Your first Thinkpad, I reckon? They have been doing this since 1992.... (Which still doesn't make it a good idea, in my book...)
Amazing. I wonder who thought that was a good idea in the first place.
Yes, my first ThinkPad. I have zero brand loyalty, I just start with a list of required specs. I build my own home machines but you sort of have to buy laptops.
![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif.pagespeed.ce.XcUK202Yqt.gif)
So I start with specs and winnow the field.
High on my list this time around was native Win7 so Win7 drivers were downloadable from the manufacturer's support site for all of the onboard peripherals. I just can't stand the post-Win7 user interfaces. Why Microsoft insists on forcing their users to constantly relearn how to use a tool is beyond me. Computers aren't a hobby for me, they are a TOOL and I resent having to relearn where they've hidden all the important stuff every couple of years. Remember when Office already had 95% of its market, yet they completely redesigned the UI?
![Rant :rant:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/rant.gif.pagespeed.ce.koOB_HE-VX.gif)
Here's an idea: Let's put the steering wheel in the back seat and have the driver sit sideways. No, really, it's better because they can look forward AND backward with just a turn of the head! Trust us, we know better than you.
It's notable that, despite there being provably better keyboard layouts (example: Dvorak), we continue to raise new generations of typists on QWERTY whose reason for existence died along with typewriters that had typebars instead of the Selectric's spherical element. If the marketing research says to leave the keyboard layout alone, why doesn't that apply to the GUI?
The X270 was one of the last laptops to have a replaceable battery, RJ-45 Ethernet port, and a good array of USB and other comm ports. I'm often in a hotel room late at night, revving code based on customer meetings that day in preparation for more customer meetings the next day, and I usually have a backpack development environment with me (portable scope, power supply, ICE/debugger, various sniffers and other USB-interfaced tools, etc.). The hyper-thin laptops are emotionally appealing but lack Ethernet ports or enough USB's to do that job. The X270 is still an ultraportable, amazingly compact by the standards of just a few years ago, which is thin and light enough (~3 pounds) for me. More importantly, it has ports for everything and I get 20+ hours of battery life before I have to swap in another battery or plug in somewhere. Not even Lenovo's X1 Carbon can do that (if it could, I'd own that instead because it really is a cool design).
Interesting about ThinkPads swapping those keys so long ago. That was back when they were owned by IBM, and then Motorola, which means they would have had a more US-centric viewpoint (instead of China today). What could have made them buck an industry standard like that?
EDIT: I just read the comments in that link you provided. Here's one that sums it up: "My business partner standardized our laptops on Lenovo. Let me tell you, I remedied that in less than a year. Why, and what would make me switch back to these otherwise great machines? This button arrangement. Love the explanation, and I wish the others had all followed suit, but they didn't. We've swapped the buttons in BIOS but it causes unfamiliar users tons of pain as they keep raising issues thinking the button is broken because they're pressing the wrong one now."