Why you should give in to the new Thinkpad keyboard

lenovo has a new blog entry:

Change Is Hard: Why You Should Give In to the New ThinkPad Keyboard - Products - Lenovo Blogs

on chicklet:

on 6 row:

from an older blog post, it seems that they've went back on their word:
http://blog.lenovo.com/design/differentiation-of-isolation

thoughts, discussion?

imo the 6 row is the real issue. originally i thought the chicklet would be a disaster, but instead, it actually works quite well. however, the loss of the 7 row really messes up any ability to speedily do text editing with keyboard shortcuts.

 

Well, it's been two years, and much has changed since then. And Lenovo didn't promise to provide us with 7-row keyboards indefinitely.

I do buy their argument for the island-style design; it does look more modern and keeps the typing feel. But they don't really have much of an argument for the loss of the 7-row keyboard, though they do say that one can quickly adapt (which is true). I would normally say it would save vertical space, but it's not really the case on the Tx30 models.

In any case, this issue has been addressed countless times already, so I'll refrain from rehashing all my stances again

 

Funny, when I measured the key caps for my W530 review, they had the same surface area and spacing between the keys. Only the Windows key was bigger on the new keyboard compared to old. As for my opinion on the new keyboard, I'll just copy/paste from my article:

My biggest issue was the loss of the Forward/Back keys, which I use all the time on my W520. Modernization is nice, but I'd rather have function over form (hence why I bought a Thinkpad and not some consumer-class laptop).

 

As for text editing. All those keys still exist, albeit in different locations. Muscle memory will have to be retrained, which is annoying, but I don't see why the new layout is inherently worse in this regard. Of course, it isn't inherently better either. I might have forgiven the next part if it was.

The real problem with the new layout is the keys that have disappeared. Scroll Lock, Back, Fwd, Break, etc have disappeared as dedicated keys, which presents a huge inefficiency to those of us that took advantage of them.

Also, those important missing keys got put onto Fn combos. Annoying. And they also refused to label them. Though muscle memory doesn't need labels, its an insult to those of us that use those keys imho. Or maybe you could look at it as creating a secret society exclusively for people that use the secret functions of their keyboard like a boss.

btw,
Alt + ←/→ does Back/Fwd in most programs. Not as convenient as dedicated keys, but still useful.

 

After reading that article, I only have one thing to say; if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

 

Another "improvement" is now lack of the same, identical, keyboard for desktop use ala 55Y9053. Which was a huge benefit of Lenovo ecosystem: one could switch between desktop and mobile use without looking at the keyboard for shortcuts/cursor navigation keys. Now only Apple has this.

Plus, instead of fixing the "Numlock" issue: Fn+Numpad keys on the main keyboard SHOULD work as numpad keys w/o explicitly switching NumLock, they now broke it fundamentally with all these Fn+P etc. "shortcuts".

All that, merely to remove 6 keys from the keyboard, w/o any significant space savings or larger trackpads. I'm sure some internal Powerpoint reported keyboard improvement by 8%, and got a bonus.

Next iteration of improvement could be removing this old-school Trackpoint, and dedicated PgUp/PgDn/Home/End/Insert. Volume keys, mute etc. can go to. Who needs them? Consumer-grade laptops manage w/o them for generations, right?

 

Hard to believe that Matt Kohut wasn't testing the waters for that type of scenario here:

Time to give up TrackPoint? - Perspectives - Lenovo Blogs

There's no doubt in my mind that the Trackpoint will be the next thing to go. Not that I care anymore, because we already bought our last "new" ThinkPad in this household...

 

Will either the T5x0 or W5x0 series thinkpads ever have a fullsize keyboard (meaning full number pad) someday?

 

Do you mean your last ever? Can I ask why?

 

Welcome to the new Lenovo. Getting to number 1 is job one. Customer feedback be damned.

 

The last one ever, until the keyboard changes are reversed, which is highly unlikely to happen...

So while I was stewing in disbelief over the new keyboard layout, my wife (who started using ThinkPads somewhere around 36x series, long before I came into the picture in any sense of the word... ) ordered a X220T, and that is officially the last "new" ThinkPad that entered this house...

