Thinkpad Keyboard with Nav

I've been looking for this keyboard for some time, since getting a Thinkpad. The feature it has is that it's a keyboard with Trackpoint.

The Trackpoint is the little red button on Thinkpad notebooks. The great thing about this design is that the pointer is really easy to control, it's like a finger joystick you use with your index finger and works really well once you get use to it. Another benefit for touch typists is that it's in between the G and H keys in the middle of the keyboard while the mouse buttons are just below the spacebar. This allows me to use mouse functions without moving my hands from the keyboard. A minor productivity boost and reduces arm movement.

The second reason, which made me want to quickly put an order out for it is that it has an identical layout to my Thinkpad X40. After working almost exclusively on my notebook, it was quite hard to want to keep reaching for the mouse and get used to a different layout and feel. Feel is also important, as the Thinkpad keyboards are renowned as having one of the best notebook keyboards. I type much faster on Thinkpad keyboards, and this keyboard feels exactly the same.

It's quite flat similar to notebook keyboard, but has two levels for height adjustment. The keyboard also has 2 USB 1.1 ports, which I found useless as it didn't have enough power to drive my tablet. Maybe there is a power setting somewhere, but for now I just hooked it up to my existing 4 port hub.

No more mouse for me.

I'm quite happy now with this setup. When I'm doing development, I can keep my hands on the keyboard to do common tasks like reposition windows and use a browser. When I need to do design work, then I switch to my Intuos stylus, and work with ExpressKeys and my left hand on the keyboard.

Lenovo is refreshing these keyboards and ran a survey which is closed now. http://lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/?p=438 Hopefully we will see some great new keyboards soon, should my current one wear out. I was not happy with any of the consumer keyboards available.