
Chiclet Keyboard on Upcoming Thinkpad X230? - airnomad
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/X230-picture/td-p/731373
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mhb
The original picture was removed, but here is one:

<http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22838>

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jasonkester
The important (and unfortunate) difference is that this new keyboard breaks
apart the ins/del/home/end/pgup/pgdown block.

That's a dealbreaker from a developer perspective. In fact it's the reason the
new Thinkpad I just ordered is not an X1. The X1 is a nicer machine in every
other respect, but it has a funky keyboard layout, so I can't use it for
development without taking a big productivity hit.

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rbanffy
I'm typing this on an Apple keyboard connected to a Macbook, sitting next to a
Dell Vostro v131 and all 3 share this design trait. They are no Model M, but
they are usable.

I still need to find a good way to make all computers on my desk share the
Microsoft Natural and the Apple trackpad, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Sidnicious
> They are no Model M

These guys own the rights to make the Model M: <http://pckeyboard.com/>

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bingaling
And the original moulds, as I understand.

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pasbesoin
I've been fearing this. Boo.

The keyboard is one of the prime motivators for me to stay on ThinkPad. I
guess if I don't beat the launch, I'll pick up a last-generation machine used
-- hopefully at some discount -- and hope that it "lasts awhile".

I've been asking around, including on HN, whether anyone has experience with
Lenovo's chicklet keyboards and whether they've managed to reduce if not
remove the suck that I've experienced with other brands' chicklet keyboards.

P.S. I seem to recall seeing a story/photo implying that the T430 will have a
chicklet keyboard, as well. Can anyone confirm or refute this?

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jasonkester
This seems to be a trend with Thinkpads. They have a tendency to remove the
best features of their best models when they update to the next generation.

Think of the X60 -> X220 transition. They took an amazing little road machine
and squished the screen so far that it's pretty much useless for anything but
playing movies. I certainly wouldn't want to see how many lines of code I
could fit into 768 pixels, especially given how nice the X60/61 was with its
proper 4:3 display.

So here we are, six years later and I'm still buying refurbished X60s off eBay
to use as my dev box on the road. If they'd put out something similar today,
they'd have another $2k of my money (several times over by now, in fact).

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pasbesoin
I'm on a T42 that is a secondary "learning" machine. I've thought about buying
a T6★, but then figured I should just put the money towards a new machine when
I next purchase.

Maybe I should reconsider buying a T6★?

P.S. The T42 is the first laptop keyboard I've been comfortable with in about
the last 10 years. And while my particular model is underpowered in the
discrete graphics department, the display is pretty darned fine to look at --
in both dimensions.

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Slackwise
I own a ThinkPad X120e with one of these keyboards. Unlike the MacBook
keyboard, the new ThinkPad keyboard is very stiff and sturdy with no sway.
It's surprising just how sturdy they feel, despite looking so weak.

But the bigger selling point is, the keys have _curvature._

And that's important for any touch typist, and the reason I chose the X120e
over every other netbook/ultrabook I tried.

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agscala
I've never understood the draw to this. I can type really quickly and I don't
understand how curvature impacts typing performance. I thought that touch
typists rely on muscle memory for spacing rather than the feel of the keys.
Normally I use a Model M, but when I switch to my MBA, I don't really have any
issues.

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benmccann
Are there any models from other manufacturers that have a pointing stick in
the middle of the keyboard?

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DArcMattr
Dell Latitudes have the trackpoint as well.

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gouranga
I've already bought one in my head :)

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duck
Is appears the resolution is the same as the x220 at 1366x768. Are you
planning on using it for dev work?

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gouranga
Yes definitely.

Why does it sound like you think I'm insane?

I'm sitting in front of a T61 at the moment at 1280x800 and I prefer it to my
2x 22" 1600x1200 screens in the office (one of which is permanently turned
off).

I have VS2010, SQL2008 Mgmt studio, Word, Excel, 2 different browsers, Outlook
and 3 RDP connections open. It's fine.

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tseabrooks
I have a hard time working on something thats less than 2560x1440. I use a
dell 30" @ 2560x1600 at the office with my macbook screen (1680x1050) as my
secondary display. At home I hook the macbook up to my imac display
(2560x1440) and use that with my macbook as my secondary display.

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jasonkester
Here's a tip for dealing with a small dev machine:

Try sitting at a table in a sand-floored bar with a good thatch roof to keep
light levels down, but a good view of the beach and the sea. Tonsai beach in
Thailand is my personal preference, but you can probably make it work at any
little beach community with good wifi and cheap bungalows to rent.

Notice how owning a 3 pound machine that you can fit comfortably into a tiny
backpack suddenly seems like a much better idea. You might even wonder why you
need to keep an apartment back home capable of containing a 30" monitor. For
the same rent payments, you could just stay here indefinitely.

Naturally, if you don't have a beach to use it from, the tiny road machine
makes somewhat less sense. Good thing that, as developers, we're in of of the
few professions where we get to choose whether to add that beach to our dev
setup.

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antihero
Did anyone grab the picture?

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platzhirsch
That is well known by now, here [1] is an article explaining the advantages of
the so called chiclet keyboard (given that this is no marketing idea)

Here probably a picture of the X230 [2]

[1] [http://blog.lenovo.com/design/thinkpad-x1-designing-the-
ulti...](http://blog.lenovo.com/design/thinkpad-x1-designing-the-ultimate-
keyboard)

[2]
[http://images.tweaktown.com/news/2/3/23890_09_spotted_lenovo...](http://images.tweaktown.com/news/2/3/23890_09_spotted_lenovo_s_ivy_bridge_powered_thinkpad_x230_ultrabook.jpg)

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ericabiz
Unfortunately the image in the original post seems to have been taken down. Is
this really the same keyboard you reference in your post?

If so, I have it on the computer I'm using to type this--a Lenovo X200s from
3+ years ago. (Still waiting for Lenovo to figure out how to cram 1440x900
into a 12" screen like they did on this laptop.) I vastly prefer this keyboard
to my fiance's Macbook Air.

However, if the keyboard is the same as the one I have on my 3-year-old
Lenovo, I'm not sure why this is "news".

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scromar
The x200s does not have the keyboard in question, it has the classic thinkpad
keyboard. The new keyboard is seen on some new lenovo models, most notably the
thinkpad edge series.

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ericabiz
I'm looking at it right now and it has both the rounded-bottom keys and the
contoured keys (there's a "divot" in each key where your finger can sit
comfortably.)

