I wanted this to be a poll but can't find anywhere the option:
So why are the now laptops all coming with a touch pad off to the left and a useless crammed in number pad? Is anybody gonna die without a number pad? I find the only time I use it on my wireless keyboard is to do some simple numbers, which I am happy to use the main keyboard to do so I don't have a keyboard that is off center. My back and hands are already hurting using computers so why the offset just to cram in a number pad? Is everybody else an accountant?
I noticed that in one post reply CrossRoads said he avoided such number pad. I can't even find anything 15" without such abomination anymore. Even some 14" laptops have them now.
What do you think?
I love the number pad on laptops. I use it so much and don't think for a moment I'll buy one without, even with the main keyboard and touch pad off to the left
I like the number pad. It's useful
I am neutral
I don't like the number pad, I don't use it or it's making the main keyboard and touch pad off to the left, which I do use
I wish to smash all such abomination! Power to the old symmetry!
They are quite handy in some situations, for example using Blender, the keypad keys do totally different things to the number keys at the top of the keyboard.
My wife picked 2. I pick 5. I can't stand the number pad. Most people use a laptop to bash on the main keyboard for reports or essays or code. Only few, I suppose, find number pad over-weights a slimmed-down main keyboard and the offset. I could be wrong since most new laptops are coming with the number pad.
What I like, is a keyboard that has the keys in all the right places so that I can actually type on it, which means the absolute "standard" 105 (is it?) key keyboard with the ten cursor keys in the right places, not shifted up, down or sideways so that you mis-hit the delete or that totally useless, nuisance "insert" key.
Ergo for any serious data (text, "chat") entry, I need to have a proper keyboard plugged into a laptop as well as a mouse (given that touchpads are pretty useless).
I do use the number pad - but only if it exists in the "right" place, and the right size.
I would never buy a laptop without a keypad any more but then again I would rather not have to buy another laptop at all. The only time I tend to use the numbers on the main keyboard is when entering hex values or the odd number (like 2). I prefer a full size keyboard and a mouse if possible as entering strong passwords on a cut-down keyboard or touch screen keyboard is a PITA.
Each brand seems to have its own (often shifting) taste of what keys are necessary and where. For example, my lenovo Y530 has no Home or End, You need to Fn+pageup or Fn+pagedown to get home and end, absolutely insane. I guess I can get some software to make switch them around. The lenovo my wife had has these two buttons but located in weird places. Nowadays even full keyboards don't always have the 3*2 block for the home/end/pageup/pagedown/del/insert. It's a pain since again every brand has its own taste of what to put where.
liudr:
Each brand seems to have its own (often shifting) taste of what keys are necessary and where. For example, my lenovo Y530 has no Home or End, You need to Fn+pageup or Fn+pagedown to get home and end, absolutely insane.
Quite so.
liudr:
I guess I can get some software to make switch them around.
But then the labels will be wrong. That will be confusing.
liudr:
Nowadays even full keyboards don't always have the 3*2 block for the home/end/pageup/pagedown/del/insert.
Or it is moved. Or it is moved around. That was my complaint.
liudr:
Each brand seems to have its own (often shifting) taste of what keys are necessary and where.
Nowadays even full keyboards don't always have the 3*2 block for the home/end/pageup/pagedown/del/insert. It's a pain since again every brand has its own taste of what to put where.
I truly detest the idiots that thought putting the power button(s) in this block was a great idea. The number of times I have shutdown or put into standby a PC when trying to do page up/down.
I forgot which laptop I used to have had the power button where I can easily pick up the laptop with my hands (balancing weight so it would not tip over). I turned it off quite a number of times. I think it might have been a cheap Compaq. I think now the problem solves itself. The screens are all pretty light so you just have to grab a laptop by the middle, almost, which is where speakers are located.
Riva:
I truly detest the idiots that thought putting the power button(s) in this block was a great idea.
Now we're talking!
(Any "power" button, which for any real user, is pretty much an orphan, should logically be a tiny, recessed button centimetres away from any real keys.)
Riva:
The number of times I have shutdown or put into standby a PC when trying to do page up/down.
Presumably not your PC, because you would not own such a crap keyboard, would you? My worst nightmare is the distorted Micro$oft keyboard with the Del key in the wrong place because it happens to be used by a couple of local nursing homes.
My favourite keyboard is the skeletal Dell semi-Space-Cadet keyboard with the volume knob and just a smattering of small function buttons across the top panel, all standard keys being in the right places. It may have a "power" or "sleep" button but I don't actually know that even though it sits in front of me in my office. I don't think it does.
Hang on ... Here it is:
Can't see the keys properly on that but this eBay listing (asking somewhat ridiculous price) shows them nicely. Nope, no truly useless keys, pretty much only useful ones! Whoever designed this one was a genuine computer user.
If only I could find more of these at garage sales and disposals. I will not even take a keyboard with the wrong layout if it is going for free (except perhaps to extract the PCB to use as a "boot dummy").
Riva:
The number of times I have shutdown or put into standby a PC when trying to do page up/down.
Presumably not your PC, because you would not own such a crap keyboard, would you? My worst nightmare is the distorted Micro$oft keyboard with the Del key in the wrong place because it happens to be used by a couple of local nursing homes.
Most definitely not a keyboard of mine. We also have a couple of the Microsoft keyboards here at work but thankfully I don't have to use the PC often apart from re-booting and loading an application.
Paul__B:
My favourite keyboard is the skeletal Dell semi-Space-Cadet keyboard with the volume knob
My all-time favorite keyboard is the one I am typing on right now: the IBM Model M.
That said, it's getting more difficult to find PC motherboard with PS/2 keyboard inputs - not a big deal, though, because I can always get a Unicomp Model M to replace it.
At my job, for the Mac laptops they supply us, I have a Unicomp Model M (mine is called "the loudest keyboard in the office" when visitors are paraded through - lol); I just can't stand the mushy standard Mac full-size keyboards (they remind me of the old chicklet keyboards on crappy 80's home computers - give me a real keyboard, like the C=64 or TRS-80 had).
I put up with it on the laptop, because there really isn't an option there (I once owned an old Compaq 386/SLT "laptop" that had a nice keyboard - detachable, too).
Which choice is "no keypad on the laptop, plug in one via USB if you need it"?
Guess that would be #4.
Lenovo 14" & 15.6" laptops do have home/end buttons.
The only desktop keyboard I ever really liked had the function keys in columns on the left hand side, old IBM PC keyboards circa 1985.
CR, that's a T60ish, which is what my wife had, yes they have end and home. Mine is probably a Chinese line of produce from lenovo with Y designation. It has this keyboard:
Quality is less than the T series, although I had to replace my wife's T61 keyboard. She only used the keyboard a small number of times and left it on dock mostly everyday. Its hard drive is also showing early symptom of failure. Besides the video card fried and we had to get the motherboard replaced. The Thinkpad series is going down the drain.
