Incidental update

While I have purchased a new bit of tech, it's not for myself... I decided to treat my better half to an Asus Transformer - complete with chicklet keys (she can keep 'em...)

I've accurately measured there is enough room for 4 lanes of traffic between the keys.

It was a relative bargain in the pre-christmas sales and being that I'm not using it I have no problem in purchasing something which has the keyboard equivalent to a bag of walkers crisps...

Sadly I've come into 2015 still lacking a new laptop for myself and believe me, my little Toshiba is thrashing it's death throws, the hdd had all but packed up, was promptly removed and a linux drive rammed in as a measure to just keep the damn thing going.

And it's certainly not looking like I'm going to find a laptop (in my budget) that meets my demands for non-idiotic keys.

Every time I've looked recently the Toshiba models are once again proving to be the only modestly priced hardware that has 'normal' keyboards...

Currently - if I could make up an excuse to make a purchase and not have to contemplate things like having to buy food, Id probably vote for one of these:

Toshiba Satellite PRO C50-A-1KJ

image yoinked from: expertreviews.co.uk

Basically no change from my previous target ... hmm I'm seeing a trend emerge here... Anyways:
It runs a not completely pointless intel i5 4200M and regardless of what's under the hood... just look at those keys, begging to be typed on (or more likely have the W,A,S,D thrashed to an inch of their little buttony lives)

Sadly it currently ships for about £600 give or take the price of a bag of chips ... and right now that's not the kind of cash I have to spare (sad panda mode engaged) strangely this price has also risen by some notable amount since I last was 'looking' (see my previous post).

I'm really struggling to find anything made by any other manufacturer that retains 'classic' scissor keys, but if you've spotted one, or even own a 'modern' laptop that has non-scrabble-tile keyboard drop me a line!

I Really Hate Chiclet Keyboards...

For a few years (from the point I was previously searching to purchase a laptop, which turns out to be the one I'm now typing on...) I have found a disturbing trend in laptop design.

They're called 'chiclet' (or chicklet, or even island-style) keys, I believe it stems from apple? I'm not entirely sure... Whatever started it however has now doomed all of mankind to suffer these cuboid blocks of design disgust.

I wrote this Haiku to sum up my annoyance:

Haiku
Gaps so frustrating
When typing, letters misplaced
Island keys are bad

These tiny squares often where tab, shift, backspace and even enter are all the same size makes any form of fluid typing a chore with example sentences such as "the qyick beown focd jump3d ovet the ;ZY DOG"

The typing experience on these cruddy keys leave me feeling much like this amusing animation:

So, If Chiclet Keys Suck, What's The Alternative?

I have from the time I began typing used  'classic' style keys that is to say non-gapped scissor functioned keys such as the ones on which I regale this tale. While these keys are 'flat' style as opposed to the even more classical bevelled edge keys (which adorn my keyboard on my main PC) The fact that the keys are
placed together and with tactile interaction when passing a finger across them allows much greater typing experience.

The sad part is that these 'classic' style keyboards are now rarer than I like my steak, and I like mny steak to be a little pink ... so that's quite rare.

Why Does Any Of This Matter?

I find myself at the point in time where once again I require to upgrade my laptop, and to do so I must part ways with some hard earned cash for an item which I will most likely use at least once every other day for the next 3 or 4 years, I cannot bear the thought that I have to spend money on something that will annoy me perpetually until such time as I recreate the animation above in reality.

So I put finger to key (non-chiclet key mind you...) to vent my distress and frustration, I shall from this point be using this blog as a collective reference for when I find laptop models which have normal keys and hopefully be able to find one which not only has the magical keys of yore but also the hardware to cope with my demands.

That means that somewhere in the future I shall be spending a few hundred bob on a hunk of plastic and silicone, and by all that is regarded as sacred by anyone on this planet I shall not be buying a laptop which features lego bricks as it's medium of human interface device.