On my work desktop (iMac 5k) I use a Das ultimate mechanical keyboard, I’ve been a big fan of Das keyboards with Blue or Brown switches for many years, I purchased a MacBook 12” Retina when they came out and it certainly took some adjusting to get used to the new keyboard but - after a week or so I really, truly liked it, I found myself typing very fast will a low error rate, when the new MacBook Pro came out a few months back I noted that they used a new generation of the same low profile keys that the MacBook 12” had, again I really enjoyed it because I was used to new style of key mechanism thanks to having the 12” for some time, I ended up buying a 13” MBP and oh my I’d almost go as far as saying I love the keyboard. Yes it’s very different from both mechanical keyboards such as my Das keyboards and legacy laptop keyboard designs and I think after a short adjustment period many people would likely enjoy the feel of the keys more than legacy / previous designs - it really grows on you.

As someone used to mechanical keyboards, I seem to keep physically straining or even internally bruising my right pinky on the Mac keyboards.

I'm not sure what to do apart from not using the laptop keyboards (both 2013 style and 2016 style)

Right pinky brigade checking in.

Mechanical solved this for me instantly.

Ditto. If you experience this, get a mechanical board immediately.

For me it was the other way around.

Avoiding mechanical keyboards all my life and never got one of these typical programmer health issues.

Just like this tiger-repellent rock that has kept me safe from tigers my entire life.

Hehe, yes, maybe my genes are superior ;P

But seriously, I never understood the craze for these clunky things. Almost all devs I know use them and most of them have issues with their arms/hands.

I use them. Cause and effect have a direction: I switched to mech boards because I was having wrist trouble. It made all the difference for me - they're fine now.

Other reasons people like them usually are about customizability. If you think of it as being roughly similar to how some people can be about noodling with cars, you won't be too far off-base.

- With the right firmware, they are fully customizable - you can remap things how you like, create macros, whatever, and config is stored on the board.

- You can customize the switches - there are a bewildering array of switch options. People also spend lots of time customizing switches in various ways to change how they feel.

- Layouts - keyboard nerds have produced a huge array of different layouts.

- Looks - you can buy your own keycaps. Those, too, come in a wide array of profiles and appearances. Some people make really nice boards out of metal, wood, sometimes odder things (I heard about someone trying to make cases out of Corian at one point). If you like that sort of thing, you can have them covered in blinky LEDs. There's a whole tiny art scene making keycap-sculptures that go for a ton of money, relatively speaking.

And that's before you get to the crazy stuff that leads to people paying $1k+ on a keyboard.

Really, it is like anything else - people do a lot of things as hobbies that look odd from outside.

This is a reference to The Simpsons, for anyone who didn't get it.

It's a much older joke than that though.

Are those special rocks or can I just pick some up from my garden? I guess any garden that doesn't have tigers in it should work right?

I'm using a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. It has a great ergonomics in terms of keyboard layout and hand posture but uses very cheap key switches that feel bad and don't last long (I think I'm on my third keyboard now). Also the space bar is not engineered well.

I just wish someone would make a version of this keyboard with decent key switches for say, 90€ (the 4000 is around 36€ here).

I think this is mostly likely going to be out of your price range but my journey to find a keyboard like the Microsoft Natural with mechanical switches lead me to this, https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/truly-ergonomic-mechani....

Warning, if you end up getting this keyboard you will need to take some time to learn how to type on it due to non-standard design. I personally think it's worth it but for others that is a non-starter.

This is the perfect keyboard design, but it has reliability issues. After 1 year of use, certain keys stopped responding on mine. This is apparently a common issue, as evidenced by other online comments.

You might want to try the Matias Ergo Pro. I switched to it after 15 years on the MSFT Natural 4000. I still slightly prefer the 4000's layout and wrist rest, but the overall typing experience on the Matias is much better.

http://matias.ca/ergopro/

Can you remap keys easily? I'd like to give my right pinky a break by using my thumb for enter key duties.

No, and that's a shame, because the right half of the spacebar would make a perfect enter key. FWIW, when I had right-pinky pain years ago, I remapped semicolon to enter with good results.

