These newfangled keyboards

petedude

Anyone notice how keyboards are getting more and more cheaply made lately?

It seems like it's rare to find a traditional tactile keyboard on a new laptop in the stores. Now, they're all these mushy chiclet thingies. Anyone got any statistics or anecdotes about these?

Also, the standalone keyboards included with new desktops anymore seem to have increasingly smaller, thinner plastic keys.

swild

I agree that none of the newer bundled keyboards seem to be worth the $5 to $15 that they charge for them, however, the expectation is that they will be replaced in no more than 3 years by a new model. With that in mind, there is no reason to build them any better than they are. Add to that the idea consumer demand forces the prices to be ever more competitive and the industry has to respond by cutting corners just to make ends meet.

Now, laptops are made even cheaper because a laptop that is expected to perform for 3 years is a rare model indeed. My last employer had HP Elitebooks that had keys that would fall off after just a couple of months. That was a poor design that wound up costing HP due to the in-warranty repair costs that they had to cover. The new models seem to be a little better made.

Now that our economy is starting to bounce back, there is a small chance that we will start to see better quality goods available, but we will have to pay for that privilege.