So after testing a while around i want to chime in.
I do have a Thinkpad work laptop (X1 extreme i think) and for a while used an usb Thinkpad keyboard. Furthermore i have had some random 14 inch Clevo laptop before.
The Framework keyboard is worse than the Thinkpad and the Clevo, not by a lot but still worse. I have typed on waaaay worse laptop keyboards. The are a bit too flat for me, but its a tiny, highly tranportable laptop.
My dream setup would be a laptop that had a full low profile mechanical keyboard like the Keychron K3 i use on my Desktop…but integrating that one in a laptop would add a solid cm of height i fear.
While i write this, i could actually measure the “quality” of the keyboard by using Monkeytype on a bunch of keyboards and see how well i fare.
Coming from a Thinkpad laptop, I do actually like the framework keyboard and the additional travel it provides.
The only minor nuisance is that that the pg-up key makes a scratching noise and get’s stuck occasionally. Not sure if this is just a problem of my specific laptop.
I made a recording of this scratching sound:
So i did a test with all the keyboard i could get my pawns on. Conclusion…its not scientific and it doesnt really matter. From the feel alone, the keys of the framework are a bit to shallow for an enjoyable typing experience. Here some pictures:
Conclusion, no conclusion, results are rubbish and i would need to test over multiple days but i am to lazy for that. But overall, the Framework Keyboard isnt worse or better than most in my hands. The weird Sharkoon one is actually my best typing keyboard…which is amazing considering its the cheapest of them all.
I was randomly thinking about this, and looked at my Thinkpads, an HP Elitebook, a Framework 13, and various external keyboards, including bunch of Model-M’s. I think the slight curve (slight dip into the center) makes a huge difference! Sure, the travel and other things make a difference also, but I can get used to differences in actuation pressure (e.g. Model-M vs. A4Tech Optical) with relative ease. But FLAT key tops just drive me insane. I just can’t type well on FLAT key caps. Even just slight dip makes a huge difference, along with slippery surface. I find it much easier to type on slippery keys, which Thinkpads are.
I decided to not buy a Framework and to instead buy a used Thinkpad, because I need a lot of the keys that they have eliminated from the keyboard: Home, End, Insert, PageUp, PageDown and PrintScreen. I can live without PrintScreen (and I never used SysReq), but the rest of them I use constantly and don’t want to have to press the Func key every time I need those keys. It gets so cumbersome when two key combinations like CTL+END (move to end of document) and SHIFT+PageUp (previous screen in Linux terminal) turn into 3 key combinations, that I stopped using them and use the mouse instead, which is much slower.
It angers me that laptop manufacturers keep copying Apple, thinking that people value style more than functionality. Yes, having all those extra keys is less stylish, but some people buy laptops because they want to do useful work and those extra keys make them more productive. Sadly, Lenovo is now copying Apple and soldering its RAM to the motherboard in most of its new Thinkpad models, so I am now buying used Thinkpads.
What I don’t understand is why doesn’t some company make Thinkpad-style keyboards. There has to be enough demand, since there are literally millions of fans of those old style keyboards. At this point, the patents covering the pointing nub should have expired, and there is nothing preventing companies from including those extra keys.
It seems like laptop manufacturers are convinced that their customers only care about aesthetics and being as thin and light as possible.
I just assume there may be a business reason, I assume more people care about looks than actual usability and robustness (look at apple notebook user numbers vs thinkpad). I would asume in the grand scheme of things framework is a tiny company as it is compared to the big guys, if they were aiming for people that want thinkpad quality keyboards, they may have the fraction of user base so they aim for most ‘mainstream’ userbase possible and demonstrate that thin and lightweight notebooks are possible without glue and ‘throwaway’ design, which was kind of always a lie of the industry.
Also, speculation, but perhaps IBM made a good base for thinkpad keyboards, it “paid for itself” so I guess it’s cheap for Lenovo to just tune next iterations, developing it from 0 could be expensive.
So I’m not blaming framework, am just sure, disappointed. My framework 13’s keyboard is abour equal or slightly worse (rattly, way too light, cheap feeling) than my work provided Latitudes, so certainly the bar is pretty low, it’s nowhere near current Thinkpads (which are also going down, but are still better compared to the rest). I don’t like typing on it - keys don’t feel right, and I keep touching the touchpad while typing so I keep ‘mouse clicking’ or doing weird stuff so I work around it by using an external keyboard when I’m stationary enough that I can. Otherwise it’s fine for meetings and watching movies when I just stare at screen and don’t type or use touchpad.
I don’t regret buying it because if I didn’t I wouldn’t have seen what it is for myself. The possibility to user change components very easily is honestly awesome and next level.
Don’t be upset about it, no emotions needed, just chose whatever you think is best for you.
Hi Amos, I feel you, but as someone who has used a lot of Thinkpads and thought I’d never leave them, I have to say, Framework’s keyboard is really good. It is subjective, I know. However, I think the sheer attention that Framework has made to making the 13 so repairable and durable makes up for any of issues that the non-thinkpad keyboard has.
Nice seeing you here as well. Hopefully, you will reconsider and join the crowd of folks who have bought the last laptop they will ever need. (In theory at least)
But normies do. Normies (also known as the majority of sheep consumers) are why we can’t have nice things.
For example, I wanted a small pickup truck with manual transmission for decades, but gave up on it. The last time we had such thing in the US was over 2 decades ago. We can’t even get a nice little car these days, because NORMIES want giant SUVs and giant trucks, for them to park in front of their garages because they don’t fit in their garages and/or their garages are full of useless junk.
