner, and office-mate (who are all the same person, obviously) mad, this is definitely a bonus. There’s still a nice, chunky “bump” type feeling to the keys though, which is something I really like. The flat, lifeless keys on my laptop keyboard, and on the other portable keyboard I own, are one of the main reasons I always want to come back to my desk to type whenever I can, so I’m hoping that the Fusion might change that.
A couple of minor complaints: Out of the box, my ” key and my @ are the opposite way round to what’s shown on the keys. This is really no big deal in the grand scheme of things, and I got used to it very quickly. However, a slightly bigger problem is that hitting my hash-key produces a £ instead. I can fully understand why this has been done in terms of providing the correct currency signifier for UK users but, when it comes to hashtagging on social media, it’s a bit of a pain.
Overall I’m very impressed with the Durgod Fusion. The keyboard is already travelling from room to room with me, and will definitely be going in my backpack for a proper field test next time I leave the house. The battery life is supposed to be 40 hours, so my phone’s going to run out of charge well before keyboard does.
The Durgod Fusion Kickstarter is live now at kickstarter.com and the Durgod website is fusion.durgod.com