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Comment by nrp

4 days ago

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.

4 comments

nrp

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nh2  4 days ago

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.

mananaysiempre  4 days ago

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.

emptysongglass  4 days ago

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.