Lenovo has been the biggest seller in of PCs worldwide since 2013. In 2023, Lenovo controlled 24.7% of the global PC market share, compared Apple’s 9.0% share. I couldn’t find an exact breakdown of how many Thinkpads Lenovo sells per year, but it is probably close to the number of laptops that Apple sells per year.
I totally get Framework’s mission to create a thin-and-light laptop with replaceable and upgradeable parts, when the whole laptop industry is designing thin-and-light laptops based on planned obsolescence. I just find it galling that they decided to copy Apple’s style of keyboard, which wasn’t necessary. Purism made the same bad decision for its keyboards, so Framework isn’t the only specialty laptop maker which seems to be totally enamoured with Apple’s style.
I think these companies are misjudging their user base. The type of person who likes building their own laptop and likes being able to open up and replace parts in a laptop is more likely to be the type of person who wants the functionality of those extra keys than the type of person that wants the Apple look to their keyboards.
I know that small hardware companies like Framework often don’t have the scale to get specialty components like the big brands, but it isn’t hard to source keyboards with separate Home, End, Page Up, Page Down and Insert keys, so it was a deliberate decision on their part to eliminate those keys.
By the way, I took some time to investigate the history of laptop keyboards, and I found that Apple and Sony are the two corporations most responsible for the sorry state of laptop keyboards today. The early luggables (like the Osborne 1) didn’t have a lot of the keys that we expect today, but the first mass market laptop, the Toshiba T1100 in 1985 had 10 function keys, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert, Print Screen, Sys Req and Scroll Lock/Break, and most of the laptop manufacturers followed that pattern.
The first laptop (that I can find) to require pressing a Func key with the arrow keys to get Home, End, Page Up and Page Down was the Compaq SLT/286 released in 1988, but it wasn’t a market success. Compaq’s next laptop, the LTE in 1989, had separate keys. Apple, however, didn’t have Function keys, arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert, etc., in the keyboards of its first PCs (Apple I and II and first Macintosh). Its first laptop, the PowI erBook 100 in 1991, also didn’t have these keys (except for the arrow keys).
It was Sony that popularized the chicklet style keyboard, but it was Apple that made it de rigour and led to everyone adopting it.
@2disbetter , Nice to see you too. Funny how we keep ending up on the same forums!
Given the way that the laptop industry is going, Framework will become one of the few options left. It is going to get harder and harder to find modern laptops that allow the user to change the RAM and replacing the battery is starting to become a harrowing affair just like with cell phones. From an environmental perspective, I should support Framework, but that keyboard is a major sticking point for me.
I can see your point, BUT, I would just offer that Framework is not trying to capture ONLY the DIY crowd, but rather the whole crowd. Their mission is to curb silicon waste and affect change on a large scale. They want the industry to make products designed to last, be repairable, and upgradable. They can’t do that by designing a laptop that ONLY appeals to a DIY crowd.
Also this thin and light approach has really lent itself to the sort of maker crowd. Framework 13’s mainboard have become the raspberry pi of x86 compute and it is glorious!
I’ve been working on making a UMPC as a result and it is all possible because of Framework, or at least is MUCH more possible thanks to them.
My hope is that once the average consumer is freed from this indoctrinated aesthetic, and when the pendulum has swung back to the kinds of products that Framework makes, that we can then focus on improving all aspects of the laptop. For now, Framework’s keyboard is one of the best in the industry.
The vast majority of people don’t care how many keys there are on the keyboard. They will buy the Framework regardless of whether it has 84 keys or 78 keys in its keyboard. However, there is a small percentage of people like me who really do care about having a complete keyboard, and we will keep buying Thinkpads because Lenovo includes those keys. If the goal of Framework is to reach all segments of the market, it needs to reach people who are dedicated keyboard users who appreciate having those keys.
How many extra users does Framework gain by having a reduced keyboard versus the number of users that it gains by having a complete keyboard? I’m pretty sure that it would gain more users by having a complete keyboard. If it offered a keyboard with a nub pointer and 2.0 mm of key travel, it would gain even more users. For all the Thinkpad, Latitude and Elitebook users who currently use the nub pointer, they won’t consider adopting the Framework if it doesn’t have it. I don’t know if Framework can find a supplier of nub pointers, but I know that it can easily get a complete keyboard.
I think that is a good point. I personally would love the additional keys but most especially the trackpoint like pointing device. I know on the Framework 16 Jack of Planck fame is working on a ortho keyboard for it. Perhaps we could encourage them to make a custom keyboard for the 13 as well that would include this nub. The keyboard is internally connected via USB and so there is nothing really preventing this. Framework even encourages it.
That unfortunately seems to be true, hp and asus can’t even be bothered to actually do iso keyboards on consumer laptops anymore, they sell a cursed (and I mean really cursed) chimera here and I haven’t heard anyone complain. I might have got a zephyrus 14 before framework came out if the amd so I guess that’s the bright side in this.
I’ve been surprisingly pleased by the FW13 keyboard in feel. However, after a year, I’ve found that I really wish it had Home, End, PgUp, PgDn keys and touchpad buttons. I use those far more than I realized, and having to use two hands (Fn+Dn) for PgDn is really irritating. I don’t care about the Trackpoint, but I’d give a lot for the extra keys.
