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Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

I want to love this, but the keyboard seems horrible. I know I'm exceptionally picky when it comes to keyboards, I usually just take a 60% mechanical keyboard with me, but I've been able to adjust to using the (non-crappy years) Macbook Pro keyboard and the Thinkpad keyboards while traveling, and generally find them acceptable. This keyboard though has really bad legends, an inexplicable numpad, and it takes up too much real estate when I'd rather have a trackpoint and a larger touchpad.

Also, the screen resolution and size seems odd. I'm okay with a 1080P screen... but not at nearly 16". This should be offered with a 3K or 4K screen only.

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I've never bought a laptop without a numpad and would never even consider a laptop that doesn't have one.

There are tons of apps, specifically in the video editing / 3D modeling space that are basically unusable without one.

When I code, I have macros tied to numpad keys. Couldn't work without them.

If all you do is browse the web and answer email on your laptop, then yeah, makes sense.

For any serious work, no numpad = no buy.

Do you really feel like you would be constrained by the amount of shortcuts on a keyboard without a numpad? There are so many different combinations you can make once you include control/alt/fn etc. Sure, if you're used to shortcuts on a numpad I can see how it might hinder your productivity for a few weeks. However, working on a smaller keyboard will definitely not constrain the amount of flexibility you have in the long term once you get used to other shortcuts. You might even become more productive on a smaller keyboard, because it takes less effort to stay on the home row and find keys.

I probably feel differently, because I'm used to using shortcuts and macros on a TKL (or smaller) keyboard. There are many different ways to achieve that, but for instance on my 60% mechanical keyboards I have between 3 and 14 layers (depending on keyboard firmware) which can be accessed with modifiers and trigger macros. There are significantly more combinations available to me on a 60% keyboard or on a laptop keyboard, with appropriate tooling, than is available on a numpad.

I've been doing "serious work" for my entire career, thanks, although these days I do spend more time in Zoom meetings and writing emails/documents.

> 60% mechanical keyboard

What's that?

The article on the Deskthority wiki probably explains it best: https://deskthority.net/wiki/60%25

It's essentially a keyboard lacking function keys, a numerical pad, and a navigation cluster. Usually has between 61 and 68 keys, and contains an extra "function" key that acts beyond the typical Fn key to help you control layers. Every 60% doesn't have layers, but most do, and those layers are generally programmable. These days pretty much all of them use QMK or VIA firmware.

The Deskthority article for some reason mentions the Minila which is actually a 65% keyboard (which is a 60% + arrow keys).

The other strange thing about a design like the Minila is that there's enough "bezel" at the top of the case for them to have put half-size function keys, which would have made it much more useful without having to increase the overall size.

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