The keyboard needs another (and final) mention. Don't get
me wrong, the keyboard is of a high quality, has a great
key-hit feel, the base below the keys feels very solid, and
makes for a fast typing experience. But, and it is a big
'but', it's missing some keys. These keys are quite important
to people who type a lot, and are standard on most Windows
laptops. Some laptops, like some Toshibas, have keys in
strange positions, others, like IBM's Thinkpads, have a full
desktop-style keyboard. The keys I am missing on the Powerbook
are Page-Up, Page-Down, Home, End
and Forward-Delete.
I used uControl to remap the Enter key next to the
Arrows to be the fn key, and this has made the
loss of the Forward-Delete key a distant memory.
The equivalents for Page-Up, Page-Down,
Home and End is not good enough. Mostly it's the
Apple/Command key together with an Arrow key,
sometimes other keys also do things with the Arrow
keys. Sometimes the fn key wiht the Arrow keys also
perform functions, like top of document. Because I am not used
to this yet it confuses me occasionally.
The two keyboards can be seen below, all the differences
are obvious, the Thinkpad's keyboard is better
featured.
Powerbook 17" keyboard (large).
(Yes, I moved with
both pictures...)
IBM Thinkpad T40p keyboard (large).
It may just be a question of my long term usage
of Thinkpad keyboards opposed to my one month of Powerbook
keyboard usage, but, the Thinkpad keyboards are still the best
in the business. The Powerbook keyboard is better than all
other notebook keyboards I've used, but does not dethrone the
Thinkpad.
