Differentiating laptops: How about a decent keyboard? (2015)
mobileforesight.com
mobileforesight.com
The answer is right there: no, most people barely touch the keyboard. Most people are not using laptops as tools to create anything. Most people do nothing but look at Reddit/Facebook endless stream of entertainment and scroll, scroll, scroll. Apple understood this early on and they made the perfect laptop for scrolling, which is now available in Air, Pro and Regular flavors. These aren't for typing.
As long as majority of laptop buyers are content consumers, this is not going to change. However...
It will change. The content consumption has been shifting to mobile: the phones and tablets are taking over. Once a laptop once again becomes primarily a _tool_, decent keyboards (and maybe even tall screens!) will come back, just look at the desktops. As traditional desktops have been 100% abandoned by consumers, the mechanical keyboards and high quality IPS monitors made a smashing comeback, the power users (remaining audience) is willing to pay for nice tools.
That would be understandable for the consumer focused lineups but most manufactures also produce business models which are bought to create something and still suffer from the same problem. As can be seen in the example of the Thinkpad keyboards were already better but somehow they decided to worsen them.
> the power users (remaining audience) is willing to pay for nice tools.
As said there already is this business/consumer split and it has been for many years. Business is where the money is made, not at the consumer front where it can't be cheap enough, yet the devices inside this category weirdly are more and more designed not to be the workhorses they are supposed to be.
https://twitter.com/chuckmoyes/status/868582082896830464
It's such a shame to see them go downhill:
I think consumer masses moving away from the laptop market has a dire implications for this market (far less competition, expect premium prices). But on the plus side it should shift the market towards productivity, which is a big plus for some of us.
I also have a cheapo lenovo thinkpad 2 in 1 that has a surprisingly good keyboard. I say this as someone who has ridiculously snobbish keyboard taste. They're out there!
Even for people creating stuff. The touchpad is way more important than the keyboard as a developer. I can spend a lot of time scrolling, scrolling, reading code and documentation and stuff. Ok there is a lot of shortcuts involved, but keyboard quality needs to be real bad before it becomes a show stopper.
Sure there are days were I code all day. But even there, the IDE is doing a lot of the work too. In a language like java, you never have to type a method, class or variable name beyond the first time you defined them. And the IDE will even suggest good enough variable names.
Now that I'm thinking off, this is probably the longest sequence of word that I have written unassisted for the day. Commenting on HN, or documentation, or email is what a good keyboard is useful for.
It seems there are quite a few people out there who not only need keyboards but they even try and make them work with devices built to be entirely touch centric.
Don't forget porn!
It's a joy to mindlessly surf the web, but a pain in the ass to do most other things.
Their second generation, butterfly keyboards are amazing once you get used to it and aren't some indication that they are abandoning content creators.
2. You can set it to permanently show control keys.
3. It's optional. You can buy the model without it.
4. Some of us actually like it. I use IntelliJ every day and it's great to be able to have dedicated refactor/debug keys instead of having to remember arcane key commands.
You can set it to permanently show images of control keys, on a flat surface. If I wanted a tablet I'd buy a tablet; keys have boundaries between them, push down and spring up, and otherwise respond to fingers in ways that a tablet doesn't.
some people seem to think that apple is in the business of personally catering to their every whim.
i totally get why you wouldn’t like the touch bar, but you don’t have to buy that model. in fact, you don’t have to buy a macbook at all.
it’s also pretty astonishing to me how many people vehemently hate this thing they’ve never even tried to use.
I'm yet to meet a single person who likes the touch bar after 1 month.
How many Macbook Pro users have you surveyed ? And how do you think that compares to Apple who clearly did some product marketing work before adding a very expensive new feature.
The only problem is the lack of ESC key really, but after you remap it to Caps Lock everything is good again.
https://arstechnica.com/video/2016/11/the-2016-13-and-15-inc...
https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/
And for more money you can spec them identically.
And not the same CPUs. Max CPU speed without Touch Bar is 2.5Ghz, while the Touch Bar models begin at 3.1Ghz.
Different GPUs as well: Iris Plus 640 v Iris Plus 650.
It's a downgrade: the pre-touchbar MacBook Pros (and the touchbar ones) have 3x3 MIMO wifi/BT chipsets.
It's like 10 years ago when first MacBooks came out with chiclet keys, while all other manufacturers used previous design (most of them finally shifted to chiclet by now). Typing on a regular laptop now feels like masochism.
