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Re:Keyboard innovation is making them worse by xradionut on Saturday January 18, 2014 @08:20AM (#7080925)
Have you met the author? Peter is opinionated, but most of the time he has a valid reason for it. As a writer and a programmer, a good keyboard is a necessity for his work. (I'd bet he's typed as many or more lines of code than a good number of folks here at HN.)

At work we have have folks that order and try out several different keyboards before settling on one that meets their needs. When a programmer makes 80K, a few extra hundred dollars at the extreme to make them efficient and happy is noise in the budget. Even our interns get their choice.

Re:Keyboard innovation is making them worse by keithpeter on Saturday January 18, 2014 @01:37PM (#7081731)
I take your point, but the OA was reviewing a laptop. No choice of keyboard, and perhaps need to mode shift between non-standard and standard key positions.

I attempt to play piano. Any clever redesigns of that 88 key layout are not going to work.

Re:Keyboard innovation is making them worse by xradionut on Sunday January 19, 2014 @09:41AM (#7084508)
I chose my laptop mainly on the quality and layout of the keyboard. Unlike the OP, I don't travel as much so I had more choices due to the fact I have 17.3" laptop.