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Comment by jasonkester | Hacker News Reader

Would be cool if there were a checkbox for "sane keyboard layout" to filter for only models that don't break up the sacred home/end/pgup/pgdown block.

Sadly, it would be easy to implement in 2014. Just map it to set the entire grid to display:none.

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My old ThinkPad is near the end of its life (the screen is falling off…) and needs to be replaced. There's absolutely nothing out there that looks like a decent replacement, though. Worse yet, I also like not to have a separate numberpad on a laptop (it makes the keyboard feel imbalanced, because it's even more off-center than usual) and finding that on anything with a remotely usable screen size is damn near impossible.

I'm starting to think the best replacement for my 2009-era Thinkpad is just another 2009-era Thinkpad. I don't want a glossy screen, chicklet keyboard, and non-replaceable battery.

Those damned glossy screens. I can't for the life of me figure out why they ever caught on; glare is extreme on them, dust and fingerprints might as well be completely opaque, and actual physical defects (scratches and such)? Game over.

The keyboard on the X230 is actually quite good, especially compared to its contemporaries. I believe you can swap it out for the older style X220 one as well.

(But I think I'll be sticking with my 4:3 T61 until shortscreens fall out of favor)

My 2014 thinkpad doesn't have any of those things... Im not sure they were even options.

Or for my preferred layout, where pgup and pgdn are left and right of the up arrow. Heresy, I know.

Lenovo. On the most recent X1 they pulled another one I came to like: they got rid of Caps-Lock and replaced it with Home and End.

I was considering that model but ended up getting a T440s, a lot because of the brainfart they had when designing the area around backspace/enter. Being used to European keyboards, I can not see myself ever getting used to that layout.

Not that I'm not satisfied with my T440s, though :)

That generation is pretty good. Shame they totally ruined the touchpad with the more recent models.

I hated that so much on my Lenovo work laptop. I kept hitting the buttons accidentally. I hated it right up to the point where I got a new laptop, and suddenly I realized how often I used those keys, and now I miss them.

Well, my HP ZBook 15 has those keys were they should be. The first row key sequence is ESC, F1 to F12, INS, DEL, Home, End, PGUP, PGDOWN. Maybe this is the only advantage of having a number pad thrown it into the keyboard. This is the layout http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/DSC0...

FYI, you linked a screenshot of the broken layout we're referring to, with all the keys lined up in the same row rather than stacked in a 3x2 grid as they belong.

Ah, you meant this http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/14637.jpg

That was the laptop I had before the ZBook. The old keyboard was better because of the lack of numberpad but I don't feel the position of those keys on the ZBook to be unconvenient. Obviously this is subjective and I respect your dislike for them. I'm quite picky about those kind of details too.

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