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I'm still banging away on my original one from the mid 90's (PS/2 adaptor and all!) and it's still going strong. The ESC has all but worn off the rubber F key strip but other than that it's in fine shape.

I understand the new fangled 2 comes with real switches for the F key strip?

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Yes, that's right. I switched from an advantage to an advantage2 (which has the non-rubber keys) a few years ago as my new gig purchased the advantage2 for me. Honestly, I didn't even notice a difference. The new f keys are slightly larger (but not full size) and plastic, but I would personally say that I wouldn't drop $350 for the plastic ones. I used the advantage for 15 years, so I was well used to the rubber ones. A few months after the switch, I realized they weren't rubber - that's how insignificant the change was for me.

I still own a working Kinesis that is 20 years old (I think it's USB-1!) but I changed jobs two years ago and they paid for an Advantage 2. The biggest, biggest advantage is that it fixes the crazy firmware bugs in the old keyboard that resulted in stuck keys. The new F keys are nice, but for the most part it feels just about the same.

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