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Comment by hankmander | Hacker News Reader

Don't praise the keyboard, please! I have a 2014 Thinkpad and the weak screen, low capacity battery, the fact that it wakes out of sleep only when it feels like (at other times I have to remove and plug the battery back in to get it started), and the crappy wifi is not even close to being as annoying as grouping the arrow keys with PageUp & PageDown. Take a look at the screenshots, they're even tighter than the other screens.

This is my story every day: "you wanna go left? No you wanna go PageUp!", "You wanna go right? Here's a PageDown for you!" "AAAAAAAARRRRGH"

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How long have you had it?

I have a slightly older model that also moves the PgUp/PgDown keys to the arrow keys. I never really had the problem of pushing them instead of left/right, but I was annoyed at it at first because I couldn't find PgUp/PgDown. After using it for a few months, I actually prefer that layout.

What annoyed me more was the swapping of ctrl/fn from my older model (Fn is at the leftmost now). I got used to that too, though I would still prefer ctrl on the left.

As for the keyboard itself, I preferred the pre-chiclet keyboard on the old thinkpads, but of the current-generation laptops I've tried, it's still the best one by miles.

In some models, you can swap Ctrl and Fn in the BIOS. I find it much easier to hit a Ctrl-Shift combo with Ctrl on the far left.

I don't understand why they put the FN on the left. Maybe it's because Ctrl+Shift isn't that common a gesture for the general population, but switching them in the BIOS is the first thing I do.

In addition, also physically swap the buttons.

At least on my 5y old Thinkpad Edge 11 it was easy.

Use something like a credit card to remove the keys. And put them back with a firm press.

Unfortunately this isn't possible on newer keyboards, as Ctrl and Fn have different sized keycaps.

I've had it for 10 months. My fingers don't have the accuracy for it. It blows my mind how they could make them tighter than all the other keys. Why not tighten up all other keys too and save even more space...

And that Fn button in the bottom-left corner. Why do they all keep making that horrible mistake. That's where Ctrl lives.

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