As to your strange preferences, I cannot understand them. Buckling spring keyboards are far more tactile and I resent that I cannot get them on "premium" products any more.
That would make too much sense, Apple haven't done sense for a while now - people have called Apple form over function for a long time except now it's actually true, at least WRT their laptops.
Curious - what makes them so "amazing"?
Speaking only for myself-- going back to the 80s, there has only ever been one keyboard that I've ever used that I couldn't get used to (Surface Pro Touch keyboard). For all the others, once I got used to them, I never really felt like one was better than another, just different.
I know that one hurts my fingers after typing for a few hours, and the other one is pretty comfortable after that same time.
But, the most glaring problem is the idealized keyboard for a laptop being one with a 10 key area. When you sit down at a desktop you can position the external keyboard to center the G/H keys in the middle of your monitor and type comfortably. If you shift the G/H to the left it makes you move your arms to the left for 99.9999% of your typing - unless you still do 10-key data entry for some reason.
The second overall problem I have is the idea that you need dozens of keys that are not essential to the function of your ability to TYPE on the laptop. Sure, you could have a button to disable the wireless on your laptop - but this is exactly the kind of key that SHOULDN'T be on a laptop. I have had to "fix" so many laptops by re-pressing the wireless toggle key that I have been tempted to physically break the key.
I'm only ranting here just incase any keyboard designers think this article has any merit and tries to design a laptop-keyboard-from-hell like this.
Just don't.
Louis did a nice video on the older keyboard/trackpad vs the newer ones, which I agree with. Modern keyboards actually aren't bad, but the trackpads are terrible. The entire design of having left and right click as just one big flat button causes so many issues.
Ideally, there would still be buttons to allow both types of control though.
An additional benefit over hard buttons is that applications can use it for additional feedback. E.g. OmniGraffle provides subtle haptic feedback via the trackpad when objects align, which I find extremely handy for quickly aligning objects.
It seems that most people but developers like and actually use number pads. I think I touched it ten times in 3 years, included checking that it worked.
"Last laptop ever made with excellent keyboard design? (Lenovo Thinkpad T520, fr 2011)" - no numpad.
The IBM Model M keyboard is just raised as the prototypical desktop keyboard design, and the numpad there is commented as "Separate number pad possible on large keyboard without disturbing main keyboard" - which is hard to argue against.
A lot of heavy Excel users would disagree.
You might make the argument that using Excel is like being a data entry clerk, but having actually having had a job as a data entry clerk in the 80s, I can tell you it is not the same thing.
Other keys that are seldom used and could probably be done without are: Scroll Lock, Insert, SysReq, Home, and End. Removing unnecessary keys would free up space and improve usability.
I strongly disagree. Scroll Lock causes the viewpoint to scroll instead of the cursor in a few programs I use. Insert/Home/End are essential for text editing. SysRq doesn't sound so useful until you realise that it's also known as the Print Screen key, and if you use Linux extensively then the actual SysRq function also becomes invaluable ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key ). On the other hand, I've found "media/multimedia keys" pretty useless, and F-keys defaulted to something else is extremely irritating.
I also disagree that the numpad is "useless": it's very effective for entering numbers, such as when you need to calculate something (of course, this is probably a minority opinion as most people seem to find maths mostly useless in general...)
Personally, I'd be happy if laptop makers would stop trying to change keyboard layouts around and just keep all 10x standard keys as found on the IBM desktop PC keyboard (omitting the numpad is acceptable if the laptop is not wide enough), and go back to the traditional taller switch mechanism with curved, area-filling keys. The T60/X60 comes close.
Otherwise, I agree with you completely.
I manage to edit text without these buttons so they are demonstrably not essential.
... for you. For GP they obviously are.
Also, read the https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=73419.0 Matias Ergo Pro review on some interesting design decision that went into that particular keyboard. (And yes, it's the one I use vertically and can only recommend doing the same.)
Interestingly enough, some gaming laptops are the ones that at least attempt to have a semi decent keyboard by using mechanical switches.
And either provide your modified GPU drivers with regular updates for the whole lifetime of the device (i.e. 3-5 years) or let the GPU vendor do the job. But don't make it hard/impossible to install the GPU vendor's drivers if you cannot regularly provide updates.
