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Comment by ianbooker | Hacker News Reader

If it works, the butterfly keyboard is a very good keyboard. For a laptop. It boils down all the nerd arguments about why the IBM model M is still the best keyboard in the world (tactile and overall feedback) and brings it to the modern era. Combined with the restriction of mobile devices. Perfect. If it would not break down so easily.

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> If it works, the butterfly keyboard is a very good keyboard. For a laptop.

I totally disagree. The earlier Macbook keyboards were far nicer to type on, in my opinion.

Perhaps you can't find a better flatter keyboard, but from a pure typing perspective, I think it's not good at all.

I’m in the minority but for me the butterfly keyboard is the best of all keyboards. Personally I want to have tactile feedback but also as little pressing effort as possible. The keyboard does both. Somehow my back and arm just don’t tire as much.

Agree. Going back to the prior keyboards feels like typing on mush. There is an adjustment period though where constantly swapping back and forth could be uncomfortable.

I don't think you are in minority. I work with many apple users and noone actually likes pre-tb keyboards more if they worked on new ones. I think it's just vocal minority at work here.

I hate it when I sit in the train and people are using mechanical keyboards. The noisy ones are always MBPs. They get a thin device, I get the noise.

(Obviously, I'd hate this in an office space as well.)

I also don't get the point that MBPs need to weight less or become thinner. My MBP 2015 13" and 15" are light and thin enough as it is. The sacrifice isn't worth it.

I’m with you. I’ve used Apple laptops for ages (and ThinkPads before that) and prefer the newest MBP keyboards, when they’re not repeating kkeys at least.

I have a 2017 MBP for work and a 2015 personal MBP. I love good laptop keyboards, my fingers tire out using heavy mechanical keyboards with long travel. I loved my 2015 keyboard. Until I got the 2017. Now the 2015 feels like mush, like I'm typing on silicone. The 2017 is nice a clicky and satisfying while still keeping the shallow travel.

I haven't personally encountered any issues of the keys sticking though I know people who have. That's a real and serious problem, although it sounds like Apple may have figured it out in later models. But personally I love the feel of the clicky short-travel 2017 keyboard. About the only thing I don't like is the arrow keys, I miss the cutouts above the left/right arrow keys to help find them easier.

It's greeat, but the ee keye in my keyboard geets stuck fairly consistently on mine afteer less than a yeaer.

> why the IBM model M is still the best keyboard in the world

Specifically the variants with the beam spring switch mechanism. You won't believe how much these go for on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-keyboard-3278-model-2A-VERY-RAR...

Edit: here's a teardown of the switch mechanism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFYoh5VcZvg

And if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, check out this insanely detailed description of how the old selectric typewriters work (the beam spring was designed to replicate the feel of the selectric's wiffletree mechanism): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJITkKaO0qA&t=597s

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