ThinkPlus USB travel keyboard with UltraNav

Hi,

Being mildly obsessed with keyboards, I've been wanting to get one of these for some time. However, I've just discovered that Lenovo sources their Thinkpad keyboards from 3 different manufacturers: Chicony, NMB and Alps, with NMB considered the best. Is the situation the same with their their standalone USB keyboards? If not, which manufacturer would it be then?

Thanks in Advance

 

Any ideas?

 

Does it have to be a travel keyboard, or are you just looking for an external keyboard to use at your desk? If you're looking for an external keyboard, they don't get any better than the IBM Model M. You can buy brand-new ones at http://www.pckeyboard.com (they're called "Customizers", though) or used ones at http://www.clickykeyboards.com. Alternatively, thrift stores and computer parts stores sometimes have them, and in that case, you can remove all the key caps and clean the entire thing yourself.

 

Yeah I'm well aware of Model M's. In fact, I almost bought an original (but new!) from clickykeyboards.com. May still do so, in fact. In the meantime I stumbled on this:

http://www.neotec.co.jp/syouhin/key/junk/northgate/evolution.html

This site sitting in google's cache is the best compendium of images I've found:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache...+evolution+keyboard&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=14&gl=au

Which I got here for the best price I could find:

http://www.c-techsys.com/products.html

It's nice and clicky. Uses Alps switches, which I understand are somewhat lighter than the buckling spring mechanism. I was quite surprised by the key travel - I expected something typewriter-like, but it's not very long at all. VERY heavy. It's not contoured, but the 2 halves are separated just enough so that my hands have to move a lot less than even on the MS Natural 4000. If I had slightly wider shoulders, then the keys would align perfectly with my hands, but it's pretty good as it is. The touchpad and cursor block in the middle mean I don't have to use a mouse and can use the left hand for navigation (my right hand was killing me from mousing, reaching for backspace, moving the cursor keys...)


If 1 keyboard is good, 2 must be better, and 3 even more so... and so on. Induction, I think. I still want a ThinkPad-like standalone keyboard. I'm working on the premise that there will always be strain on my hands and wrists, but the frequency may be spread around by rotating my input devices. This way no specific spot is strained too much.

 

Any luck with this? Did you try the ThinkPlus USB travel keyboard? Have just come across this model and think it might just hit the sweet spot - since it means my desktop and Thinkpad would then have the same keyboard layout.

 

I just picked up the "full-size" USB UltraNav keyboard today, attached it to my desktop computer and it's...remarkably like typing on a ThinkPad keyboard. I'm not sure exactly if they source out the detached UltraNav keyboards (both Travel and Full-sized) from the same parts as they do ThinkPads. The UltraNav functions work just fine in Vista, after installing the drivers and utility.

 

Although the USB keyboard with UltraNav is an interesting idea, you won't find me giving up my Model M anytime soon for it!

 

If you don't mind me asking, what's so great about a Model M keyboard?

 

The keys' responsive feel as you type.