Make it easy to find the drivers that you need to install when one sets up the OS newly. I've seen driver websites of laptop vendors where just the complete list of drivers is shown for hardware that might be used in some laptops of the family. Not fun. :-(
Negatiate hard with Microsoft whether you can also provide Windows 10 Enterprise to your customers, where a lot more surveillance functions can be blocked (a large reason why a lot of German companies don't update to Windows 10 - only Enterprise allows decent blocking of the surveillance, but is hard to get).
Perhaps the reason is because all the parts to make a laptop are custom for that size specification.
There are people who'd accept a bit bigger and a bit heavier laptop - so for them you put in more battery in that weight and space, instead of "spending" it on repairability.
This doesn't apply for desktops because there noone cares about tiny differences in space or weight.
If you have high assurance environment that use O365, the best path right now is Windows 8.1, which takes care of you until 2023. After that, assume that you'll use another platform and make appropriate application decisions.
How realistic is application migration for the 2023 timeframe? MacOS requires a hardware change and the macOS/iOS landscape may be very different in six years. If applications wcan afford to invest in migration to Qt/wxWidgets, they can support all three of Windows, macOS and Linux. Electron-based (web) applications are consistent across platforms but memory/resource intensive. This might be improved with WebAssembly.
The most efficient cross-platform app architectures are used by games, which combine a fast garbage-collected runtime (e.g. Lua) with native graphics rendering libraries. The downside is a complete absence of "native" widgets or semi-standard "web widgets".
What could be the options for a high-assurance desktop application architecture of 2023? Let's assume that high-assurance and "cloud/SaaS" are separate markets. Even VDI solutions require an OS to run applications. OpenBSD + Qt? Qubes + unikernels + graphics compositing? Linux + Qt? A fusion of macOS and iOS? A reversal of Microsoft on Windows telemetry and data collection business model? The challenge is for any platform to achieve the scale needed to attract developers, an advantage which Microsoft is throwing away.
> For example, the large Caps Lock key is a waste of space on a crowded keyboard. I never use it, but often hit it by mistake CAUSING ALL LETTERS TO BE CAPITALISED.
Some people remap this to Ctrl. Anyway, users are so accustomed to a physical key in this position (regardless of what function they map it to) that it would be a disservice to remove it.
> Other keys that are seldom used and could probably be done without are: Scroll Lock, Insert, SysReq, Home, and End. Removing unnecessary keys would free up space and improve usability.
Are you kidding about not using Home and End? They are the lifeblood of text editing on Windows. Have you never selected a line with Shift+Home? Jumped to the end of the text with Ctrl+End? Or do you always mouse-select text?
One of my laptop keyboards did not have dedicated Home+End keys, and had to access them with Fn+PgUp/PgDn. It was inconvenient to use, and was glad to switch to a ThinkPad that had real Home+End keys!
> Google took some steps in this direction when they introduced Chromebooks in 2011. They removed the Caps Lock key, all the F1 to F12 keys, Home, End, Delete, Page Up/Down and the entire number pad.
You can't seriously be approving the removal of F1 to F12 keys. Do you not use F2 to rename a file? F3 to find next? Alt+F4 to close a window? F5 to reload a webpage? F11 to full-screen the browser? F12 to open the web development pane?
> Apple have removed some of the more peripheral keys, including Page Up/Down [...] Removing Caps Lock would be great but I find the Page Up/Down keys to be very useful
Glad to see that you don't agree with the removal of PgUp/PgDn.
http://vintagecomputer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/LSI-ADM...
I completely agree with your post. Removing the home/end & function keys is such a waste given the amount of free space for keys on every single notebook ever made.
edit: I realized I hadn't taken my initial argument to complete absurdity, "Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard":
I like being able to type and select at any time, without having to remember which mode is active. Also, using Dvorak destroys the intuitive hjkl keys for positioning.
MacBook Wheel was great satire from The Onion ;-D. It vaguely reminds me of how annoying it was to type passwords and search terms on the Apple TV remote's D pad. For home theatre PC use, it seems most my friends choose a Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400.
I like keyboard layouts on laptops like System76 13/14 inch models or Gigabyte Aero 14. Full size arrow keys, not that half-size nonsence. And dedicated PgUp/Down and Home/End keys.
As for the other things, I've been wondering, too!
> Why are they so small?
Probably because they're afraid people accidentally touch them? I think if Apple dares to make them this big, that's probably an irrational fear.
>Why are they not centered?
After a _long_ time thinking of it, I got an idea: Maybe they're centered on the space bar to be between your hands when typing? That, however, would also mean that they acknowledge that you're usually holding your hands off-center to reach around the number pad. Has anyone used a laptop number pad in the past 20 years? I agree that they should go in favor of a more sensible overall layout.
