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Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by pmontra on Saturday June 09, 2018 @05:12AM (#17272179)
We'll see if the touchscreen gets any traction. I'd like to point out that this is perhaps the only non Mac laptop that has a 15" screen and doesn't have a number pad. The keyboard is aligned with the center of the screen and the space bar is almost there too. Joy!

I could buy this laptop only for that, even if with Linux I'll probably have to wait the next laptop before the touchscreen is of any use. But no, the RAM is capped at 16 GB and I'm using 32 GB on my HP laptop (several projects for several customers, each one with a different language and environment.)

However my 15" laptop has a useless (for me) number pad with the result that I have to shift it half to the right to be able to keep my hands in front of me and not skewed to the left, which would probably do nasty things to all my upper body. This is the norm for all 15" laptops and I wonder if their designers stopped at the cover page of Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things", with the famous teapot for masochists, and deluded themselves into believing that this is the right way to build stuff.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/...

Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by lloeki on Saturday June 09, 2018 @05:19AM (#17272200)
> The keyboard is aligned with the center of the screen and the space bar is almost there too. Joy!

Oh the keypad hell, it's been such a RSI inducer on my back for years. What nonsense is this to put a keypad on the right side of keyboards which results, being right handed, in either the mouse being too far right or the keyboard being off center.

Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by Tijdreiziger on Saturday June 09, 2018 @07:07AM (#17272447)
A good design centers the touchpad on the alphanumeric part of the keyboard, example: http://xahlee.info/kbd/i/Dell_Inspiron_laptop_keyboard_2014-...
Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by pmontra on Sunday June 10, 2018 @01:50AM (#17276776)
This is all laptops do, included mine, so we can shift the laptop to the right. IMHO a better design would ditch the number pad and sell a USB/Bluetooth one to who wants it.
Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by jeswin on Saturday June 09, 2018 @05:48AM (#17272259)
I keep the mouse below the external keyboard (instead of to the right), and it has worked out really well for me. It may not work well with laptops though, since the trackpad adds to the distance the hand must travel.

But I still wanna put it out there for all the external keyboard users.

Illustration: https://twitter.com/jeswin/status/680343382783213568

Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by monort on Saturday June 09, 2018 @05:45AM (#17272253)
XPS 15 has the keyboard without numpad.
Re:Asus replaced the touchpad on its new ZenBook Pro with a ... by mmyyyy on Saturday June 09, 2018 @05:41AM (#17272240)
surface book 15" doesn't have a number pad too!