#KEYPAD LAYOUT LAPTOP PC#
#KEYPAD LAYOUT LAPTOP SERIES#

You don't say where you read reviews of the ThinkPad T400 and T500, but says Lenovo fixed the problem of the thin keyboard flexing too much (also a problem with some cheaper Lenovo laptops) with 'added bracing over open cavities underneath the keyboard'.

#KEYPAD LAYOUT LAPTOP SERIES#

It wasn't what traditional ThinkPad buyers were used to.Īs far as I can tell, all the current ThinkPad models – L Series (budget range), E Series (small business), X Series (ultraportable), T Series (corporates) and W Series (workstations) – now use the new keyboard. Again, it got good reviews, though not everybody thought it was an improvement. For example, in 2011, the ThinkPad X220 had the older design, but the following year's X230 - assembled in the USA - had the new Precision Keyboard. Lenovo started to use variants of this keyboard in other new laptops. By ThinkPad standards (240X, X31/X41/X61), it's relatively poor.' In its review, CNet wrote: 'With gently curved and slightly concave key surfaces and gentle but solid-clicking key presses, this keyboard surpasses anything seen by Apple or Sony and feels as good as an old-fashioned tapered keyboard.' I reviewed the X100e here and was less impressed, saying: 'By the normal standards of 'isolated keyboards', it feels exceptional, with responsive keys having plenty of travel. Lenovo therefore developed its own new keyboard, which first appeared in the cheaper ThinkPad Edge range and the ultraportable X100e in 2010. It continued to use the IBM name until 2008, after which these machines were rebranded as Lenovo ThinkPads.īut, as mentioned, prices were coming down and laptops were getting thinner.

#KEYPAD LAYOUT LAPTOP PC#

In 2005, IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo, the Chinese company formerly called Legend. Similar keyboards were used on the T and W ranges, which had better specifications and were up-market of the budget R range. My next ThinkPad was an X31 made in China, which felt slightly worse, but there was very little in it. I used a Scottish ThinkPad 240X ultraportable for several years and loved the keyboard. When it comes to ThinkPads, the best laptop keyboards were on ThinkPads assembled in Greenock in Scotland and equivalent IBM factories. You can't really tell just by looking at them. A very good isolated keyboard on an Apple or Sony laptop may not be as good as the best IBM ThinkPad keyboards, but it could be better than a scissor-switch keyboard on a cheaper laptop.

(But I might be wrong.)Ī mechanical design should work better than a scissor-switch design, which should work better than an isolated keyboard, assuming they are all made to the highest standards.

Generally, I assume keyboards with isolated keys - often called Chiclet keyboards after Chiclets, the American chewing gum - have scissors while ones where the keys sit side by side are more likely to be dome-based designs. Manufactures get round this by including either a scissor mechanism or a small dome. The disadvantages are that they provide little travel and even less tactile feedback. The advantages of membrane keyboards are that they can be made very thin, and they are very cheap to produce. However, most laptops now use membrane keyboards where the keys are just pressure pads. Scissor-switch keyboards have less travel but provide good tactile feedback and feel quite precise. Wikipedia's page on keyboard technology has a diagram. In this case, each key is supported by plastic cross-switches. I suspect your ThinkPad R50e uses a more expensive variant of the dome keyboard with a scissor switch design. Ubicomp offers dome-switch versions of almost all its IBM keyboards. These can be quite good, and they are quieter than buckling spring designs. (It got the technology from Lexmark, which was spun out of IBM.) Mass market keyboards usually had 'dome' switches, where the key presses either a metal or plastic (polyurethane) dome to make the contact. The classic IBM keyboard had a patented 'buckling spring' design, and Ubicomp still makes this type of keyboard. There are a lot of different types of keyboard design, and there is no easy way to tell which is which. In factory quantities, I expect Chinese laptop keyboards cost less than $2 each.

Manufacturers no longer have the margin to pay for high quality keyboards. The second is the decline in laptop prices. The first is the move towards ultra-slim machines that just don't have room for a traditional keyboard. There are two main reasons for the 'decline' in keyboard quality. Some gaming laptops have them, such as the MSI GT60 0NC, but they have disappeared from the ultraportable market. The problem is that if you prefer traditional keyboards, they are increasingly hard to find on laptops. The best idea is to try some of the different kinds of keyboard for a week or two to see which you like best.

Keypad layout laptop