geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Eclairz on Thu, 09 July 2009, 08:53:43
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Been following this for a while, but no topic on it. What do you think about the new layout? I'm thinking of getting a new laptop but should I wait for the new layouts to propagate to the more powerful laptops.
http://www.ecnmag.com/news-Lenovo-Tweaks-ThinkPad-Keyboard-062609.aspx
http://www.thinkpads.com/tag/thinkpad-t400s/
http://lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/?p=1659
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Looks like the moved the rarely-used insert key away from the delete key and made the esc key bigger. Good but not really significant changes. Laptop keyboards are an exercise in compromise anyway, I wouldn't base a purchase on it.
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Assuming the escape key originally had a gap then I'm not sure extending it down is a good thing, although it probably won't make any difference.
The rest just looks like a typical laptop keyboard to me and I doubt it'll be any better than most so I wouldn't worry about it.
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I don't see the benefit of making the Esc key taller - the issue with the Esc key is when it's close to F1. AutoCAD makes use of the Esc to cancel selections, and it's easy to hit F1 (with the associated grinding of the help file opening) instead when it's too close. I can't remember the last time I did this on my Cherry G80-3000 with it's 1 key space between them, but I do it frequently on the Dell keyboards with a small space and on laptops.
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Currently, the Esc key is above F1. So, they've shrunken the F-key row to the previous X-series key size, and stretched the Esc key vertically, I think.