 

Jesus, I've never seen this. The trackpoint is the only reason I still buy Thinkpads. They take that away and there is no stopping me from buying a Samsung or a MacBook

 

I hope not. As this means off-center keyboard and trackpoint and touchpad, making on-the-lap use inconvenient.

 

If they take away the Trackpoint, at least I can leave for HP, Dell, or Toshiba. Sure the EliteBook/Tecra/Latitude trackpoints aren't as good as Thinkpad Trackpoints, but its still several times better than any trackpad can ever hope to be.

This is very different from abandoning the 7row keyboard. There are no laptops that still have the good keyboard layout left, no one to jump ship to.

Also, note about the trackpoint. Other companies still offer them. Which means that they still are required by major customers. Unlike the 7row keyboard which was completely abandoned by everyone else well before Lenovo finally let go of it. I would start getting worried if trackpoints when disappear from Latitudes and EliteBooks.

Generally you do that by listening well to your customers.

And Lenovo does a pretty decent job at listening, the problem is that we aren't the customers that they are interested in. They listen to big institutional buyers, and on the rare occasion that said buyers listen to the actual users, said users are not properly trained to use all the features of their keyboards, thus are fine with having those features being removed. Win for the institutional buyer that gets what they want, win for Lenovo that gets said buyers money, and lose for us who really don't matter to them, despite being some of their biggest fans. Damn, this world sucks.

 

Get rid of the trackpoint????? Are you joking? I use it constantly.

 

The $40 backlit option is undoubdetly very profitable for them. Combine that with savings on the supply side and its easy to see why theyre pushing this. Sucks for us.

Lack of pg back and forward are the biggest downsides along with the lack of texture on the keys.

 

I know the feeling!

I finally gave in to temptation and commented on that blog entry yesterday.

 

I'm not exactly against this. The changes themselves, I can't say I agree with or prefer, though.

If Lenovo tries to claw their way up to number one, then they can pull more strings to get what they want. When they can do that, I figure it will no longer be as risky or relatively less costly to cater to our presumably niche market.

They can't slip their hand as to whether they'll ever come back around to us for the sake solidarity, so one would just have to go on a combination of faith and wishful thinking.

 

The way I see it, such a market will no longer exist, since most of old-time ThinkPad users will be long since gone...

What Lenovo is interested in is converting Mac users to "serious" business machines...although by the time they're done with redesigning ThinkPads they'll be anything but serious business machines...

 

I've used the new keyboard and do like having the backlit option. The chiclet keys feel good and I can get used to that. The layout is a bit odd but I'll get over it.

I would prefer to have the old style, but just backlit.

 

If Lenovo drops the trackpoint, I would have no reason to ever buy another computer from them. That would be suicide for them IMO.

 

what if they got an ultra-great touchpad? i know it's probably not the majority, but i know i've read of lots of people who use the trackpoint as an alternative to the horrible touchpads.

 

and frankly, your comments are ridiculous. "there's now no difference between a TP and any other consumer notebook"? Seriously, because they removed a couple of keys which 98% of users don't actually use? Get over yourself, seriously.

 

Given how bad the X220 clickpad was, if there was no trackpoint, I would have to abandon Lenovo, great ergonomics and supreme reliability have made me a Lenovo customer, take that away, well I might as well go back to Dell. That's how bad the X220 clickpad is, I just disable it and use the trackpoint.

Hopefully the X240 tablet will be better, but I'm not too hopeful.

 

That's what I was thinking. I'm looking at all of that empty space on the new ThinkPads and I'm asking why they absolutely had to get rid of the keys. There's no reason to get rid of that 7th row. All they're doing is losing customers. They've lost one of the things that gave ThinkPads an edge over the competition.

Maybe there was some genius marketing person who said that a standard 7 row keyboard scares away mainstream, macbook customers and that 6 rows are more attractive or something. Forgetting about the sheer ridiculousness of that, why even go for that market with the ThinkPad brand when it's meant for power users? Again, no reason to get rid of the standard 7 rows on your core models for power users. The whole thing smells of trying to attract that consumer market at the expense of people who rely on ThinkPads for their consistency.

 

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, as am I. Try for a little decorum the next time, though.

