Is there Thinkpad 14" with this kind of keyboard arrangement?

Is there Thinkpad 14" with this kind of keyboard arrangement?




I'm working as a programmer and I often type Arrow keys followed with END key, and I found out that the thinkpad keyboard has END key put on far away from the Arrow key:




If you see the first picture, the END key is just beside the Up Arrow key. The position of END key is very convenient for me.

Is there Thinkpad model that has this kind of keyboard layout?

 

No, there is no ThinkPad with such a (crappy) layout.

 

Crappy? Why?

 

Because this is absolutly non-standard, even more non-standard than the current 6-row layout. I hope they will never bring up a layout like this in ThinkPads. There are enough Notebooks with this layout on the market.

 

What do you mean by non-standard? The whole layout or the END key position? My concern is only the END key position that's too far from Arrow keys.


I saw many new lenovo thinkpads (even the Thinkpad Twist) has FN button at the left of CTRL button. But I also saw Thinkpad Twist with CTRL at left of FN. Does lenovo release a unit with two types of keyboard?

 

The hole "row right from enter" thing.

Thats standard on every ThinkPad.

No.

 

I don't get it. Did you mean the last button column (Delete, Home, PgUp, PgDn, End, Right Arrow) ?


Ah, I made a mistake before. The picture that I saw which has CTRL at left of FN is IdeaPad Yoga.

Oh, that's a pity. I had bad experience with FN - CTRL layout. I wish lenovo will release CTRL - FN version someday for the thinkpads.

 

The picture you shows with the home and end on the right of the enter key is a non-standard keyboard layout. Take a look at the keyboard on the T420. it is a 14" with a standard keyboard layout.

You can swap the Fn and CTRL keys on a ThinkPad. Lenovo realized that having Fn on the left was bothersome to users coming from other brands.

 

And by this, he means you can swap it in the BIOS.

Sidenote: If you're a developer, you should be using Ctrl+PgUp/PgDwn combinations way more than an "end" button. Lenovo really has perfected the programmers keyboard (and pretty much the laptop). If the X1 Carbon keyboard doesn't work for you, I'd be hard pressed to teach you how to use it better. What exactly is an "End" key used for?

 

Did you mean the "standard" means the standard in Thinkpad lines, not from whole laptop perspective?

I see that T420 keyaboard layout has more resemblance to PC keyboard (F-key grouping, home-end-pgup-pgdn position, except the FN key). Unfortunately I didn't born at that golden age so I have not had a chance to try the keyboard.

Alright, that sounds cool

What's Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn used for?

Have you ever use Eclipse IDE or Visual Studio?

What else? To move cursor to the end of line

If you read carefully my first post, the END key function is related to the Arrow keys. I often use Arrow keys to move up/down a line (using Up/Down arrow) or move left/right a character (using Left/Right arrow). For faster way, I also use CTRL+Left/Right Arrow to move left/right a word.

So what's the use of END key? Look at this example:

1. I have this piece of code:

Code:

		for (String key : prop.stringPropertyNames()) {    // Line 50
			String value = prop.getProperty(key);      // Line 51
                                                                   // Line 52
		}                                                  // Line 53

2. I want to add a new line between Line 50 and 51. Let's say, my cursor is happened at at line 53, at the right of "}" character.
3. What do I do to achieve my goal? I press Up arrow 3 times to go to Line 50 (why don't use mouse or trackpad or trackpoint? Mouse? Duh, that's too far. Trackpad? it's slippy. Trackpoint? I don't have it ).
4. Ok, I'm at Line 50 now (phew). Now to create a new line below Line 50, I have to go to the end of Line 50 by pressing the...END (yes, you got it now right?).
5. And finally I press the ENTER key :hi2:

 

You can remap keys as you want. Personally I have my Back/Fwd (PgUp/Dn in the new keyboards) as Hm/End.

In the new keyboard, you would probably want to put PgUp/Dn back where Hm/end used to be so you don't lose them.

 

Used in Chrome, FireFox, Ubuntu and most IDE's I've worked with to cycle between tabs. It's very useful for moving quickly between files.

Haven't used either in about 5 years. I'm a SublimeText2 person (but if I was developing Java I'd be right there with you in Eclipse).

I have custom Beginning/End of Line commands programmed in ST2. What I would do if I was you is set shift+pgup and shift+pgdown to Home/End. That way your hands don't have to travel, and you can still utilize quick tab switching with Ctrl+PgUp/PgDown. Of course just a suggestion

 

That keyboard layout was designed by programmers for programmers. The grouping of Delete, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn, along with the function keys are a programmers dream. That's when keyboards were designed for user experience rather than fitting it in a smaller form factor as you see on new laptops.

Lenovo made the change to the newer layout just recently.

 

DId you mean using 3rd party software like MapKeyboard? That sounds a good idea.

Oh, it's same in eclipse. Never realize that

Is Sublime Text2 a vim based text editor? I had used vi/vim before, it's kinda hard for me whom is coming from windows environment, but I understand it's quite powerful to make your hands stay on keyboard. It's just that I never had a chance to get exposure from it. My jobs always deal with IDE such as eclipse and visual studio.

I understand that. IBM is IT vendor, while Lenovo is consumer electronics manufacturer. They have different mindsets.

Do you know why IBM sold Think brands to Lenovo? I thought Thinkpads sold well and gave much profit to IBM.

 

PCs are a low-margin commodity. It's no longer worth IBM's time. This is more evident if Dell's and HPs performance as of late. US PC manufacturers are doing horribly.

 

Low margin commodity? I thought thinkpad is a premium product. Currently, only thinkpad is the best contender to apple's macbook.

According to this:
Best & Worst Laptop Brands 2012: Overall Scorecard
HP scored at 3rd position. Not bad.

 

Although this may be true, the PC business is definitely low-profit-margin (particularly in comparison to, say, mainframes and servers), and has grown more so in the past decade. IBM was never successful at turning a large profit on the Think division, so it wisely sold the division to Lenovo. Lenovo, a company built with the value network for PCs in mind, was able to turn the Think division into a very profitable venture.

 

I'm assuming your programming Java/.Net... so I'm not sure how fitting sublimetext2 would do for you. Doesn't have built in debugging, just a SOLID text editor. I was an emacs boy, had played in Vi.. wasn't much for full fledged IDE's, I'm a web developer.

Now I'm running HTML/CSS/Javascript/Perl/Node.JS daily through ST2 and I can't imagine developing in another environment. If you ever get to this side of the world, you must check it out: Sublime Text: The text editor you'll fall in love with

 

Yes, I'm java developer. How do you debug with only text editor ? Do you use function alert() or echo or someting like that in the source code?

Sublime Text looks worth to try, but unfortunately it's not free.

 

Assuming Windows, you can change registry keys to remap keys. There are also programs that will do it for you if you don't want to mess with registry yourself.

As whole, PC manufacturing is a very low margin business.