4 ms·

> they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on paper, but you immediately notice the difference if you

> they've gone from 2.5 mm in the T420 (2011) to 1.5 mm in the T14 G3 (2022). 1 mm doesn't sound like on paper, but you immediately notice the difference if you switch between them Absolutely correct. For context, typical Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switches have a total travel around 4mm. We’re very sensitive to switch height.

rjh29 4y ago
Mechanical keyboard types presumably can't use any laptop keyboard without feeling ill and needing to lie down for a while. The Thinkpad keyboard provides a great typing experience for 99% of people.
- jagger27 4y ago
  Not sure what prompted that kind of snide response. I think most ThinkPad keyboards are lovely to use. All I pointed out is that millimetres and fractions of millimetres are very easy to detect and that the travel difference between the most fancy mechanical switch and even the maligned butterfly switch is only about 3mm. That is to say that travel distance is not the most important metric in what makes a keyboard nice or unpleasant to use.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    It was snide, I apologise. I just found it weird to compare laptop keyboards to mechanical switches since they're never going to be in the same ballpark.
    - lproven 4y ago
      Why not? Why not laptops with mechanical keyboards again? It was basically 100% of laptops from the 1990s for a decade or two. Is choice a bad thing? We can choose OS, we can choose editors and desktops and so on... but if you want a portable computer with 1cm of key travel and a click: well, it sucks to be you, so GTFO and STFU. I detest chiclet keyboards. At some point soon all my decade-old Thinkpads will wear out and everything newer, including Thinkpads, is nasty thin-and-light plastic junk. To quote my favourite Tumblr post ever: https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-dont-want-my-laptop-to-be-the-thinnest-model https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-do... « I don’t WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer. [...] I will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death. » Even the optical drive is negotiable, TBH. But the drive bay would be handy. Give me both SATA and NVMe for a honking great spinning disk.
      - rjh29 4y ago
        I agree with you on most of those points. For keyboard though, by the time you shove a 1cm-high keybed in there, you may as well just carry a thin laptop and a keyboard together connected with USB.
        lproven 4y ago
        Yeah, no. Look at this story: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/you_cannot_buy_software/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/you_cannot_buy_softwa... Rewritten 10 days ago on an intercity coach on a 2009 Thinkpad X220. On its original battery which lasted for the whole trip. Look at this story: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/rust_kernel_pull_request_pulled/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/rust_kernel_pull_requ... Written entirely on a Gemini PDA waiting in a visa biometric testing office. Neither of those are viable places to use an external keyboard. This is not some kind of fantasy hardware. Kit like this was the norm in the 1990s -- full height full travel mechanical keyboards in BUDGET model laptops from good brands -- and it was still doable in Core i7 kit sold in the first decade of this century. Keyboards matter. They are important. Look at any "gamer's keyboard" from the mass market. Full size, full travel, mechanical switches, even backlit. Gamers won't put up with the crappy slimline things that Apple sold and the rest of the PC industry copied, badly. It's only weirdo editor fans who popularise these ridiculously tiny things that don't even have cursor keys. To h3ll with that absurdist obsessive rubbish. Full size, full travel, or GTFO. It's not some weird made up thing; we had this stuff just 10-12 years ago, but the marketing lizards foisted ultraslim junk on us and we swallowed the kool-aid and now everyone thinks laptops were always like this. Even maintainable ones like the Framework.

rjh29 4y ago

Mechanical keyboard types presumably can't use any laptop keyboard without feeling ill and needing to lie down for a while. The Thinkpad keyboard provides a great typing experience for 99% of people.

jagger27 4y ago
Not sure what prompted that kind of snide response. I think most ThinkPad keyboards are lovely to use. All I pointed out is that millimetres and fractions of millimetres are very easy to detect and that the travel difference between the most fancy mechanical switch and even the maligned butterfly switch is only about 3mm. That is to say that travel distance is not the most important metric in what makes a keyboard nice or unpleasant to use.
- rjh29 4y ago
  It was snide, I apologise. I just found it weird to compare laptop keyboards to mechanical switches since they're never going to be in the same ballpark.
  - lproven 4y ago
    Why not? Why not laptops with mechanical keyboards again? It was basically 100% of laptops from the 1990s for a decade or two. Is choice a bad thing? We can choose OS, we can choose editors and desktops and so on... but if you want a portable computer with 1cm of key travel and a click: well, it sucks to be you, so GTFO and STFU. I detest chiclet keyboards. At some point soon all my decade-old Thinkpads will wear out and everything newer, including Thinkpads, is nasty thin-and-light plastic junk. To quote my favourite Tumblr post ever: https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-dont-want-my-laptop-to-be-the-thinnest-model https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-do... « I don’t WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer. [...] I will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death. » Even the optical drive is negotiable, TBH. But the drive bay would be handy. Give me both SATA and NVMe for a honking great spinning disk.
    - rjh29 4y ago
      I agree with you on most of those points. For keyboard though, by the time you shove a 1cm-high keybed in there, you may as well just carry a thin laptop and a keyboard together connected with USB.
      - lproven 4y ago
        Yeah, no. Look at this story: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/you_cannot_buy_software/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/you_cannot_buy_softwa... Rewritten 10 days ago on an intercity coach on a 2009 Thinkpad X220. On its original battery which lasted for the whole trip. Look at this story: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/rust_kernel_pull_request_pulled/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/rust_kernel_pull_requ... Written entirely on a Gemini PDA waiting in a visa biometric testing office. Neither of those are viable places to use an external keyboard. This is not some kind of fantasy hardware. Kit like this was the norm in the 1990s -- full height full travel mechanical keyboards in BUDGET model laptops from good brands -- and it was still doable in Core i7 kit sold in the first decade of this century. Keyboards matter. They are important. Look at any "gamer's keyboard" from the mass market. Full size, full travel, mechanical switches, even backlit. Gamers won't put up with the crappy slimline things that Apple sold and the rest of the PC industry copied, badly. It's only weirdo editor fans who popularise these ridiculously tiny things that don't even have cursor keys. To h3ll with that absurdist obsessive rubbish. Full size, full travel, or GTFO. It's not some weird made up thing; we had this stuff just 10-12 years ago, but the marketing lizards foisted ultraslim junk on us and we swallowed the kool-aid and now everyone thinks laptops were always like this. Even maintainable ones like the Framework.