 

i can't decide if the screen or the trackpad is worse on this t420. scrolling is so crippled it's basically unusable for web pages. i don't like the trackpoint either though, i find my wrist aches more using that than with the pad. i'd like a nice big responsive trackpad without the bottom two mouse buttons which seem redundant. the keyboard issue doesn't bother me though, i'd happily use either style.

 

I added my response as well.

 

I'm fairly certain that I'm the only one who doesn't mind the 6 row layout and actually prefers the new cliclet keyboard....

 

That blog post is up to 81 comments which is pretty high for a Lenovo post. I wonder if this change is going to have a material effect on their bottom line.

 

Even if it does - which I hope it will but am not holding my breath - we'll never find out. Accounting is everything but exact science nowadays...

 

two-finger-scroll - Two finger gestures for Synaptics TouchPads on Windows - Google Project Hosting fixes much of the scrolling issues. What's annoying is that it exists (and works well!) for generations, is piggy-backing on the original Synaptec drivers, and contains maybe 100 lines of relatively straightforward code that isn't a boilerplate. Why can't Symantec/Lenovo/whoever is responsible deliver this reliable scrolling from the beginning?

While I personally much prefer trackpoint (and IBM/Lenovo's in particular is great, compared to the same from Sony, HP and Dells I used) to any kind of touchpad, I just can't see the reason why Thinkpad's touchpad is that bad by default (it can be improved a bit by tweaking the settings). Even single-finger scrolling on the edge of touchpad works more reliably on most other laptops (including Lenovo consumer series) than it does on Thinkpad, and the touchpad hardware is probably the same or better in Thinkpads.

 

i do have that program, and initially it worked perfectly, very responsive and smooth, but for some reason it isn't working anymore. it also only worked vertically. it is odd how the trackpads are so terrible for no explainable or excusable reason, my cheap old acer touchpad was so much better than this junk.

 

You're actually part of the overwhelming majority. Be happy, Lenovo caters to you.

You got that wrong. "Everyone but a (pretty large) subset of Thinkpad enthusiasts and a few power users really like the new keyboard." They did a study with their major customers, said customers users, a few Thinkpad enthusiasts in Japan, and listened to all the reviewer commentary on the new keyboard. And it was mostly very positive.

We traditionalist keyboard lovers are hopelessly outnumbered by people who prefer the new keyboard.

The Thinkpad user community is not the primary buyer of Thinkpads. We have a pretty small effect on their bottom line. It takes hundreds of thousands of us to equal one of their major customers. If they engaged us about what we want out of Thinkpads, that would be stupid market research that would lead to failure.

btw, Menu key is pretty legacy compared to Print Screen. People seem so surprised when I use the Menu key, but nearly PrtSc is used often for screenshots.

This is an example of how engaging the Thinkpad user community would have been stupid market research. It contains a lot of users that are in no way representative of average Thinkpad users. Only a few of us power users would notice that the Menu key disappeared.

It's probably going to have a positive effect on their bottom line. That's probably why they are doing it. Even though I hate their decisions with the direction that Thinkpad is going, it would be stupid not to admit that they are actually pretty good decisions from a business point of view.

As for the Trackpoint and Touchpad.
Everybody. Disable the damn touchpad. The Trackpoint is several times better than the stupid thing, and it really only takes 15-30 minutes to learn. Preach the wonders of the Trackpoint to everyone Thinkpad user you know. Make Trackpoint users the majority again!

 

My only complaint is the lack of menu key, I used to use it all the time and you can still even find it on most consumer grade notebooks. I'm going to try some keyboard mapping programs and see if I can reassing it to Menu and the thinkvantage key to PrtSc

 

I like the new keyboard too, but I miss the page next and back button.

 

@OCM,
you can use Shift + F10 for the menue key.

 

two finger scrolling is working by DEFAULT on my w530

i didnt need to install anything

i was very impressed

 

It would be nice to have a full keyboard as an option, though. Especially for the W530.

 

Amen!

Plus, One of the things holding me back from getting a X2xxT tablet was the lack of a thinklight. I love it on my T410s.
While the backlit option is not as good as the thinklight IMHO, it was a reasonable compromise since the X series tablet was never ever gonna come with a thinklight. Played a big role in helping me decide to go for thr X230T

I am glad someone see things from my perspective. I work with Excel a ton. A full numpad makes a world of difference.

