keyboard trends

[mark-OGhnF3Lt4opAfugRpC6u6w at public.gmane.org (Mark J Dulcey)]

On 1/18/2011 5:03 PM, Jarod Wilson wrote:

>> No doubt this has been primarily driven by aesthetics (and I guess they
>> assume most of their buyers are too young to remember the junky
>> keyboards that looked like this in the 80's), but manufacturers claim
>> that the design makes typing less error prone. As you would expect, this
>> claim has been debated, and the issue gets muddied due to Apple's
>> involvement.

I don't like the chiclet keys on my latest HP as much as I liked the 
more conventional keyboard, but more because of the ultra-low travel. I 
also don't really like the flatter keytops. The separation is "meh"; 
makes little difference either way so far as I can tell.

Like other recent HPs it has the reversed roles for the F keys. If I 
used software that used the F keys heavily (like Ami Pro back in the 
day, or WordPerfect in the even farther back day) I'd switch it back; 
the BIOS setting is available.