I know a lot of these options exist, but I have a few unbreakable requirements.
1) not building it myself. I need off the shelf. I am lousy with a soldering iron.
2) it must have a dedicated F row. I do not care about layers and supposedly saved movement distance. I must always be able to mash F5 without any chording. Give me an F row + layers. The keys need to physically be there, my desk has plenty of “vertical” space to hold it.
Dedicated FN row supported by 2 out of 5 links above, check Cyboard and MoErgo. Most places (all in these links) provide turnkey, no soldering required.
Agree your requirements get into rarefied territory if you want something ready-to-go, split, programmable, with FN row. But there are options.
Glove80 has a dedicated F row, is off he shelf, and also has layers if you -want- to use them. I haven't bothered with the layers yet, but my carpal tunnel definitely thanks me for switching to it.
I am not affiliated in anyway, just a happy customer who is no longer in pain after work. Dedicated F row was a must for me as well.
You don't need to solder modern day DIY keyboards (to my disappointment). There are now switch sockets. So everything is pre-soldered and all you do is maybe put in some screws, put in the switches and put on the keycaps.
1) not building it myself. I need off the shelf. I am lousy with a soldering iron.
2) it must have a dedicated F row. I do not care about layers and supposedly saved movement distance. I must always be able to mash F5 without any chording. Give me an F row + layers. The keys need to physically be there, my desk has plenty of “vertical” space to hold it.