Buying a Laptop Keyboard

laptop keyboard

When you use a laptop, the keyboard is one of the most important parts of your system. In the past, laptop keyboards tended to feel flimsy and cheap, but today’s manufacturers are putting a lot of effort into producing laptops with high-quality keys that have great tactile feedback and provide a satisfying typing experience. Whether you’re a hardcore gamer who wants a mechanical switch feel or a content writer who wants a quick and smooth typing experience, there’s a laptop with a good keyboard out there to suit your needs.

The best laptop keyboards have a full layout and include a numeric keypad for those who frequently input numbers. They’re also portable enough to stow in backpacks, and their USB ports make them easy to connect to any computer. Some keyboards even support multiple devices at once with Bluetooth, which is perfect for anyone who uses their laptop on the go.

Another key feature of the best laptop keyboard is their comfort. Many of these keyboards have feet located on the underside along the edge furthest from you that tilt the board away from you, which reduces wrist strain. In addition, the keys are small and close together, which makes it easy to reach all of them without having to move your fingers too far from one another.

A well-designed laptop keyboard can make your work more efficient and less stressful, so it’s worth investing in one that offers the features you need most. If you’re a hardcore gamer, for example, you may want a keyboard that has tapered keys rather than the wider, flat keys laptop makers prefer these days. This type of keyboard also has more space between the keys, making it easier for you to hit all the WASD keys at once in first-person shooter games.

If you want to get a good feeling for how well-made a keyboard is, try it out in person before purchasing. Some models have a plastic shell that feels cheap and flimsy, while others have a sturdy aluminum frame that gives them an elegant, premium look and feel. If you don’t have a keyboard at home that you can test out, visit a store that specializes in laptops and ask the staff for help finding a model that meets your needs.

Some laptops have a number of keys that are combined into sets and accessible with the FN key, which works just like a Shift key. For example, some laptops combine the arrow keys with Home and End to create a cursor control area, while others have the keys F1-F12 that let you program special keyboard functions.

Fortunately, there are a lot of families of keyboards that are compatible with each other and can be used in large production runs. If you want to build ten or more laptops with a low-footprint keyboard, for example, you could buy a bunch of inexpensive Asus K53 laptop keyboards off Aliexpress, download the key table and pinout from this project’s efforts, and have an intercompatible set of components at your fingertips for only about $10.