ZSA Voyager Keyboard and Navigator Trackball Review: For Tinkerers

Do you like to tinker with your keyboard layout? Do you love trackballs and think that one that attaches magnetically to your keyboard would be the coolest thing ever? Are you willing to completely blow up your setup in pursuit of a potentially huge – or possibly minor – gain in comfort or performance? Then I have a keyboard and trackball recommendation for you, with a few caveats.

In early September, I started fiddling with ZSA’s Voyager keyboard and new Navigator trackball attachment. The Voyager is a low-profile, wired, split mechanical keyboard with 52 hot-swappable keys in a column-inspired layout. When you buy it, you can choose one of four types of Kiel Choke V1 switches. The one I was sent has Pro Red linear switches, which feel a bit more symmetrical than the Cherry MX brown switches. If you want to add a little color to your days, the Voyager also has RGB lights.

Voyager comes out in 2023, but the exciting new item is the Navigator Trackball, which was announced in August. The trackball module snaps magnetically onto the right or left half of your Voyager, just above the thumb cluster. (You choose which side at checkout.) The ball, which comes in a color I can best describe as “trackball red,” feels really smooth to roll around. It’s nice to be right next to your typing fingers, because it means you barely have to move them from your keyboard.

ZSA says the Voyager was “designed with a laptop in mind,” and I can see why: The keyboard is small enough to toss in a bag if you want to bring your laptop somewhere but prefer to type on a more custom setup. (It even comes with a carrying case.) If you ever want to fiddle around a bit on either side, the keyboard comes with four small knobs that attach magnetically to the bottom. I mostly used the Voyager Flat and was fine with it, although I would have preferred if the included knobs could have tilted the keyboard at a steeper angle like other ergonomic keyboards I’ve used.

You can purchase a tripod mount that allows you to fully customize the tilt and pitch angle, or even mount parts of the Voyager to your desk or the arms of your chair. But you can also make or buy other magnetic tenting accessories and attach them to the bottom of the keyboard itself – you can even remove the magnets from the included knobs to use in your solution.

The real magic of Voyager and Navigator, like ZSA’s Moonlander keyboard that I reviewed in 2021, is how much you can customize them using ZSA’s Oryx Configurator software. The software lets you program any key to be any other key, or macro, or media playback button, or even a mouse click. The keys can have different functions when tapped, held, double tapped, or tapped and held. You can even set up different layers of keys that are activated by pressing another key. This kind of customization is pretty standard for enthusiast keyboards, but I found Orix’s software to be particularly easy to use. Once you’ve decided on a layout, you can flash it to the keyboard using ZSA’s Keymapp app.

I should say here that Voyager and Navigator are not cheap. The Voyager is $365, while the Navigator is $169, so the total cost is $534. If you want a tripod mount, that’s an extra $89 — and the tripod itself isn’t included. These are accessories for people who have very specific typing needs or who really want to customize their tools.

Generally, I fit both of these criteria. My typical current setup is a split ergonomic keyboard, a 95-key Kinesis Freestyle Pro, and a vertical ergonomic mouse, the Contour InMouse. I taught Kolmak after spending my whole life on Qorti. At one point I alternated between a regular mouse and a full-sized trackball. For a while I used Rollermouse as my daily driver. And I went really deep with Moonlander, even creating a layer dedicated to shortcuts for watching YouTube videos. I’m no stranger to the fun and pain of changing my computing input devices, or going to great lengths for a more ergonomic setup.

But with the 52-key Voyager, I just find myself finding a few keys in an order that feels right to me. What I missed most was a reliable set of arrow keys. I could use some kind of layer or fancy shortcuts, but they’re so fragile for my day-to-day work of fiddling with text and cursors that I don’t want to travel to them myself. And the trackball module doesn’t come with mouse keys. I put the left and right mouse click buttons on the left side of the keyboard under my thumb. But it took away two keys on the default layer that I could have used for something else.

Unlike my Kinesis, which is basically a standard staggered keyboard cut in half, the Voyager is a column keyboard, which means the keys for each finger are in a straight line above and below each other, and my fingers sometimes got tangled when I used it. The Moonlander is also a column keyboard, and even that took a few weeks to get comfortable with.

I’m going to be honest: I grew frustrated with Voyager after a week and didn’t use it during busy parts of events like the iPhone 17 launch or the MetaConnect trip. In my job, I have to be a very fast writer and communicator, and as much fun as using Navigator and I was a lot slower with them than my usual setup. While I would love to spend the hours after work or on the weekend perfecting my setup, as a father with a very busy toddler, I simply don’t have the time or energy to do so.

It might just be my thing. I think before I had my baby, I could drive Voyager and Navigator everywhere at work. I eventually did it with the Moonlander, which has a similar column configuration, and I only got away with it because I realized the Kinesis fit my hands better long-term. And to my surprise when writing this draft, I got really easily stuck in Voyager and Navigator. I still have a problem with my setup, but I thought it would be very difficult to come back from a cold after a long break.

For the right person, I think the Voyager and Navigator could be a great desk upgrade to tinker with and customize. I’m not that person yet. But I want to be again – it’s a lot of fun to have a trackball directly from my keyboard.