Here are my thoughts as a huge fan of the Katana. I finally got around to using my Katana-60 regularly - it's been my daily driver for about three months now. There are a couple things about the V2 that I really like when compared to the V1:



* Center buttons on bottom two rows: As much as I liked the concept of the center buttons on the bottom two rows, in practical terms I never use them. They're in kind of an awkward spot and it's surprisingly hard to find them when not looking at the keyboard. V2 addresses this.

* Non-symeyrical bottom row: it bugs me how beautifully symmetrical everything was in V1.... Except for that bottom row. V2 addresses that.

* Number row: while I love the the look of the original, the numbers are in such an odd place on the left side that I totally had to retrain myself on where they are. On top of that, I wanted them placed asymmetrically on both halves, so now it's weird on both sides. I still struggle with finding the right numbers from time to time and have to look down (which I trained myself not to do on all my keyboards).



At the moment, there's really only one thing I don't like:



* Top row: it totally rakes away from the symmetrical staggered look! Maybe it will look great put together, but it's one of the things I love about the Katana and this detracts from that big time.



As far as functionality, V2 takes the cake. It's addressed several issues I've come across and has some cool additions (namely the center buttons on the bottom two rows). Normally I'm all about functionality, but I'm a sucker for symmetry and V2 seems to detract from that so I'm kind of torn... I love the changes, and I hate the changes. Considering how much I'm using this keyboard though, I'll probably end up getting a V2 though.





Quick side note: if you're considering getting one of these and haven't used one before, be warned! It's awesome, but it will **** you up when you have to go back to a standard layout!!!