Most wireless keyboards look like… well, desktop keyboards. But the upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II looks like what you’d get if you ripped the keyboard off a recent ThinkPad laptop… it even has an integrated TrackPoint nub in the middle and clickable buttons below the space bar.
It’s designed to work as wireless keyboard that gives you a ThinkPad experience when your laptop is hooked up to a docking station. But you could also use it as a standalone keyboard for just about any device — Lenovo says it’s compatible with Windows and Android and can pair with up to two devices.
The new ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II should be available in May for $100.
The keyboard measures about 12.1″ x .5″ x 0.6″ and weighs 1 pound. It connects to a PC or mobile device either via Bluetooth 5.0 or a 2.4 GHz wireless dongle that you can plug into the USB port.
You can adjust the tilt angle of the keyboard, and the key pitch of the scissor switch, chiclet-style keys is 19.05mm.
Lenovo says the keyboard is spill resistant and features 6-point key entry for visually impaired users, and has a rechargeable battery that lasts for up to 2 months on a charge. If it does run out of juice, you can plug it into a USB-C charger for 15 minutes to get up to a week’s worth of use.
They need to remove the not needed red button and bottom buttons.
It will be the perfect keyboard then.
Cool, I’ll get one of these when they go on sale
I’m probably the only person in the world that wished they’d use the optical trackpoint instead of the nub. The Thinkpad Bluetooth keyboard from one of their early tablets is one my favorite thinkpad keyboards because of the optical trackpoint.
Of course, I have around 5 thinkpad keyboards, so I’ll probably get this one too. I have a problem.
Does anyone know if there exists Bluetooth keyboards with a mouse nub that folds? I’ve seen foldable keyboards with touchpads but I prefer a nub and, maybe, they could comparatively be smaller when folded.
I’ve never heard of a folding keyboard with a trackpoint. I think that the smallest BT keyboard that’s remotely like that is the keyboard for the Thinkpad Tablet 2. Only issue is that the trackpoint is really an optical pointing stick and not nearly so nice as the real thing. In general though it’s a pretty solid keyboard, considering that it’s really a cover for a 10″ tablet.
It’s great that they’re making a USB-C model. 🙂
They have two keyboard models that look almost identical to this one already — one bluetooth, one USB — and the microusb port tends to bend out and require some delicate bending back to keep its connection.
The range on the bluetooth one is disappointing, too, so I’m looking forward to seeing how well that dongle works. 🙂
A week of battery life is not great. I own wireless keyboards that last months on a charge.
Then plug it in for longer than 15 minutes (that’s how long you need to charge it to get a week — a full charge gets you 2 months).
Haha, I need to learn to read better.
Nice that it has the 2.4 GHz option so you don’t need Bluetooth powered on all the time.
Guess they couldn’t put a real Thinkpad key layout and real Thinkpad keys on this lest they reignite the complaining about the lack of such on their laptops. But they don’t have the excuse of having to sacrifice functionality on the altar of Macbook Air like thinness.
How exactly does this differ from a real ThinkPad layout?
Probably referring to the classic SK-8845 keyboard, which was USB but had the “real” ThinkPad keyboard layout.
There was a thinkpad keyboard before the chiclet models, take a look at a T60 when you have a moment. It had longer travel, firmer feedback, generally it was a good keyboard.
I was thinking about moding the keyboard from my old T61 into a desktop keyboard with a 3D printed case and a teensy, but never got the time to get the project going. Plus I own some good mechanical keyboards that so I’m not really in a rush…
I wondered the same thing. It has a red cursor nib and the Ctrl key is in that horrible second position, so it sure looks like a Lenovo keyboard to me…
The old school ThinkPad keyboard was retired after the “20” series (X220, T420, et al.). All hail the chiclet beginning with the “30” series. There was also a series of PS/2 and USB keyboards 8835, -40, -45 and -55 that used the pre-chiclet IBM keyboard design. The 8840 was the PS/2 model. The 8835, -40, and -45 all had a built-in trackpad and full UltraNav setup with the 8835 also including a full number pad. The 8855 dropped the trackpad and used the slightly revised, final iteration of the classic keyboard layout first (and last) seen on the “20” series.
I bought a wired version of the original seven-row model several years ago just before they took them off the market. Many of the letters on the keycaps have worn off, one of the caps is loose, the cable has a loose connection I keep under control with a bulldog clip attached to the underbelly of the keyboard, but it’s still going…
I wish I’d bought a couple more at the time, though I was extremely fortunate to receive a couple of mint condition vintage IBM Thinkpad keyboards from some ex-IBM friends a couple of years ago, so as long as there are drivers that work with Windows 10, I should be set for another decade or two!
Except for the 25th anniversary model, the last Thinkpads with the 7 row, non-chiclet keyboard came out in 2011. This is what a “real” Thinkpad keyboard has looked like for the last 7 years now.
A keyboard like this mostly makes sense for someone who wants to maintain the same feel across a laptop and a desktop or docked laptop. If you just want a small desktop keyboard, there are 60% or tenkeyless mechanical keyboards that will cost about the same and provide a hugely better typing experience than any Thinkpad keyboard, real or otherwise. So it doesn’t really make sense for them to resurrect a vanished design.
This….and I don’t get the impression it is backlit. 🙂 I am waiting on my latest keyboard to arrive tomorrow….