If you don't mind non-standard layouts, here are some excellent keyboards that give your thumbs more to do. :)

https://shop.keyboard.io/

https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/truly-ergonomic-mechani...

https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/

Counterpoint: I got a new Macbook Pro from my job and I’m really enjoying the new keyboard: very little travel but a satisfying click to every press and minimal actuation pressure.

I also really like the new keyboard. I use an older MBP for work and it used to be my favorite key design. Now it feels mushy.

For people who like to hit their keys hard, I can see it being a problem. For most though, give it a week and you'll be back up to speed and won't want to trade back.

The main downside is that mine got kinda mushy / misfire at the one-year mark.

I'm currently living abroad, but ideally I'd be able to bring my Macbook Pro into the Apple store next time I'm in the States and get all the keyboard switches replaced.

Is that possible?

Same here. I use a Whitefox (with blues) at my desk, but I have grown quite accustomed to the 2016 MBP keyboard. For me the key stability + clickiness are what I like about it. Yes the throw is short, but I was never a "slam my fingers down on the keys" kind of typer. I'm actually thinking about switching to a mechanical with a shorter throw for my desk (Not nearly as short as the MBP, but about half of what most mechanical boards are.)

I'm very curious how many characters everyone commenting types per day. Personally, I want more actuation pressure/travel. I feel it's safer for long-term RSI to have more muscular engagement and motion.

Yes, exactly this!

Define terrible. If terrible means trying something for a few seconds and hating it then sure, that's terrible. But by that definition coffee is terrible. When I first tried coffee I hated it within a few seconds. Of course I love it now and have for 2 decades.

I had the same kind of reaction to the new keyboard (albeit nowhere near as strongly). It's great now though. The small travel, the sound of it, it's quite effortless for typing. It's definitely an improvement over the old one, in my experience.

Very little travel is my definition of terrible. Without travel, there is nothing to dampen my key presses, meaning my joints and fingers would get more fatigued over time. Apple have shortened the key travel to make their machines thinner, not to give you a better typing experience.

I only care because I worry the effect the Apple RDF will have on other manufacturers. For example, I can no longer buy a mobile phone without a glued-in battery.

You basically never have to even lift your fingers, the keys stay low. No need to dampen anything.

I would love to see a double-blind RSI study where they randomly assigned different people different keyboards with different amounts of travel, etc.

I think it's fair to say that typing style can be worse than the keyboard, but I also suspect that a keyboard where you "never have to even lift your fingers" causes more RSI than one that requires more activity.

Why do you suspect that?

Less activity means weaker muscles, and our muscles evolved for a wide range of movements. Reduced movement is generally less healthy in the long run, but feels easier in the short run.

Agreed. It would be nice too change typing habits but it is very hard.

I've used the keyboard for months now and it's still the worst keyboard I've ever used. Am I allowed to call it terrible now? :)

Anyone is free to call it whatever they want.

I've been using my 2016 MBP TB since near its release and it's my favorite laptop keyboard I've ever used.

I hope other manufacturers don't follow their lead. Greasy, bacteria covered, minimal travel keyboards are a great way to make people hate typing.

If your minimal travel keyboard is greasy and bacteria covered, I guarantee you your maximum depth mechanical keyboard is just as greasy and bacteria covered.

Not if you have a slightly textured keyboard and clean it on occasion. Apple's dead flat plastic keys on their laptop and bluetooth keyboards are a perfect growth medium for bacteria, while also accreting oil much more readily.

What's anti-microbial about bumps?

In my experience it just creates more hard to clean grooves for bacteria and dirt. Not exactly a challenge for microbes.

I think greasy and bacteria covered might just be a personal problem, and not a symptom of short key travel ;)

No, its a common complaint that the keys still look greasy post-cleaning on Mac keyboards. Apple doesn't texture them with an anti-microbial texturing, preferring to leave them deadpan flat. This speeds the accretion of oils and gives bacteria a nice, comfortable surface to grow on.

What is "anti-microbial texturing"?

