The current X1/X13 have the best laptop keyboard I have used since my old T42, they are quite nice to type on. The whole chiclet or not thing is primarily aesthetic, having little bevels on the edges of the keys does not affect use, I suppose if you have long finger nails you could use them to depress the key on the bevel but that seems rather awkward. 6 vs 7 row could be an issue for some but I personally don't mind having to hit the fn key to adjust volume or screen brightness.
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I strongly disagree.
(FWIW, I wrote this review.)
I have about a dozen Thinkpads myself, which is why I was interested to review this one and the Arm-based X13s.
I dislike the keyboards, and while they are among the best chiclet keyboards on the market , for me, it is fair and accurate to say that all chiclet keyboards are far worse than all pre-chiclet Thinkpad keyboards.
No Thinkpads since the 220/420/520 have been pleasant to type on. They are all poorer than the older models.
You strongly disagree that the X1 and X13 have the best laptop keyboards that I have used since my old T42? Or that the side bevels serve no purpose beyond aesthetics? I don't think you can make a case for either but feel free to try.
If you are happy, good for you.
For me, I have tried several X1 models, Carbon and non-Carbon, and I find the keyboards to be poor. Bezels on keys (is that the right term?) make no real difference to me.
Any Thinkpad with a chiclet keyboard is inferior to any Thinkpad with a non-chiclet keyboard. I often hear people say things like "oh the early ones were poor but they've got better" or "it was bad at first but they improved".
I don't think they've improved. I thought they were junk when they were new (e.g. X230) and they're still junk (e.g. 2022 models).
Again, I am not proclaiming this as some universal truth. It's my opinion, and only that.
But there are a list of things I like about my older Thinkpads: great best-in-industry keyboards, easily end-user upgradable disk and RAM, lots of disk bays, lots of ports, removable batteries, easy disassembly without special tools, easy to replace keyboards, pointing devicer, and so on.
Modern Thinkpads lack all these. Junk keyboards, sealed units, few ports, few bays, not upgradable, not end-user maintainable.
Thinkpads were Rolls-Royce laptops, user-serviceable, a joy to use, and with a long lifetime that was readily extended.
New ones are, to me, overpriced glued-together plastic junk, as poor as any other make...
But they're still black and still have a Trackpoint. So people who never tried the old ones think that being a Thinkpad means an average laptop but it's black and has a red dot thing that they don't know how to use, and they don't get why people rate Thinkpads so highly.
Aside from the keyboard, what did you think of the Arm-based X13s? I've had my eye on that one.
Is linux support for ARM good enough for daily use?
Review link and discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35262156
I think the review and the discussion answer your questions. If not, do say so.
> The whole chiclet or not thing is primarily aesthetic
On the contrary. The aesthetics are meaningless. And I don't look at my keyboard, anyway. Only the tactile behavior matters. So: travel distance, resistance strength as a function of position, row layout.
Also, a touchpad is a place you need to watch out not to touch, or the mouse darts around and interrupts your workflow.
100% agreement here.
I don't care how my keyboard looks. I don't want it to light up: I find that tacky and garish.
I care about how it feels under my fingers.
The more key travel, the better, up to a point. I don't need a mechanical typewriter. A centimetre or so is good, though. A millimetre doesn't cut it.
I want keys I can locate my hands on without looking. I want rake, staggered, sculpted keys. I don't want flat buttons: those are for picking the floor in a lift, not typing on.
I don't have the problems you have with trackpads, but when I'm typing on my lap, I disable it anyway.
> travel distance, resistance strength as a function of position, row layout.
None of which are determined by being a chiclet, which is just keycaps and a bezel and none of which were addressed in the review or by that poster.
Touchpad does not really have much place in this discussion but since it was brought up, Thinkpads and linux make this a non-issue, use the trackpoint. I bind a key combo to toggle the touchpad on/off and if I am doing something which the trackpoint is not good for I can re-enable the touchpad with a keystroke.