4 ms·
sigh Another laptop with plenty of room for another column of keys on the right omitting discreet home/end/pgup/pgdn keys for no good reason. Really tired of b
by stormbrew 11y ago
sigh Another laptop with plenty of room for another column of keys on the right omitting discreet home/end/pgup/pgdn keys for no good reason.
Really tired of bad ideas like this becoming universal traits.
- a3n 11y agoJust based on the photo showing the two models, it looks like a case of corporate synergy. It looks like they just dropped the 13" keyboard into the 15" tray, saving mechanical, electrical and software engineering effort.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- wbkang 11y agoFn+arrows for home/end/pgup/pgdn isn't as bad as other alternatives.
- chimeracoder 11y agoAgreed. Between my XPS and the Macbook Pro I have for work, the latter's keyboard is infinitely more annoying due to the lack of page up, page down, home, end, etc.
- plorkyeran 11y agoMBPs also use Fn+Arrow Keys for page up/down/home/end.
- chimeracoder 11y agoDepends on the application: http://superuser.com/a/132722 http://superuser.com/a/132722 It's inconsistent enough to be frustrating.
- stormbrew 11y agoOn a mac (which, as far as I can tell, is what started this trend) this is all less of an issue because home/end/pgup/pgdn act in ways that are generally less useful on OSX. Mac users are trained to not bother by default (much like with the maximize button).
- harel 11y agoThis is the reason I bought the 3rd gen lenovo carbon and not the xps. Not to mention the keyboard is superb and very coder friendly.
- snerbles 11y agoI'd rather suffer along on my XPS 13 after Lenovo's Superfish fiasco.
- harel 11y agoThere is no Superfish anymore, not to mention I'm running Linux anyway. Besides, rest assured you are not safe with anyone, anywhere. Everyone is spying on you, and they are all very keen to know what you're up to. Knowing that, I am happy with the Lenovo.
- eatonphil 11y agoI had trouble finding the specific generation you are referring to, do you have a link?
- cholantesh 11y agohttp://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/ http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca...
- eatonphil 11y agoThanks!
- pierre_massat 11y agoI had the X1 carbon 3rd gen and I have the XPS 13 9350 right now, I don't see a lot of differences in the keyboard. Why do you like the ThinkPad one better?
- 11y ago
- dblooman 11y agoI for one prefer a simple keyboard layout, no number pad, no extra cruft, never use them
- Retric 11y agoNumber pads are significantly faster than using the number keys. They really are worth learning how to use.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoAt a huge cost of moving the keyboard off-center, no thanks.
- Retric 11y agoUSB to the rescue. http://www.amazon.com/V7-Ergonomic-Resistant-Notebook-KP0N1-7N0P/dp/B0060WDI5Q http://www.amazon.com/V7-Ergonomic-Resistant-Notebook-KP0N1-...
- mixmastamyk 11y agoThat's much better, perhaps they have one for a full size home/end arrow block? ;)
- ves 11y agoI almost never enter tons of numbers, so having a numpad isn't very useful for me. Especially since the fact that you have to leave home row means that there's an initial penalty to using the numpad that makes it significantly less useful for sequences of numbers <4-5 in length. Not having a numpad means my keyboard takes up significantly less space on my desk and means mousing is more ergonomic; not having one on my laptop makes it much prettier and lets me have nice speaker grills. I suspect that this is true of the vast majority of people, except maybe accountants, data entry folks, and some scientists. But I generally do finance, math, and programming just fine without a numpad.
- cherry_su 11y agoThe keyboard would become more off centered. Without the extra keys, the F and J keys are already slightly off centered because of the quote key. edit: What if this column were on the left of the keyboard to offset the quote key? Then the keyboard would be symmetric with respect to the F and J keys.
- moreati 11y agoAs a workaround I'm trying https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortkeys-custom-keyboard/logpjaacgmcbpdkdchjiaagddngobkck https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortkeys-custom-k... [ and ] set to pgup/pgdn. It mostly works, but I've found I still don't use it as often as would the real keys.
- wahsd 11y agoIt really seems like Dell is trying as hard as it can to not really present any kind of danger to Apple.
- reirob 11y agoFor me personally a centred keyboard is much more important than a separate number block. When touch typing I don't need the number block, but typing text on a left-aligned keyboard "hurts". For me it was even the criteria for having bought a 14" laptop instead of a 15" (ThinkPad). But then I have special requirements. I can understand that for people using arrow keys a lot or entering tons of numbers the extra number block is important. I have seen several times that accountants bought external number blocks because their laptops didn't have it (and I think because in France entering numbers is extra difficult due to the AZERTY layout - you have to press SHIFT for the digits). So it's really about ergonomy due to habits. I think the best would be if vendors would provide several keyboard options - centred, with or without trackpoint, different layouts even in non-US countries (this is something that Lenovo provides for ThinkPads and I am very happy about).
- stormbrew 11y agoI did not say anything about -- nor do I want -- a number block on a laptop.