 

I wish they had a USB keyboard with a full numpad. They had one back in the IBM days but no longer

 

With current key sizes there is no space for extra 4 columns of buttons + gap, without making 15" T/W series even larger, even if the speakers are moved elsewhere.

For me, having an external USB numpad on the desk solves the issue much better than squeezing the numpad and placing Enter key into the middle of the keyboard. All is centered and convenient both on the desk and on the lap. The numpad is sub-$10 on ebay.

 

Personally, I normally despise chiclet keys, although I do trust Lenovo engineers with keeping the same feel as the normal 'classic' keyboard. I'd be willing to give that a go.

However, the 6-row layout is just horrid. There's enough physical space on the notebook to keep the layout, so why change it? I use the forward/backward keys on my other ThinkPads quite often, and was pleasantly surprised once they came around in the T4x era. Fact of the matter is that I just don't use Page Up/Down all that often, and the possible typo implications from having them right next to the arrow keys... ergh. From a general use standpoint this defies all logic.

I hate to say it but ever since Lenovo purchased the business from IBM years ago the overall design of these machines entered a slow decline. There have been some things they have done right, but to me the principal reason for owning a ThinkPad was because it was a better-built, better-designed machine than the multitudes of consumer oriented junk on the market. As it stands I'll just get a loaded W520 after my trusty T500 bites the dust and call it a day.

 

I actually think that the "overall design" has improved in most, but not all respects. I've owned most ThinkPads produced at one point or another and my general impression of the Lenovo models thus far is that they're better engineered, about equally-well-built, more durable, and a hell of a lot cheaper. That's a net win in my book.

This is not one of the areas where I think that improvement has occurred though. I dislike the layout change quite a bit, but I'm also not unrealistic enough to think that my use case for the old layout (Magic SysRq) is common. For people like me, yeah, this is a step back.

That said, I do believe that Lenovo did their market research and the blog post is not lying in that regard. They probably *did* do quite a bit of focus groups/studies, etc. The question is whom they sampled and how strongly those sample users cared about layout changes, etc.

And I'll criticize them for removing the TrackPoint when they do. Until then, I'll hold off on the predictions of doom since the last seven years have provided a pretty good indication that us folks in the peanut gallery aren't too great at predicting future product quality.

 

All that said, I can't say that I think that blog post was a great idea, PR-wise. Then again, it's not the first time that the Lenovo Blogs have displayed surprisingly-bad PR sense (remember the post about the T400 keyboards?)

Edit: Awesome. So apparently the new forum software replaces "P R" (without the spaces) with "Google Page Ranking".

Edit 2: I was going to slag "v bSEO" (again without the space), but apparently it expands the first two characters of that too to vBulletin. Even more awesome. Pro tip: turn that garbage off. It's a wonderful way to irritate users.

 

They are pretty ham-handed about things.

 

Agreed. I am leaning towards a W530 for a desktop replacement, and the one thing I don't like about the keyboard is the lack of a full numpad. I personally don't really care about the six vs. seven row layout. I am new to Thinkpads, and I always did fine with six row layouts. Otherwise, the new keyboard sounds fine to me (assuming the reviews are correct in terms of feel and travel, which I love about my x220). In terms of other keyboard features, as long as Lenovo keeps the nub, I will be happy. I could care less about a backlit keyboard since the ThinkLight(?) above is overall superior.

 

Chiclet, 6 rows, and no forward/back keys? I was down to keyboard and TrackPoint being my sole reasons for sticking with Lenovo... and now I'm down to TrackPoint. I'm not sure if that one reason will justify me sticking with them the next time I upgrade. Oh well, like others said, we aren't the majority or Lenovo's target audience.

 

I don't mind switching to chiclet keyboard at all, in fact I welcome it, however departing from the 7 row keyboard layout is outright criminal, why can't they take it one step at a time, switch to chiclet now but retaining the 7 row layout and keep the colored keys? I have a T410 and T420 right now, will receive my T430 in a week or so time, maybe I'll keep my older machines a little longer.

 

Holy Upgrade, Batman. From T410 to T420, soon to T430. Could you tell us your thought process about going that route? If my T61 died today I'd get a refurb T420. Are you wearing them out or is there a logical improvement from one to the next? Thanks.