10 ms·

I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. The trackpad is even off to the left to accommodate it. I'm not a fan of symmetry for symmetry's sake, but I d

I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. The trackpad is even off to the left to accommodate it. I'm not a fan of symmetry for symmetry's sake, but I do think some affordances for the human body might be a good idea. How do southpaws enjoy this keyboard setup? The ergonomics of laptops are bad enough without stuff like this.

yumraj 5y ago
>The trackpad is even off to the left to accommodate it. Yes, that is the first thing I notice. Any laptop with an off-center trackpad goes in the do-not-buy list.
- unicornporn 5y ago
  Same here. Saw the lead image with and immediately thought: no buy. No fancy specs in the world can make me accept bad ergonomics.
  - lincolnq 5y ago
    I’d expect that the ergo costs of using a laptop at all (short key travel, screen down from eye level) would swamp the additional cost of having the keyboard off center. After all, you can just crane your neck down and sideways instead of just down :). Seriously, anyone using a laptop full time for work (who cares about ergo) should invest in an external keyboard and monitor.
    - yumraj 5y ago
      > Seriously, anyone using a laptop full time for work (who cares about ergo) should invest in an external keyboard and monitor. FWIW, I’ve been using a 15” MBP as my primary dev/work machine for over a decade and I’ve just become used to it. Tried external monitor, keyboard a few times, but it just doesn’t work for me anymore. I mostly run in high res mode, as opposed to the scaled default mode and it works well. This is also why the 13” laptops are not an option for me, am eagerly waiting for the 16” MBP fingers crossed.
    - mrinterweb 5y ago
      It sounds like you're advocating for a desktop system. I usually dock my laptop, but I do like the flexibility of detaching and sitting on the couch. When I'm using my laptop, as a laptop, I like to feel comfortable. To me numpads on laptops have negative value.
- istingray 5y ago
  Same here. I imagine hating it every time I open the laptop.
caslon 5y ago
Southpaw here! I'd never buy a laptop without a number pad. The track pad being off-center is also good. Gaming? 78462 make for the best movement, and the number pad also has seven non-numerical buttons to bind things to. It also puts your index finger right next to lENTER, which is so useful for games that make use of it. Programming? Bind the buttons to commonly-used UNIX programs to make for a better IDE than an IDE. Calculating? So nice to have an ergonomic numerical input.
- albertgoeswoof 5y ago
  Yes the numpad comes in useful when I’m calculating all day
  - luc_ 5y ago
    irony over text..?
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    If you were a real hacker you'd use it for playing roguelikes in the terminal.
    - suprfsat 5y ago
      hjklyubn
      - viraptor 5y ago
        That would take over the usual [k]ick, [l]ook, etc.
    - pmontra 5y ago
      Yeah, that was the last time I used a keypad. I really hate mine. I don't have a use case for it and because of it I have to slide the laptop to the right, to align the keyboard with my vertical axis of symmetry. I understand that many people need it and many others don't. I wish manufacturers had an option for keyboards without the number pad. I'd pay an extra for it.
Klonoar 5y ago
>I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. You and many others probably know this, but figure it's helpful context for others who might stumble through this thread: it's not necessarily all on System76 as to why that shell is used, since the shells themselves are (IIRC) rebranded Clevo shells still. i.e I would suspect they're making use of what they can reasonably acquire to sell. (The offset aspect would drive me mad as well)
jjoonathan 5y ago
I love numeric keypads. I don't have to type in big chunks of numbers very often (OCR and GPIB go a long way) but when I do, numeric pads make me hate life a lot less.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  I prefer the hidden one. https://www.dummies.com/computers/pcs/the-hidden-numeric-keypad-on-your-laptop/ https://www.dummies.com/computers/pcs/the-hidden-numeric-key...
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    I've never been able to get comparable ergonomics out of these. Maybe I just haven't been forced to use them enough -- or maybe the increased travel distance really does matter. I could see it going either way.
- stavros 5y ago
  I have a custom keyboard I designed, and I configured it so that the tilde key turns the right-hand side into a numpad (ie the yuiohjkl etc keys). It's great, no need for extra unused buttons and very convenient to use (as the left hand is typically not used when typing on the num pad).
  - kej 5y ago
    I used to have a Sony laptop like this, where NumLock turned the uiojkl keys into 456123, so you could use them (along with 789 above them) as a number pad. It was a clever design and I wish more laptops offered it.
    - innocenat 5y ago
      I thought almost all laptop before 2010 is like this though. It was normal back in the day.
overgard 5y ago
Might just be a personal preference, I have two laptops (one of them a system 76) with numpads because I highly prefer having them. Macbook keyboards without them really annoy me. Obviously peoples mileage will vary.
folli 5y ago
TIL that left-handers are also called southpaws.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  It comes from baseball. Southpaw pitchers have an advantage
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    I thought it was from boxing?
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      I am corrected. The usual story is that is is about pitchers, but the timeline is wrong. The first official baseball game is cited as in 1846, with "southpaw" occurring in 1848 already referring to boxing.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        Cool, thanks for confirming (i.e. doing my research for me :-).
syshum 5y ago
I buy 15in Laptops specifically for the 10 key num pad. I type on my keyboard all day offset with no issues.
lathiat 5y ago
As this thread is highlighting, in my experience there are two kinds of keyboard users. Those that love their numberpad, and those that never use it. There seems to rarely be people in the middle. On desktops it mostly doesn't matter because you can shift the keyboard over relative to the screen. On laptops this translates into people completely loathing or loving the laptop entirely :) Personally in the never use it camp, and hate these offset laptops. Sometimes its because people do a lot of number data entry spreadsheet style, I can understand that case a little more, however even people that mostly type text I've seen for example will like to enter IP addresses on the number pad for no obvious reason. God speed IPv6 adoption :) On the other hand laptops are terrible for ergonomics and daily usage anyway, it's unfortunately we've moved so far into laptops from desktops and it doesn't seem so common to dock them and use an external keyboard.. to my feeling mostly because the screen ends up being too small once you push it back to use an external keyboard so then you need an external monitor and the cost and complexity goes up.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  I think a lot of people just haven't learned to touch-type the top number row. It was required for me to graduate to the 6th grade in 2002 to get at least 35 WPM / 90% accuracy on the typing test, and there were a bunch of numbers in there so using the type row naturally was an important part of this. I suspect people who have had similar experiences would never use the numpad. The context switch alone causes huge amounts of downtime.
  - trashtester 5y ago
    For me it's the other way. I have no issues embedding nubers in the touch typing when typing normal text, but if there are only numbers, accuracy will go down, unless I bring my center down to the asdf line, which slows me down a lot. I also did practice my musscle memory for the numpad in a similar way to touch as part of typing scientific data (back in the 90s). After a couple of weeks of that, my speed on the numpad would be at least twice as high as when typing numbers on the main keyboard. Also, accuracy was high enough that I could reliably trust the output even when not looking at the result (very close to 100%), which is critical for many use cases that involve numbers. Even if I spend 99% of my time on the regular keyboard now, if I have to spend more than 5mins typing only numbers, I will feel really frustrated without a numpad. Then again, I tend to use the laptop keyboards quite little anyway, mostly only while travelling or when in a meeting room. In the office, there is a dock and at home I use a desktop.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
Agree, it's easy to carry around a plug-in numeric keypad if you really need one.
alias_neo 5y ago
I don't own a single keyboard with a numpad, it's utterly useless as a left-handed person. All of my mechs are TKL or less. I built a numpad once but found I'm so used to not having one, even positioned on the left, it wasn't much use.

