A year ago I wrote a blog post about how difficult it is to make the ThinkPad keyboard wireless. After a year and a few days I’m glad to report that we made it! We already announced the ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard at CES 2013 with great success. So what can you expect? This is a great keyboard that matches the look and feel of the T430u keyboard. It is full size, but still very compact. Most of the people who see the keyboard for the first time have the impression that the keyboard is smaller than the one on our ThinkPad and try to put it on their ThinkPad to compare – this is too funny! They are the same size. The keyboard comes in two versions – USB and Bluetooth. We have overcome all battery issues in order to keep the traditional Trackpoint without a drain on the battery. So you can enjoy the traditional red rubber Trackpoint! I personally feel like it is best keyboard to be used with docked notebooks and tablets. Compared to some keyboards out there, this one has the pointing device to operate in Windows in compact form and shape - so important in these days. And if you are using the All-In-One or Tiny, this is the ideal choice. I mean, the compact keyboard fits space saving computers perfectly. Particularly when some All-In-One computers have an optional Bluetooth. I was using the previous...
Continue reading “Lose the Wires, Not the Experience: ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard”
The New Windows 8 user interface – although seen before its official announcement – created a lot of emotions. The majority of new PCs will have this new interface, pushing us toward a new world of touch. I want to explore a new way to benefit from the many features of Win8 by introducing it's best friend, the Lenovo Wireless Touchpad. The biggest change in Win8 is the Start screen, which is optimized for touch. To accommodate this demand for touch, there are new apps – gestures, bigger buttons, redesigned user interface. Whether you have a touch screen enabled device or not, there is a change in how you navigate too. The challenge is that currently not all notebooks and even less desktops have touchscreen. When all you hear about is touch, but you do not have that capability yet, ask yourself – how do I benefit in this situation? The answer is simple for me – The Lenovo Wireless Touchpad. We introduced the new Lenovo Touchpad to enable you to: - Navigate on your notebook or desktop even without a touch screen on your system - Navigate using touch, comfortably, on a docked notebook on a stand or if your notebook is positioned further from your finger tips to take advantage of an external keyboard. - Utilize new gestures o Mimic Windows 8 touchscreen gestures (like edge swipe) o Zoom, rotate – Remember, I told you that new...
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Lenovo Mice Size Comparison Top View
As a society, we tend to focus on the big things in life – looking forward to the big sporting events, holidays, and life events. It takes a level of skillfulness to appreciate the smaller things around us. I think the same is true when it comes to our technology. We focus on the system, but after you have the best system, what’s next? We all use accessories to accomplish our day-to-day tasks and one that can be easily overlooked is the mouse. A long time ago I started to use the ThinkPad Travel mouse (PN 31P7410) and have been using it for years. It gave me good portability when traveling and it did not take up space on my desk – I actually find it to be a rather cute footprint on the desk. Outside of its “curb appeal,” I really do enjoy the backlit scroll wheel. I think it is a nice Think design element and compliments my system. For me it works, but others want something bigger. In Europe - where my origins are – it is all about ergonomics. A lot of European customers prefer large mice; comfortable and ergonomic. Like Lenovo USB Optical mouse (PN 06P4069). This is a great mouse for the office, especially for desktops or...
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I always get some of my best blog material by looking at my desk. To paint a picture, I take advantage of most of the accessories created for my think system. I should clarify, that makes my workspace very clean and easy to use. My desk, as a whole, that is a separate story! One of the accessories I want to reflect on today is the stand alone numeric keypad – Numpad. On my Windows PC, I type with both an English keyboard layout as well as a Czech one. The Czech keyboard has, in the sixth row of keys, Czech national characters and not the numbers. So when I need to type numbers, I have to switch the language in Windows to English, type the numbers, and then switch back. Doing that in Excel is a bit complicated as numbers are used quite often. Most people can live with a regular keyboard on a notebook. But, some people are using a numeric keypad – Numpad – on a regular basis. Couple of examples: • Like me – people with modified keyboard layout • Gamers – need numeric keypad as they need more keys for specific actions in games or simply using additional multidirectional arrows to move or navigate in games • People who often type numbers – accountants or professional users • CAD/CAM users Very specific users also need a numeric keypad because number keys on numeric keyboards do have different scancodes. This means if you hit “5” key on top row of the keyboard it is sending a slightly...
Continue reading “Work with Numbers?”
I’m originally from Europe – you can imagine the number of languages. Our EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) has more than 60 countries and a lot more languages. For all of our customers in EMEA we have 28 keyboard layouts. We provide multiple keyboard layouts to make sure all of you have best user experience with our keyboards and systems no matter how large or small the country. Below is an image of two common layouts - one with a small Enter and one with a large Enter. The image on the Left is a U.S. keyboard with the smaller Enter key. The image on the Right is a UK version with the larger Enter key. The layout of the keyboard is determined by the language and in this instance, the difference is the region. All U.S. keyboards have a small enter. Given the portfolio of keyboards and number of languages, it is not easy to manage such complexity. Some keyboards are more popular and are easy to project demand. Some are small volume, specialized keyboards – Fingerprint keyboard, ThinkPad keyboard, Smartcard reader keyboard. How do we know how many to print and in which layout or language? Our solution - we bring blank keyboards to Europe and we print them “on demand”. It is more efficient and it is also faster. Within Europe, the logistics do not take up much time so you can often get the keyboard in one or two business days after you order it - in the language you prefer. Most of the world demand can be covered...
