New ThinkPad Wireless Keyboard

Ordered April 1, ship date pushed to April 15, now ship date delayed indefinitely but estimated "within 30 days"

Anyone else having issues?

Lenovo really needs to make the whole purchasing experience a LOT better if they want to cater more towards consumers.

 

Cancel the order and walk away.

 

My ship date got pushed back from 04/30 to 05/01.

 

Cost Central is anything but sketchy. Order with confidence. They also have the wireless one listed, $68.73. Both out of stock.

Lenovo THINKPAD COMPACT BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD WITH TRACKPOINT (0B47189) - Keyboards

 

so anyone received their new thinkpad keyboard ?

review please

 

Mine is supposed to be here tomorrow and signature is required. Good thing I don't work tomorrow.

 

I'm typing this from my new Lenovo Compact Bluetooth Keyboard. UPS dropped it off this morning, but I had to run some errands and mow the lawn. Plus, I wanted to let it charge a bit before using it. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the unit. The unit feels very well made, much better than the ThinkPad USB keyboard I had recently, which felt a little flimsy. It's incredibly light, coming in just over 14 ounces. Compared to the IOGear wireless keyboard I had, which is a pound and a half, it's noticeably lighter. It's also a considerably smaller than my old keyboard.

Typing on the keyboard is good. The spacing is a slightly off right now, but that'll come. It's a bit more shallow than your typical ThinkPad, but the action is good and it feels good to type on. Typing on it sort of reminds me of the X1 Carbon keyboard. I easily swapped out the standard trackpoint cap for the soft rim cap, which is my preferred cap, without issue. Scrolling is smooth, which is good because the PC I'm using is an HD resolution screen. I bought a Bluetooth dongle on eBay for a couple bucks. Pairing the two worked was a piece of cake. My old keyboard was RF and occasionally would drop out for a few seconds, but that doesn't seem to be an issue here, and I can plug the dongle in the back of the PC so it's out of sight. There's a downloadable driver on Lenovo's web site for the keyboard. It gives you the some of the OSDs you'd get with a ThinkPad like volume for example, but that also means you've got to hit fn to get any of the function row keys. The driver also gives you a tab in the mouse properties with various settings.

I do have a few issues with the keyboard. It doesn't seem the keyboard pairs when booting. It's probably not a huge problem because I almost never turn off the PC I'm using with the keyboard, but I probably wouldn't buy one for my other PCs, which I usually power down when I'm done with them. My phone and car pair without prompt, but not here. I don't know, maybe there's a way to do it, but I don't know how. There's no multimedia buttons, which would be nice for a HTPC. A backlight would have made it even better, but I guess you can't have it all. The keyboard uses a rechargeable battery instead of disposables, which I'd prefer. Lastly, the trackpoint is off a bit. I would describe it as loopy. If you go too fast, it tends to overshoot its destination, but if you go slow, it's annoying. It definitely feels different than my R60e or X220i. I'm hoping I can tweak it to make it more like those, but haven't made it there yet.

If you like ThinkPad keyboards and don't mind that it's on the expensive side for an external keyboard, the Compact bluetooth keyboard is a solid choice. It's light and compact, well made, offers a good typing experience and connects easily. The positives outweigh the negatives for most users I think.

 

According to the manual ( http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/options/0b58442_tp_compact_usb_bt_kb_en.pdf ), Fn+Esc aka Fn+Lock should deal with this. Does it work? Is there any indicator of the state? Does the Fn+Lock state change survive reboots?

 

Yeah I did see that later. I also figured out why the stick was goofy. It was the cap. Either it wasn't on right or the it's not compatible with other ThinkPad caps. I'd guess the former, but when swapped back in the old cap, it works fine. I'll try again with the soft rim later today. This product is an absolute winner in my book, if a bit expensive.

 

Do you think your issue with the keyboard not pairing on boot is related to the bluetooth dongle you are using?

 

It might very well be. I don't know enough about Bluetooth and how it works to make to an informed conclusion. For the most part the connection works fine, but every once in a while it'll get very lethargic, particularly on flash heavy website.

My other issue with it is it'll work fine for a while, but then will get loopy. When it does it if I take my hand off the stick, it'll just keep going to the other side of the screen. I'm not sure what's causing. I'll probably call Lenovo support and see what they have to say about it.

 

Lenovo is going to replace my keyboard under warranty. Hopefully, I just got a bad one and it's not a larger issue. We'll see when the new one gets here.

 

damn my Bluetooth keyboard is also having the same issue with the delayed response in key presses. My new one coming on Monday, i pray to the almighty that this one won't have any issues.

P.S. also the keyboard doesn't have the same sort of tactility as the ThinkPad USB keyboard with trackpoint of the old, probably it is not reinforced properly.

 

The USB keyboard appeared to be kind of cheap by comparison I thought. The new one feels pretty solid.

 

@ZaZ

How is the new Thinkpad compact bluetooth working out?

I am trying to decide between the older model USB keyboard ( Amazon.com: ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint: Electronics)

and the new bluetooth model that you have.

What is your opinion?

 

I'm waiting on the replacement. It feels solid, better than the one you linked, but the trackpoint is goofy. Hopefully the new one will work better. We'll see when I get it.

 

Edit: Delete post.

 

@Zaz,
have you received your replacement already? Is the problem with the TrackPoint gone or also present?

 

I got the new ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth keyboard and the new ThinkPad Compact USB keyboard. I have to say that the Bluetooth keyboard's trackpoint are borderline useless, it takes lot more efforts to get use to it, the sensitivity is really poor. The ThinkPad Compact USB keyboard's trackpoint is really where the keyboard shines, the trackpoint sensitivity is about right (similar to the thinkpad keyboard)..

Also, the USB keyboard has the same great build quality as the Bluetooth version.

 

When it got to be three weeks, I decided to call and return it. It had been a couple weeks since I called support and they agreed to replace the keyboard, but I hadn't heard anything from them. I didn't want to get stuck with a $75 keyboard that didn't work properly.

Last week the replacement keyboard showed up, which I also sent back. I tested it out and it was better than the first, but still had a tendency to keep going when I took my finger off the trackpoint. It's really a shame. The keyboard seemed well built and was light/small. That was exactly what I wanted.

 

Hopefully the issues with the Thinkpad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard will be fixed soon. Anyone received a good set yet without any problems?

 

i got 5 ThinkPad Bluetooth Compact keyboard so far, and all of them have this issue with the trackpoint been unresponsive (USB version is okay). So i guess this has to do with the design of the bluetooth keyboard.

 

Why is the Thinkpad Compact USB version not listed on the US website? It only shows the Bluetooth & French/Canadian version.

 

can share where u get those usb version?

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

 

I just got it from Lenovo Australia website.

Here is a brief review if anyone is interested in it.

ThinkPad Compact Keyboard Review - Lenovo Community

 

Resurrecting this thread to see if Lenovo's managed to fix the flakey trackpoint on the bluetooth version of the keyboard. Has anyone bought one recently?

 

I moved the receiver from the back of my HTPC to the front and it largely fixed the issue. It's a great HTPC keyboard. If it had a back light, it'd be perfect.