yumraj 5y ago

>The trackpad is even off to the left to accommodate it. Yes, that is the first thing I notice. Any laptop with an off-center trackpad goes in the do-not-buy list.

unicornporn 5y ago
Same here. Saw the lead image with and immediately thought: no buy. No fancy specs in the world can make me accept bad ergonomics.
- lincolnq 5y ago
  I’d expect that the ergo costs of using a laptop at all (short key travel, screen down from eye level) would swamp the additional cost of having the keyboard off center. After all, you can just crane your neck down and sideways instead of just down :). Seriously, anyone using a laptop full time for work (who cares about ergo) should invest in an external keyboard and monitor.
  - yumraj 5y ago
    > Seriously, anyone using a laptop full time for work (who cares about ergo) should invest in an external keyboard and monitor. FWIW, I’ve been using a 15” MBP as my primary dev/work machine for over a decade and I’ve just become used to it. Tried external monitor, keyboard a few times, but it just doesn’t work for me anymore. I mostly run in high res mode, as opposed to the scaled default mode and it works well. This is also why the 13” laptops are not an option for me, am eagerly waiting for the 16” MBP fingers crossed.
  - mrinterweb 5y ago
    It sounds like you're advocating for a desktop system. I usually dock my laptop, but I do like the flexibility of detaching and sitting on the couch. When I'm using my laptop, as a laptop, I like to feel comfortable. To me numpads on laptops have negative value.
istingray 5y ago
Same here. I imagine hating it every time I open the laptop.

caslon 5y ago

Southpaw here! I'd never buy a laptop without a number pad. The track pad being off-center is also good. Gaming? 78462 make for the best movement, and the number pad also has seven non-numerical buttons to bind things to. It also puts your index finger right next to lENTER, which is so useful for games that make use of it. Programming? Bind the buttons to commonly-used UNIX programs to make for a better IDE than an IDE. Calculating? So nice to have an ergonomic numerical input.

albertgoeswoof 5y ago
Yes the numpad comes in useful when I’m calculating all day
- luc_ 5y ago
  irony over text..?
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  If you were a real hacker you'd use it for playing roguelikes in the terminal.
  - suprfsat 5y ago
    hjklyubn
    - viraptor 5y ago
      That would take over the usual [k]ick, [l]ook, etc.
  - pmontra 5y ago
    Yeah, that was the last time I used a keypad. I really hate mine. I don't have a use case for it and because of it I have to slide the laptop to the right, to align the keyboard with my vertical axis of symmetry. I understand that many people need it and many others don't. I wish manufacturers had an option for keyboards without the number pad. I'd pay an extra for it.