How does longer travel prevent grease or bacteria? If anything, bigger keys have larger surface area for grease and bacteria to stick on. There was a joke that programmer can survive a month by eating what he shakes out of their keyboard, does not really apply to Apple keyboards any more.

The anti-microbial coating (aka the small matte bumps on your standard keyboard) impair bacteria growth and slow oil accretion on the keys.

I was astounded at how bad the keyboards are on the new Mac laptops. I thought most of the reviewers were full of it...until I tried one.

I concur. I tried the keyboard on the latest thinner Macbook Pro models and they are just as bad as the Macbook (12"). I suppose I could get used to them... but I don't think I want to.

Macbooks have reached a point where they are too thin to be good notebooks.

I actually like the Macbook keys more than the Pro's. The new ones lost the firmness of the Macbook's--more wobbly under light touch, without much more travel than the Macbook's.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Thinkpad retro is coming soon. Modern thinkpad with old school keyboard.

Thank you for mentioning that! I had to go find some more details. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/retro-thinkpad-image...

Oh wow! I thought this project had died; I'm so excited. I type this on a five-year-old Thinkpad. Every year I look at the Lenovo site, see what fresh horrors the keyboard contains, and sigh.

I hope it's so successful that Lenovo stops treating it as a "fun project" and starts offering evolutions of it as part of their main product line.

Sadly I don't think it will be. The problem is most businesses will probably view it as a novelty line and stay clear in favor of the mainstream product lines. This will lead to Lenovo claiming it was a failure in the long run because there was low-demand and burying this issue for good.

Looks disappointing to me because no 4:3 screen.

Most laptops are terrible. We should celebrate that this one might not have a terrible keyboard.

This is it. My next laptop <3

I've tried it myself and it does feel weird, but I know a couple of people who have those that absolutely swear by them. My wife is a nurse and one of the consultants at a party a few weeks ago was raving about how much he loves his MacBook. Even within the Apple user community there's a bit of a divide.

But isn't that a good thing? Why would you expect every single Apple product to suite you personally, to the point where if just one device isn't right for you, you won't even look at any of the others?

For me it is nice to type on, but the keys have already started popping out after less than a year, very flimsy indeed.

At first, I was also concerned with the keyboard, coming from a 2013 MacBook Air usually equipped with a (Pok3r) mechanical keyboard. Once I got used to it, though, I have to say it's one of the best keyboards I type on.

I actually didn't like the new mbp keyboard at first but once I got used to it I actually started to really like it - And im usually a mech snob myself.

I completely disagree. I think the current MBP keyboard is one of the most satisfying laptop keyboards I've ever typed on. The minimal travel takes some time to get used to but I love how tactile it is. This is coming from someone that spends most of their time typing on Cherry MX green or clear switches.

Agreed. It's the opposite of the fashionable mechanical keys--tactile yet requires minimal muscle contraction. It's almost a breeze to type on. I find my Macbook's keyboard very satisfying to use, with only one caveat: the up/down arrow keys can be indistinguishable to the fingertip. Making them like the F and J keys would be perfect.

I like the KB on the dell latitude line.

I don't like these so much. I have an E7240 for a year now, and while it's great compared to most other laptops, I still prefer the keyboard of my ThinkPad X61s. When I tried the X230 keyboard, it also felt somewhat better than that of my Latitude.

That said, when I used Lenovo Yoga for a while, I was just surprised how bad a keyboard could be. I love my Latitude.

EDIT: and I miss the TrackPoint, although with a touchscreen it doesn't matter so much.

My latitude E5470 has a backlit kb with trackpoint, I had to pay for it though.

But the keyboard isn't the primary input device on Macs, it's the track pad: point, click, and especially scroll.

If we had statistics on what percentages of the time macbook owners are using just the trackpad vs either keyboard or both at the same time, I suspect a large population would primarily use only the trackpad.

Perhaps if you are primarily a consumer. Some of us type for a living. I go hours without moving the mouse.

do some of you realize that 95%+ of people _don't_, and they are the customers that Apple is targeting?