Same with not being able to rest your fingers on the touch bar.
Accountants use them all the time, along with a lot of other people whose job requires entering a lot of numerical data.
Dragging requires more effort since you have to both move the finger horizontally while maintaining downward pressure, which increases the friction significantly. If the button was separate, you can hold it with one finger while just touching the touchpad and controlling movement with the other.
I'm not sure why Apple doesn't present this as a main option instead of burying it in the settings.
In my opinion, it's a significant usability & productivity improvement. Three finger drag makes selecting text a breeze, along with quickly moving applications across monitors.
Having to maintain pressure while awkwardly moving your finger across the touchpad, while simultaneously appeasing the force touch gods, seems rather uncivilized.
People will be subtley dissatisfied with things without examination of why or attempting to alleviate this dissatisfaction.
It is meaningless to posit people are satisfied with the state of things as if this said anything about the value of the current state of things or how people would react to an improvement.
People could have been said to be as satisfied with pocket pcs back around win ce.
After being exposed to a touch screen interface that wasn't completely garbage they overwhelming preferred them and voted with their wallets.
Wait, what, lol? As someone having been looking for laptops quite a few times in the past few years, I find it ridiculous how hard it is to find something with a) the exact hardware you want/need and b) not having a super shitty case/design. It's bizarre! You'd think you go to a website, pick a CPU, RAM, GPU, harddisk, screen and case. Hey, maybe you have to pay $100 extra for someone screwing that shit together in half an hour, I'd do that!
Although on a more serious note, you can have this today as long as thunderbolt is okay.
In reality it was only within a small range of gpu wherein price wise it made little sense to go with anything but the best of I think 2 or 3 possibilities.
Unfortunately while you could select from multiple options at purchase you couldn't actually buy even those options after the fact so nobody could have upgraded after the fact.
Future editions had different thermal characteristics and didn't fit. I heard anecdotal evidence that at least some had physically modified the heat sink and made a original generation + 1 gpu work but couldn't confirm and I have no idea where they were supposed to have actually bought such a thing.
I will have to check out what is being done with external gpu recently it certainly seemed like an interesting idea.
I hate the numeric keypad. It throws the balance off and I feel like I have to shift the laptop to the right to type. Is the demographic that wants the numeric keyboard that large? They used to sell a separate one for accounting types, now they all have them and I hate it. They also switched to the chicklet style like Apple. I like the chicklet style on the Macs but I don't think I'd like it on a Thinkpad. I believe they took a row off the keyboard and jammed them together in some jacked up configuration. The home/end/pageup/down isn't in a position that resembles a 101/104. That aggravates me too.
I'm ready to buy a new laptop. My 2013 rMBP is getting old. I've had to repair the trackpad and now it's complaining about a memory module. I looked at the P51s and P71s, but that damn keypad.
Come back to us old Thinkpad keyboard, it was a real differentiator.
I map the Cmd-> and Cmd<- on my Mac to the home and end. It works really well in a Windows VM. Might get the new MacBook, but I'd buy a Thinkpad with an old style layout in a second if it existed. I even tried resurrecting my old W500 to use as an RDP machine, but it's too far gone.
As an aside, I much prefer Fn key mappings for thing like media keys over dedicated buttons: fewer things that actuate means fewer things to break, fewer things that'll get crumbs or liquid under them, etc. The 5th gen carbon has one button aside from what's on the keyboard: the power button. The result is a much simpler, cleaner layout.
I'd love for a non-Apple laptop to have the (older) MacBook trackpad and keyboards — not the huge trackpads or butterfly switches that come with the current generation ones.
The keyboard is nothing special though.
Would you mind sharing what model it is?
Also might want to be clear which MacBook you are talking about.
The 2017 model has the second generation keyboard which is significantly better than the 2016.
I thought both the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros had the second-generation butterfly switches. Wasn't the first iteration of the butterfly switch only in the first generation 12" MacBook (the one with one USB-C port)?
This sounds exceptionally nerdy but it is less of a nuisance than I had expected, my hands are much happier, and as a weird bonus, every day or two someone comes up to me in a coffeeshop and asks about "that really cool looking keyboard."
The day that a laptop manufacturer figures out how to integrate this sort of gear into their product will be a good day...
[1] fwiw after a bit of research I ended up with the one made by Goldtouch; http://www.goldtouch.com/ergonomic-keyboards/
Anyways, that's what I do: travel with a compact wired keyboard. And that's my advice.