Klonoar 5y ago

>I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. You and many others probably know this, but figure it's helpful context for others who might stumble through this thread: it's not necessarily all on System76 as to why that shell is used, since the shells themselves are (IIRC) rebranded Clevo shells still. i.e I would suspect they're making use of what they can reasonably acquire to sell. (The offset aspect would drive me mad as well)

jjoonathan 5y ago

I love numeric keypads. I don't have to type in big chunks of numbers very often (OCR and GPIB go a long way) but when I do, numeric pads make me hate life a lot less.

Koshkin 5y ago
I prefer the hidden one. https://www.dummies.com/computers/pcs/the-hidden-numeric-keypad-on-your-laptop/ https://www.dummies.com/computers/pcs/the-hidden-numeric-key...
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  I've never been able to get comparable ergonomics out of these. Maybe I just haven't been forced to use them enough -- or maybe the increased travel distance really does matter. I could see it going either way.
stavros 5y ago
I have a custom keyboard I designed, and I configured it so that the tilde key turns the right-hand side into a numpad (ie the yuiohjkl etc keys). It's great, no need for extra unused buttons and very convenient to use (as the left hand is typically not used when typing on the num pad).
- kej 5y ago
  I used to have a Sony laptop like this, where NumLock turned the uiojkl keys into 456123, so you could use them (along with 789 above them) as a number pad. It was a clever design and I wish more laptops offered it.
  - innocenat 5y ago
    I thought almost all laptop before 2010 is like this though. It was normal back in the day.

overgard 5y ago

Might just be a personal preference, I have two laptops (one of them a system 76) with numpads because I highly prefer having them. Macbook keyboards without them really annoy me. Obviously peoples mileage will vary.

folli 5y ago

TIL that left-handers are also called southpaws.

ncmncm 5y ago
It comes from baseball. Southpaw pitchers have an advantage
- CRConrad 5y ago
  I thought it was from boxing?
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    I am corrected. The usual story is that is is about pitchers, but the timeline is wrong. The first official baseball game is cited as in 1846, with "southpaw" occurring in 1848 already referring to boxing.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Cool, thanks for confirming (i.e. doing my research for me :-).

syshum 5y ago

I buy 15in Laptops specifically for the 10 key num pad. I type on my keyboard all day offset with no issues.

lathiat 5y ago

As this thread is highlighting, in my experience there are two kinds of keyboard users. Those that love their numberpad, and those that never use it. There seems to rarely be people in the middle. On desktops it mostly doesn't matter because you can shift the keyboard over relative to the screen. On laptops this translates into people completely loathing or loving the laptop entirely :) Personally in the never use it camp, and hate these offset laptops. Sometimes its because people do a lot of number data entry spreadsheet style, I can understand that case a little more, however even people that mostly type text I've seen for example will like to enter IP addresses on the number pad for no obvious reason. God speed IPv6 adoption :) On the other hand laptops are terrible for ergonomics and daily usage anyway, it's unfortunately we've moved so far into laptops from desktops and it doesn't seem so common to dock them and use an external keyboard.. to my feeling mostly because the screen ends up being too small once you push it back to use an external keyboard so then you need an external monitor and the cost and complexity goes up.

sam0x17 5y ago
I think a lot of people just haven't learned to touch-type the top number row. It was required for me to graduate to the 6th grade in 2002 to get at least 35 WPM / 90% accuracy on the typing test, and there were a bunch of numbers in there so using the type row naturally was an important part of this. I suspect people who have had similar experiences would never use the numpad. The context switch alone causes huge amounts of downtime.
- trashtester 5y ago
  For me it's the other way. I have no issues embedding nubers in the touch typing when typing normal text, but if there are only numbers, accuracy will go down, unless I bring my center down to the asdf line, which slows me down a lot. I also did practice my musscle memory for the numpad in a similar way to touch as part of typing scientific data (back in the 90s). After a couple of weeks of that, my speed on the numpad would be at least twice as high as when typing numbers on the main keyboard. Also, accuracy was high enough that I could reliably trust the output even when not looking at the result (very close to 100%), which is critical for many use cases that involve numbers. Even if I spend 99% of my time on the regular keyboard now, if I have to spend more than 5mins typing only numbers, I will feel really frustrated without a numpad. Then again, I tend to use the laptop keyboards quite little anyway, mostly only while travelling or when in a meeting room. In the office, there is a dock and at home I use a desktop.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

Agree, it's easy to carry around a plug-in numeric keypad if you really need one.

alias_neo 5y ago

I don't own a single keyboard with a numpad, it's utterly useless as a left-handed person. All of my mechs are TKL or less. I built a numpad once but found I'm so used to not having one, even positioned on the left, it wasn't much use.