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Comment by KozmoNau7 | Hacker News Reader

The Macbook chiclet keyboards are bad, but the new Thinkpad keyboard are great (at least on the X- and T-series).

Yes, I know the layout has changes and seems weird at first, but I honestly think it works great, after having used it for a while. And I have a T420 as my personal laptop, the last T-series with the original 7-row keyboard.

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I can't believe all these years of typing on newer Macs (even the new pro), Surfaces, Dells, Gateways, etc. I never owned a ThinkPad until recently. The keyboard on my yoga 370 has unveiled a new world of typing. The TrackPoint is a gamechanger.

I just ordered an old X230 and plan to spruce it up and use as my home PC. Might even try to dualboot MacOS.

The X230 is great. With a new battery, an SSD, and 16GB of RAM, I'm not sure there's a better laptop. I run Xubuntu on an X230T and it's fantastic.

I actually only came to it because I was so frustrated with the new Dell XPS 13 my company provided that I went and grabbed an old Lenovo out of storage.

> The TrackPoint is a gamechanger

Are you expressing sarcasm here? Using the nub mouse is an infuriatingly frustrating exercise in trying to navigate the cursor to a point on the screen with some semblance of speed, and without overshoot. It's minimally five times slower than using a mouse.

You have to learn to use it as you had to learn to use an ordinary mouse or trackpad. Once you are comfortable with it a trackpoint is 10 times better than using a trackpad (probably even more ;) ). For example, you don't have to leave your hand(s) from the keyboard or awkwardly balancing the labtop on your knees when moving the cursor.

Nope, the trackpoint is simply inferior, especially for scrolling.

Nope, you have no clue :) thats what a trackpad is good for. The trackpad is easily reachable with your thumb without leaving your fingers too much from the keyboard (most linux distros have the right of the trackpad configured as scroll area). So no annoying multi finger scrolling needed.

Furthermore, middle mouse button + trackpoint scrolls as well, so scrolling really isn't an issue.

No sarcasm here. It took me about two weeks to adjust to the movement/speed curve of the TrackPoint. It then took me another two months to reach sufficient proficiency to bypass a mouse and trackpad. I am sure some folks could adapt faster, but I had to surpass 22 years of mouse muscle memory.

My job entails writing emails most of the day, Salesforce, and internal communication tools. I love not having to take my hands of home row. I haven't been able to quantify any speed improvement. But, I feel more focused and in the "zone" more often. Could all be my imagination. It could also be that I find ThinkPad keyboard wonderful to use too.

I do use the Adobe CC Suite for the occasional video, presentation, or mock up. No issue using the trackpoint there either.

just avoid anything that costs less than 1200$ at thinkpad. the E series keyboard are even worse than apple's

i have an E470 sitting next to a X1 Carbon 5th gen, and I can tell you you are very wrong. The plastic is a different texture, but they otherwise feel nearly identical. The only key I can feel a big difference in the tension on, is the spacebar. The layouts are identical.

Everyone shits on the E series, but since they got rid of the CD Drive and put the old trackpad back, they have been nice cheap pcs.

good to know they went back on the crap they were doing with the E series. I badmouth it because when i saw them in person (bought online, returned) they deserved it so badly that i didn't even consider another lenovo afterwards

Another voice for the higher grade Thinkpad chicklet keyboards. My W530 came with one and as a long long time Thinkpad owner I was wary but I have been hammering on this for a few years now and it really has been great. Just the right amount of key feel for me.

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