Comment by mananaysiempre
4 days ago
> "It's very difficult to make a seven-row keyboard anymore because of the aspect ratio of the display and the whole arrangement of the pieces on the inside," he said. "It's a decision that was not made lightly, however. I still like the seven-row keyboard and, as aspect ratios change, and they continue to change, I don't know. Maybe someday somebody will be interested in it again."
The sad part is, the Framework 13 has a 3:2 display (with a stupidly large bottom bezel, too, for good reasons), but still uses a bog-standard modern laptop keyboard, including (unlike the ThinkPad) the miserable half-height arrow keys. They did bother to make a Copilot key, though. Just not a better keyboard.
The Framework keyboard is precisely why I haven’t bought one. The mixed height arrow key thing sucked on the touchbar MacBook Pros, they suck on FWs too. The second the 13 gets a normal inverted T, I buy one.
In the meantime, I’m waiting on a display converter board to show up from China so I can install a modernish 1440p display in my T420.
The “normal” inverted T is just another variation of the same suckage as far as I’m concerned (slightly worse, if anything, because I tend to wear away the paint—and eventually plastic—on a tiny left-arrow key faster than on a normal one). Look at the photos in TFA[1] for how good arrow keys are arranged.
[1] e.g. https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/07/30/hill7.jpg (the presence of a Break key almost makes me cry)
> https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/07/30/hill7.jpg
Doesn't this photo show an inverted T?
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What should I be doing with my x220? Where are the good thinkpad resources these days.
We have 1.5mm key travel, the keyboard is replaceable, and the vast majority of our keyboard artwork options don’t have a Copilot logo.
Please just give us an option to buy a 7 row Thinkpad keyboard with Trackpoint.
There are talented keyboard makers like Tex that already pulled this off, making better hardware than Lenovo itself, and you could instantaneously win most Thinkpad users over, likely permanently.
All true. My previous laptop was a 2014 MBP, and the two basically feel the same. I’d say the MBP’s layout is marginally worse because of the stupid power key and the half-size left and right arrows, and of course the MBP’s construction makes your life hell if you spill liquid on the keyboard and need to replace it. (Framework’s prohibition on freight forwarding makes my life difficult in the same situation, but that’s a me problem—I should have taken the hint that I wasn’t wanted when I was jumping through hoops to buy it in the first place.)
It’s not a bad keyboard. As far as laptops of the last decade go, it’s even a good one. But the up/down arrows sucked on the MBP and they (though not left/right) suck on the FW13, I expect(?) because a rectangular keyboard ends up cheaper than one with protruding arrows.
Furthermore, my (grandparent) comment was about how vertical shrinkage made the keyboard smaller but the FW13’s taller screen didn’t restore the missing keys, and if half-size up/down arrows just suck to use, Home/End/PgUp/PgDn hidden behind Fn suck to a Pavlovian extent: I didn’t realize how much the MBP trained me out of using them before I had to use an older ThinkPad for a bit that had them on separate keys. I won’t even mention Ctrl-Break except to look in its direction wistfully.
Finally, the Copilot key is of course a distraction. I don’t know what it actually sends on those keyboards, but if I can map that to Compose I couldn’t care less about what’s drawn on it. It’s just sad that, after everything, that distraction is what ended up being the first substantial change to the FW13’s keyboard.
But you don't have good cooling, good battery life, good standby, good speakers, or open firmware and don't appear to be interested in fixing any of these issues.
Please offer a good TrackPoint keyboard. Please.
> aspect ratio of the display
Meanwhile, Apple sold 500+ million HiDPI 4:3 displays on iPads. Do they have a supply chain lock on 4:3 screens?
Possibly. It’s hugely expensive to order a completely custom screen, and I know Framework waited for a long time for a better 3:2 display to come onto the market after the initial one—the current better panel is actually a compromise that loses some pixels to rounded corners, which is fine but IMO not “pay $270+tax+shipping for the upgrade” fine. Looking at the specs of the screens, I’m almost sure that both the original 2256×1504 one and the rounded-corners 2880×1920 one are actually identical to the ones in the Microsoft Surface (changed to a matte finish), so it’s Microsoft footing the custom-screen bill in this case. (I’ve heard we’re not getting small phones for a similar reason: you would need to sell a lot of phones to justify a new screen, and all the small-phone people will still begrudgingly buy a large one if there are no small ones.)
The big selling point of the higher tier FW13 screen option is that it’s conducive to 2x/200% UI scaling, which is surprisingly rare in x86 laptops and is desirable under Linux. Fractional scaling displays technically work but have some notable quirks, where 2x scaling has worked flawlessly for a long time.
I’m pretty sure it’s just that 16:9 are so ubiquitous they’re by far the cheapest option.
Hell, Apple shipping millions of 4:3 should keep them reasonable affordable. Same with 16:10 back when those were still a thing (because of the notch Apple now uses 9:5.85 displays to retain a rectangular 16:10 fullscreen).
Turn the ThinkPad X12 into a modernized and more maintainable HP ZBook x2 G4, complete with EMR stylus. Keep the size or make it even smaller. Offer a bunch of first-rate keyboard options. For both machine's got the best form factor in that size-class there is: the detachable, the evolution of the convertible of yesteryear. It's really not hard to figure out.
Whatcha get instead? Garbage like silly rolling-display laptops. Or even worse, The Homer of the laptop world: these bizarre contraptions with two or three foldout displays. It's just missing a cup holder.
Framework borked it here as well. I just don't understand why you waste time, energy and money on developing and building a substandard machine (Framework 12) in an outdated form factor.
No one asked for a 16:9 thinkpad though.
16:9 displays were inevitable due to the economies of scale form the TV industry. It's a shame they had to be 1366x768 for so long.
I remember many eons ago in the last 2000s to early 2010s when I wanted a 16:10 monitor for my PC and the price difference between 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 or between 2560x1440 and 2560x1600 was massive, that it made no sense to get the few extra vertical pixels of the 16:10 unless you were loaded and money was no issue.
Even 4k 16:9 monitors a few years after launch, were cheaper than 16:10 2560x1600 ones which have already been on the market far longer. Crazy.
There was a narrow window when TV and monitor products used the same panels.
TVs got bigger very quickly after LCD took over-- there were a few years where they had ~22-25" sets as the small "dorm room" size models, but you walk into Best Buy and there's barely anything smaller than 32" now.
Conversely, mainstream desktop screens didn't get much above 27" before you started going exotic, so the typical monitors you're putting on a million desktops are not using the same panels as TVs.
I suppose you could say that a "master glass" could be cut into 16:9 panels for both TVs and monitors, but wouldn't it require the two panel sizes to use the same pixel density?
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We’re talking 13 to 15-inch screens in laptops. I do not believe for one second that there were economies of scale in those screens in the 2010s with those sizes. People were not buying 13-inch TVs more than they were buying laptops. What happened is that desktops switched to 16:9 for economies of scale and the manufacturers switched on laptops for marketing purposes.
Look at how Apple never went 16:9 except for one model, the 11-inch MacBook Air.
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I call BS on that, as Macbooks somehow always kept being 16:10. In fact you could easily buy 16:10 panels, I know because for many years I upgraded old 16:10 Thinkpads with modern displays.
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I did. I like having two documents side-by-side and I think it works out well on a 1920x1080 (or 3820x2160) display.
Guess I’ll blame you for ruining laptops then.
1080 pixels is too little vertical space to read documents.
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