Top positive review
7 people found this helpful
Typing feel is amazing. A must if you cannot stand shallow, mushy laptop keyboards
By Jimmaaay on Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2016
Overall, a wonderful feeling keyboard with some minor quirks. I got this keyboard mainly because the keyboard on my lenovo laptop was extremely shallow (felt reasonably ok, but I'm a guy that bangs on his keys, I need at least 2mm of travel) and because of that, I was making constant errors--my backspace key was starting to feel spongy after only about a year's worth of usage. I've always had a fondness for thinkpads mainly because of their keyboards and their trackpoint, and thus, even though this bad boy was a bit on the pricey side, I bit the bullet and bought this. It's the price you pay if you want a trackpoint. Yes, at this price you could buy a good used mechanical keyboard, but if you're like me and love trackpoints and find that they speed up your workflow, well you don't have much choice--but even then, this is no compromise. Let me start with my complaints about the keyboard: 1) default drivers are more or less useless: I can't fine tune the sensitivity of the trackpoint (its a bit on the high effort side for me, more than I'm used to on an old thinkpad keyboard I had). 2) can't get the middle mouse button to work normally. This one I can't figure out. Normally (on thinkpads) you press the middle mouse button, and it will either scroll lock or open a link in a new tab. If you hold the mouse button, it will allow you to scroll with the trackpoint. I can't get it to function like this. I can only get the middle mouse button to do scroll lock and open in new tab.I have to be doing something wrong. 3) Layout is a bit odd --I guess if you're familiar with the new thinkpad keyboard layout, its more than acceptable, but for those of us not, it can be odd. On old thinkpad keyboards, right next to the arrow keys, there were previous page and next page buttons. They have been replaced with PgUp and PgDn keys. I would prefer if they were the prev/next page buttons. Not a deal breaker, but annoying for me. 4) mouse buttons are bit mushy feeling; not horrible, but could be better. Oh well. 5) could use a palm rest. Not a deal breaker, easily fixed, but I would like a real palmrest. Now the good: The good far outweighs the bad for me: 1) the feel: why I bought this thing in the first place. The best way I can describe it is very Thinkpad-like. Very authoritative. When you press on a key, it feels like you are pressing on something larger than a key. Every keystroke feels like you're launching a nuke. It feels important, you feel in charge. There is this "in charge" feeling I get with this keyboard and in every thinkpad keyboard. When you press on a key, it is extremely tactile. You feel a strong bump, and this bump can be felt throughout the key's fairly long (at least by today's standards) key travel. Effort feels linearlike, without being linear. Difficult to describe properly. It just feels "right". This might sound like it'd make for tiring typing but not at all: It is extremely comfortable and actuation force is light. You can hammer on keys nonstop and it feels comfortable. Keys are light enough to make typing easy, but not so light that you accidentally hit the wrong keys. 2) pleasant experience typing on it: I find that compared to my lenovo's keyboard, this thinkpad keyboard lets me type at least 15 wpm faster. I am also more accurate typer because I can feel every keystroke because there is just such good feedback. The keys are super comfortable. Nicely spaced out, and concave. Very easy to type on. I make very few errors now because the keys are just so good. Keys are also quiet, very silent despite their long key travel. This is good if you work in an office type environment. But the sound isn't too bad, sounds better than most scissor switch keyboards. 3) looks nice; feels reasonably well built. It does flex in certain locations, but only if you press really hard. I can't notice it flexing when I'm typing, and I bang hard on my keys. keys feel durable, like they will withstand years of abuse. Overall, very happy with my new keyboard. Highly recommend despite the high price. But if you don't like trackpoints, then maybe look for a different, cheaper keyboard. But if you like the trackpoint, then this keyboard is worth every dollar.
Top critical review
10 people found this helpful
Hasn't Lenovo ever heard, "Don't fix it if it ain't broke"?
By Zot on Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2015
I got this because I wanted to see if I could get used to the new Thinkpad keyboard layout. I have used Thinkpads since 2002 and several years ago bought an IBM USB keyboard with "Ultranav," which includes trackpoint like the Thinkpads, so that I could use trackpoint on my desktop as well. Then Lenovo took over, and apparently the team responsible for Thinkpad keyboards decided they needed to make their touchpad big like everyone else's, and redesigned the keyboard layout as a result. I can say after using it at work it was a really stupid decision. The first Thinkpad keyboard I used had no touchpad. Why would you need one when you have Trackpoint? Then they added a touchpad, but at least it was small. Even so, it always got in the way when my fingers were flying over the keyboard. Inevitably, I'd accidentally hit it while typing, and the mouse would go somewhere I didn't expect, and then I'd have to track it down and start over. Extremely irritating. So I always turn touchpads off if I have an alternative navigation choice like trackpoint, which I do on all my computers at home. And Lenovo thought it would be a good idea to make the touchpad BIGGER? Are you kidding me? The end result is the actual keyboard lost a bunch of real estate, and the familiar key layout that made using Thinkpads so easy is gone. They moved Page Up/Page Down, which I use constantly at work, to either side of the Up arrow, instead of on top of each other at the upper right. Now I have to remember which side is which and avoid hitting the up arrow while using them. The Home, End, Insert, Delete is just as bad. The only positive is delete is a little larger and all the way to the right. But otherwise, I have to look at the keyboard every time to remember which key is where and avoid hitting the wrong one. One thing that is less of a big deal but is still confusing: On the old keyboards, the special functions were given blue icons under the regular function key numbers, and the key to activate them was the same blue. Very intuitive. On the new one, they're all the same white, and initially I tried pressing Fn plus the key I wanted. Nothing happened. No instructions came with it so what am I supposed to do? I also tried the Esc/Fnlk key. Nothing. Looked it up and apparently you have to install drivers from the website to get the Fn keys to work. Why didn't they send instructions with the keyboard explaining how to get the software? Windows 7 just installed whatever it wanted without asking me what I wanted to do, and Lenovo didn't do jack to help. In the end, I got it working, but I still have no idea what they think three boxes on F11 or 6 boxes on F12 are supposed to mean to the user. Not really sure what F7 does, either, but it looks like a video camera, so I'm guessing it's a camera thing if you have a camera on your computer. All in all, despite Lenovo's claim that their "focus group" users got used to the new keyboard layout within an hour, I think that's very unlikely in a real world situation. I used it for more than an hour and did not get used to it. Why? Because I've been using keyboards with a pretty consistent layout for over a decade, that's why. You don't break 10 year old habits in one hour, and forcing me to try is infuriating. So as far as I'm concerned, Lenovo's focus group claim is bunk. There's a guy on YouTube who compared the old Thinkpad keyboards with the new one, using laptops rather than the isolated USB keyboards. All his points were valid, and after using this one for a day at work, I went out and ordered one of the old ones on Ebay, so that whenever I do buy a new laptop, I will still be able to use the classic Thinkpad keyboard with it. And now that Lenovo has taken one of the two main reasons I stick to Thinkpads away from me--the keyboard layout--I have significantly less reason to stick with their brand.
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