Review HHKB Studio Review: Trackpoint, No Topre

abufrejoval

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Jun 19, 2020
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If it wasn't quite that exessively priced, I could see myself going for it in the living room for on-knee operation on the couch. I use a wireless keyboard with a touchpad in place of the numpad there currently, which is rather sad for typing in the dark: I do touch type, but I need proper home keys and tactive feedback nevertheless to type with confidence. It's not about writing novels there, but say messaging and surfing, which still require bursts of fast confident typing.

I've had Thinkpad and other laptops with pointing sticks for decades, so I gues I could still use them. But interaction patterns have changed. Pointing sticks matched the pre-scroll-wheel mice quite well, when most interaction was either a mostly stationary GUI or text.

But in the modern world of endless scrolling, very little is as important as very precise and effortless scroll control: Nothing beats touch screen there, good scroll wheels come next, excellent touch pad after, and pointing sticks? AFAIK that would be combining the stick with the middle button and I can see myself wanting to return this otherwise excellent piece of hardware within an hour or two of usage massaging my cramped hand.

I have gone through some length to swap Ctrl and Shift-Lock keys decades ago when most of my PC interactions were programming, because I started on computer keyboards without arrow, function or numpad keys, where the left pinky saw more usage than any other finger.

Now having a singular feature like this on a single keyboard makes absolutley no sense: I use far too many devices to tolerate individual control key layouts. I quite like the fact that it has near invisible keycap symbols, because I switch character layouts with some langauges, but not all: French AZERTY is almost like Dvorak!

BTW: Absolutely nothing wrong with batteries, you can put rechargeable ones there if you want! For me built-in accumulators are mostly designed obsolescence even after getting quite crafty at swapping out phone batteries for the family. It hints at a life-time investment, which is far greener and has me much less concerned with a mobile phone price for a keyboard.

I still cherish my IBM PS/2 keyboards from 1990 as my main driver, which cost way over $1000 at the time when they were sold and just keep on working. Unfortunately, they are hard to tolerate for anyone else in the room, so that change to silent operation seems to have come from wifey threatening to unshare the couch.
 
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Findecanor

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Apr 7, 2015
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Is the middle button a middle mouse button or a scroll-modifier for the trackpoint like on Thinkpads?

Can it be configured to be the latter? The user manual does not say.

The keyboard can store up to four different profiles onboard.
So, it is definite that the profiles are stored on the keyboard , and do not require a background program to run on the connected computer.
Because the configurator is available for Mac and MS-Windows only, this is quite a big deal for Unix/Linux users (who are typically the people who appreciate the keyboard's Unix layout).
 
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Sleepy_Hollowed

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Jan 1, 2017
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I get what this is for, and it's not bad, I just absolutely hate linear switches for typing accurately.

Price and switches aside, I would get one for work for sure, especially if that trackpoint works like that across operating systems by default, I can absolutely use that as a terminal keyboard on the go and not have to worry about carrying a mouse.