15" or 17"? I have a PowerBook G4 from the same era, and I think the keyboard is the same as that. Indeed it has better travel, but I find the keys are slightly wobbly and a bit unrefined. Having torn one apart a while ago, I'd suspect it's due to looser tolerances than more modern designs. I think ThinkPads from the same era have significantly better keyboards. They're less mushy and have a better texture.
The wobble in keyswitches is often intentional: it prevents keys from binding when pressed off-axis, and makes them a bit more forgiving when they get dust inside.
I didn’t like the older thinkpad keyboards; noticeably too stiff for my taste. But this IBM "portable" keyboard is a dream: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100
I just don't understand how many people prefer these keyboards.
Key travel is only important to assist in your typing + provide feedback, but unless you type like a brute (I've a friend whom I would NEVER lend my laptop too, as I would be worried for my keyboard) or have sensory nerve issues like from diabetes, you don't need much travel.
I was dubious of the newest Lenovo keyboards, but after using my X1 Nano for a few hours, I was convinced: while the keys themselves have less travel, it has a strong opposing force that gives a lot of feedback.
It's still a bit too stiff for my taste (it seems to have been made for big burly guys) and I'd prefer something more like the current Macbook keyboards, a self-avowed heresy for any Thinkpad fan :)
It's funny to think about Lenovo making the X1 Nano for big burly guys.
It's too bad that laptop switches will likely never see the huge and varied aftermarket that we have with mechanical keyboards. There's a switch for everyone, and it'll work in almost any keyboard if you're handy with a soldering iron or have one with hotswappable switch sockets.
> It's too bad that laptop switches will likely never see the huge and varied aftermarket that we have with mechanical keyboards. There's a switch for everyone
Is there one for me, who likes little key travel, softness, and silence?
So far the best solution I've found : thinkpad USB keyboards everywhere :)
Possibly a lightweight Kailh Choc linear switch? They’re very soft and quiet, but they have no tactility. The tactile ones leave a bit to be desired. It’s hard to match rubber domes there.
Indeed. Even if it's antithetical to the mechanical keyboard idea, I wish MX style keycaps (wide availability, for ex this is how I could get a Cyrillic keyboard) could be made compatible with rubber domes (with no mechanical switch)
It's a tough engineering problem, that's for sure. I agree that older ThinkPads are a little bit stiff.
Apple went too far with butterfly, but I think they landed a good place with their current line up. They have very little wobble. Cherry MX switches (and clones) are excellent in terms of off-axis binding. Some clones are significantly less wobbly than others, for various reasons but none of them sacrifice off-axis performance. It took decades to get to this point though.
On a related, Alps mechanical switches are notorious for dust and dirt ingress issues as they get older and they're extremely hard to clean. For some reason Cherry MX switches have fared much better over the years.
> Alps mechanical switches are notorious for dust and dirt ingress
This is not accurate. You are thinking of cheap Alps clones. The “complicated” SKCM/SKCL switches from the mid 80s through early 90s have fancy switchplates that give an extremely clean electrical signal and have contacts entirely enclosed in a switchplate. All sorts of 20+ year old keyswitches (including Cherry MX switches) start to feel “scratchy” when they get used with a lot of dust/dirt inside, because the plastic gets scraped up.
I am not thinking of clones, no. I’m thinking of my AEK and AEK IIs with creams and salmons that don’t feel so hot today. I haven’t used many vintage Cherry boards, but I do know that people actively seek out “vintage blacks” because the plastics have been smoothed out after a lot of use.
I’m really surprised to read this comment because it really disagrees with what I’ve read and my own experience.
> “vintage blacks” because the plastics have been smoothed out after a lot of use.
No this is not why people want the older Cherry MX switches. The older MX switches used less worn-out molds and/or different plastic, and were much smoother straight out of the factory than MX switches from a few years ago which are quite scratchy feeling when new (this may have improved more recently, I’m not sure).
> my AEK and AEK IIs with creams and salmons that don’t feel so hot today
Feeling scratchy is very common for 25-year-old MX keyboards as well, and other kinds of keyboards. Stuff that sits on a shelf or table (not in a box) for decades collects a lot of dirt inside. Alps also applied some kind of lubricant to the slider in the factory, which may not be there anymore. Alps switches might be a bit more susceptible to scratchiness from decades of dust inside than MX switches because the slider slides against 1 or 2 leaf springs which provide resistance; in linear MX switches the slider is only moving up and down in a plastic channel and scraping a bit against the sides but the resistance is all provided by a helical spring.
(You could probably improve your key feel by disassembling all of the switches, putting the parts in an ultrasonic cleaner, and applying some lubricant when re-assembling them. You might not consider that to be worth the effort though.)
But I would generally expect both of your keyboards to be electrically quite reliable (at least at the switch level, with a very clean signal across each switch, not much chatter).
If a keyboard is stored for an extended time with key(s) depressed, it can end up deforming the springs. Deformation of the leaf springs can reduce the switch resistance and tactile snap in Alps switches; you can try to restore this by bending the leaf springs outward yourself, but it is pretty tricky to make them consistent.
I also have an AEK keyboard which stayed in a box somewhere sealed for 25 years or whatever, and is amazing today.
I think it’s a mixture of molds and being broken in. Apparently these artificially broken in[0] switches with Cherry’s new Hyperglide molds are quite good.
I did try ultrasonic cleaning some of my Alps switches, but it’s hard to replicate the factory lube. The lubes we use for MX switches aren’t ideal.
I would fully expect a new old stock AEK to be amazing. All of my AEKs are indeed electrically reliable, but they are scratchy.
Unused new-old-stock MX switches from the mid 1980s have noticeably smoother feel and don’t make the scratchy sound you get with new MX switches from, say, 2010.
Artificially wearing in keyswitches with 100s of thousands of robot keypresses seems really silly to me, though I guess it’s easier than disassembling every switch and sanding down the friction points with fine-grid sandpaper or applying fancy aerospace lubricant or whatever the kids are doing these days. YMMV.
Retooled switches from 2010, yes, but Hyperglides are new moulds as of 2020. Cherry made a fairly big deal out of it at the time. I've heard of people using diamond polishing paste to do something similar.
