New ThinkPad wired keyboard

[Eclairz]

http://www.thinkpads.com/2009/08/31/finally-photos-of-new-thinkpad-usb-trackpoint-keyboard/

New Think Pad Keyboard based on the new T400S Laptop keyboard. But Imav will love that it has no track pad but has a track point ONLY. Its reasonably compact and built in wrist rest (unnecessary but i guess its to have that laptop feeling), and no numpad so this is tenkeyless. Only $60 too so looks like a decent deal.

[Kraicheck]

Why did they have to keep the damn wrist rest?
I actually got the keyboard and electronics out of my ultranav travel keyboard and put them in a getto-style keyboard shell to get rid of it.
If they would have dropped the wrist rest together with the trackpad, I would have bought it in a heartbeat.

[ch_123]

It's like an M4-1 for Generation X... But yeah, really should have got rid of the wrist rest, and I wonder if it has feet to raise it.

[Rajagra]

Not bad, but it's a shame they put the Fn key (which has so few uses on this board) in such a prime location.

[Eclairz]

Lenovo had a bios change so that you could swap the ctrl and fn keys but they are still thinking whether to do it. So it might be possible won't be able to swap the keys though due to key size.

http://www.thinkpads.com/2009/08/07/lenovo-considering-bios-option-for-fn-ctrl-key-switch/

[Eclairz]

New Mac keyboards actually have their own firmware(auto updated vis os x), but I also heard mac keyboards also can get hacked because of this. Once you make keyboards modifiable you open a host of problems i guess, hard wired is always the safest option.
Its always the same argument of security vs convenience.


Some how i doubt they will make bios for this particular keyboard, what would be ideal is if they support a major thirdparty company like autohotkey and provide a plug in to read-in "fn" key (and any other misc keys) so it can be remapped in software or provide a macro tool for all lenovo keyboards.

[quadibloc]

I always thought these FN keys were hardwired in and couldn't be changed, even with a firmware change.

I remember noticing one case of that in a keyboard described here, for its Turbo key.

I would not have been inclined to think this about Fn keys in general, though, since it's much cheaper to design the circuit so that this key is also part of the matrix. In general, though, they would still never allow the position of the Fn key to be changed... because then you could lose track of which key you had to press in order to change it back. Don't want to generate those extra Customer Support calls!

So the reason isn't a technical one - they're just dumbing down the product in self-defense.

[Eclairz]

http://lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/?p=2364

Some more info about the new keyboard, why its cheaper, smaller and has no trackpad.

edit: some interesting trackpoint mouse that i haven't seen before

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:item.detail?GroupID=38&Code=31P7405¤t-category-id=E6480EC4EE7D42A79F5F1C0940B163AB

[puntium]

I actually think the wrist rest is a key part of the design. It's what keeps your hands level with the top of the keys, and that's the most comfortable typing position (unless you're actually able to float your hands above the board as your supposed to). It makes this keyboard instantly more comfortable than something like one of the new apple boards.

[Kraicheck]

The problem is that even when you're in the right typing position, your hands are always going to drop a little.
With normal sized keys this isn't a big problem.
With low profile keys this immediately results in resting your wrists because of the decreased distance between the wrists and the rest.
If there's only like half a centimetre between your wrist and rest, the chance of "accidentally" resting your wrists is high.
I always float my hands because resting them makes my wrists too sweaty.