As for differentiating laptops, lots of other things seem like better characteristics to compare: freedom, privacy (mechanical webcam and mic disable switches), mic quality, speaker quality, RAM, battery life, GPU, SSD vs. HDD, weight, ...
One thing I hate is the bevelling on Macs: it actually hurts my fingers, but then again, I carry an external keyboard (and mouse) anyways, so this wouldn't stop me from buying a Mac.
The market has spoken. Thinness and lightness is more important than a good keyboard.
(Still hanging on to my 6-year-old 17" MBP. I can see the point of something thinner and lighter, but it's just not my highest priority.)
I also use a macbook at work and the lack of a numpad frustrates me.
The laptop is basically unusable.
Just take a look at most-right keys - home,del,page up/down, end they're all placed like to tap on them without using Your eyes easily.
I'm just very disappointed that this layout is not so popular so I can't get very different new keycaps for it (have 2 of these keyboards already and started writing totally without looking after something like 3 weeks of using them) - I totally recommend these models, especially with brown switches
My model has a numeric keypad (but no End key, wtf) but its successor for 2017 got rid of the numpad.
AFAIK, the 2017 model is just less wide but same build.
The article seems to consider the author's personal preferences as facts.
Also, as an observation, I work with a hundred of IT guys, none of them uses ergonomic keyboard or even with "kinda ergonomic", more classic shape. There is just no demand for good keyboards, at most people want "mechanical" KB, without any other improvements.
Also, the complaints about the numpad are certainly a matter of personal preference. I personally find a built-in numpad to be a significant plus when laptop-shopping.
The form-factor is also incredible: very light and thin and just slightly larger than a 13" laptop. This means it fits in my small laptop bag (designed for 13" models) but has a 14" screen and a great keyboard with full-size keys.
The touchpad is also pretty large and top-notch and it comes with the traditional ThinkPad trackpoint pointer if you're into that.
It's not super cheap but if you can afford it, I highly recommend it.
On a side note, I wonder if they make Ethernet cables with the adapter built in.
I find the smooth texture (on at least the Apple cables) to be a pain to grip. It's easier for me with USB type-A cables as there's more surface area.
If you're going to compare ergonomic keyboards, at least get your shit together and start with abase mode that's actually ergonomic, such as a Kinesis Advantage.
I also have low-end Chromebooks (just two of them) without the superb feel of the Pixel or the back-lighting. I don't type on these keyboards, instead I use 'Synergy' and a Logitech K810 portable keyboard:
http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/bluetooth-illuminated-...
I carry the Logitech K810 everywhere, I would be lost without it. It also comes with a 'delete' key (as well as backspace), this omission of a 'delete' key is a mild deficiency of the Chromebook layout.
I can remember the introduction of the special Windows keys that crept in between the CTRL, ALT and SPACE keys. At the time I thought these were a bit silly as you don't really need a choice of buttons to get to the Windows 'Start' menu. What I like about the Chromebook keyboard layout is that those silly keys have gone away.
The aforementioned Logitech keyboard also trims down on the amount of useless Windows keys, they are still there, on the left, but not the right.
If you are left-handed then the requirements get more interesting. I don't punch numbers in to the keypad with the dexterity of my friends in accounts, I wish I could but it isn't going to happen. Therefore those laptops with the number pad - or even full keyboards with the number pad - are just not for me, best avoided at all cost.
Another benefit of the carry-along Logitech keyboard is that I can also use it with my phones. Rather than peck away at a message I can type eloquent messages with things like punctuation.
For the day job I use a Lenovo Yoga consumer grade laptop instead of a Thinkpad. IMHO these keyboards - chicklet with backlight - are better than those legacy-style Thinkpad keyboards. I still use the portable Logitech keyboard with it though. This amuses my colleagues, I take them through some tutorial on something and there is this inevitable question about how come I use the same keyboard/mouse with so many screens/computers.
My only feature request is that Logitech (or other) make their Bluetooth keyboards/mice work as USB keyboards when plugged in with a micro-USB lead, as happens for charging. This would enable me to get rid of my wired keyboard, the one I use after rebooting my desktop PC to log in and get 'synergy' started.
As for Synergy, it is not entirely perfect as there are times when keys get 'stuck' in between the keypress down state and the keypress up. This is probably not a problem for most users however I have the repeat rate set to massively fast in order to move cursors around extra quick.