In recent years Lenovo moved away from their industry leading ThinkPad keyboards for their laptops and switched to new chiclet style ones while also changing the layout and removing some of the keys. This is an utter regression since the best keyboard is one that doesn't change the layout! What is worse - since then on laptops such as the otherwise excellent Carbon X1 they even removed the function keys!

To millions of professionals in the world this all is like removing the accelerator pedal in your car, flipping the gear shifter layout and moving the brake pedal to the ceiling! Sure, there might be some research to show the new layout is somehow ergonomically better for a set of people but so are Dvorak keyboards, yet we don't make them the new standard. We don't because once you learn the layout of the letter keys on your keyboard - rearranging it would be like pulling a carpet from under your feet and most people use standard alphabetic keyboard layout. Since many people rarely use more keys than the main alphabetic block and the backspace - manufacturers feel empowered to mess with the other keys that they might claim aren't used as much. Many professionals though - programmers, writers, business people and office workers do often use keys such as the arrow and function keys, numeric keypads, the Start key but also Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, End, Page Down, context menu key, Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break!

Desktop keyboards have seen some similar unreasonable changes in the past but you can easily change your desktop keyboards and many companies (CODE, WASD, DAS) already make keyboards that are modeled after IBM classics. There are even ThinkPad keyboards you can attach to your desktop, but the classic one is out of production and now retails for over $300! Replacing a keyboard isn’t an option for a laptop. Since Lenovo started spoiling their keyboards there doesn’t seem to be an excellent all around laptop any more you could buy.

My petition is for Lenovo to bring back classic ThinkPad keyboards to at least some professional ThinkPad models like the X, T or W. Make it an option! I’m willing to pay for it!