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Comment by robertdpi | Hacker News Reader

Another signal about the reliability of the company is how they handle logistics. So if you are an US citizen living in Germany, you cannot buy a laptop with US keyboard layout. The assumption that razer makes is that if you access the website from a Germany, you are a german citizen, speaker and someone who uses a QWERTZ keyboard..

Im literally trying to purchase their product, but they discourage me with this absurd logic and unhelpful support.

The answer that support gives ia that if you want a different keyboard layout, you need to purchase it in a different country. That's not going to happen

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At least Razer offers ISO keyboard layouts. I'm very grateful for that. All their competitors offer only US layout, no matter where you buy. [1]

[1] Apple Macbook Pro is the closest device that has a ISO layout option. ASUS/Acer/HP/Dell/MSI/Gigabyte etc only offer ISO layouts for their "mainstream" devices which are nowhere near the level of performance that a Razer Blade has. All "gaming models" are US keyboard only.

What models specifically are you talking about ? My company buys high end ASUS and Dells with AZERTY (fr) layouts...

I've never heard of a major vendor not shipping ISO layouts before

> All their competitors offer only US layout, no matter where you buy.

I am so happy about that. These continental European keyboards have symbols in wrong places, useless (unused) symbols (like ± in place of a colon in case of the Dutch one) and a short left shift (German QWERTZ, Belgian/French AZERTY and Dutch QWERTY all have that).

I remember doing a PHP web development internship once (like 4-5 years ago) where they had keyboards with a short left shift key. Two weeks into it I gave up trying to get used to it and remapped the < key (that's the one left of Z on those keyboards) to shift with autohotkey.

I also remember buying a mechanical keyboard that had a long left shift on the cover but after unpacking turned out to have a short one. Felt silly to return it over that (by now I would) so I gifted it to my brother instead.

God I hate those non-US keyboards. French/Belgians are the worst, having to hold down shift to type a freaking number and that while having a short left shift key.

Have you had a different experience with other companies?

My experience living in Germany has been that its been pretty hard to get American keyboards. Apple for instance only lets businesses oder laptops with US keyboards in Germany.

This is false. On apple.de you can currently order 9 different keyboard layouts, including US.

Two differences are 1) you accessed that site in the US(?) and 2) GP said businesses, which indicates a business portal rather than the consumer store.

I wouldn't be so quick to call GP a liar. If you haven't encountered it, trying to do things online in another country is an eye opening experience. For example, indeed.com wouldn't even let me go to US job listings when I was in Hong Kong. Products, pricing, everything is different. How can round trips on airfare be so different just by switching departure points? Take a one way to Thailand before you buy airfare to the US from Hong Kong. You'll save a small fortune. Do I believe Apple has silly rules based on geography, just like every other company? Yes, I do.

In Spain, you don't have problems configuring an Apple computer with US keyboard since since a lot of years ago

Right now I'm configuring a MB Pro in Apple.de with US keyboard

Cool, now try it from South Korea. No keyboard options.

http://www.apple.com/kr/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH...

See, it's not hard to find examples. Now we can conclude by robertdpi's assessment that Apple is an unreliable company, because they assume all people living in South Korea want the same keyboard.

I bought a US layout Das Keyboard from getdigital.de, only because it was out of stock on Amazon.de. And from my regular window shopping it's pretty easy to find US layout laptops as well.

It's a mixed bag. I live in Germany as an expat and found giants like Dell (incl. Alienware) offered QWERTY options for their laptops, and so did the smaller Clevo resellers who pride themselves on custom builds. But in between, with the mid-size players like MSI and ASUS, there's no such luck.

I ended up getting an MSI when I stopped over in Taipei on a trip, after hearing about the Razer reliability issues last year. Mind you, I am not considering MSI to be any better, given my experience so far.

Is it that different between Germany and Austria? I've ordered Apple laptops with en_GB keyboards with no problem. Well, they arrived with UK power plug too ;).

It might be. For example, I'm in the US and my friends that /work for Apple/ can't figure out how to get me a Korean keyboard like http://www.apple.com/kr/shop/product/MB110KH/.

Lenovo let's you chose a US Keyboard for ThinkPads. This is what I'm doing despite living in Europe. This, the Trackpoint and the Linux support are the main features that make me still by ThinkPads.

Dell let me buy a US keyboard in Germany.

Apple for instance only lets businesses oder laptops with US keyboards in Germany

In Sweden, at least 3 years ago, Apple was the only company that would sell a laptop with a US keyboard to consumers, and that was one of the main reasons my last laptop was an Apple.

I live in Sweden and gave had no trouble finding other language layout keyboards and laptops the last 15 years. Never had to look at apple devices for that :)

Dustin often has some for sale.

I looked, a lot. Checked both Dell and HP and they both said No. Dustin might occasionally have one or two, but then you're forced to take what's on offer. Apple was the only company that let you choose US keyboard layout directly on their order page for all their laptops as a normal config option.

Apple's keyboard options are seemingly random.

Here in Japan, their keyboard options are: Japanese, Korean, US, UK, Arabian, French, Spanish and Danish(!).

Why Danish?! Not German?! And if they have Danish, why not, e.g. Italian, Swedish, all more populous countries? I'm almost tempted to believe the Danish option is due to a dk/de mixup.

This is definitely not only a Razer problem. I've been trying to buy a Dell with an ANSI keyboard for a while, in the end I asked my company to buy it at one of their US studios and send it to me in Sweden. :(

I had a similar problem getting a new MacBook Pro with a UK keyboard. I live in Hungary. Ordering online in Hungary or buying in a store gets you a Hungarian keyboard. The U.K. store won't deliver to Hungary. In the end I got a flight back to the UK to pick one up.

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