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HP Pavilion Keyboard 300

2020-07-02 10:48  hppk300  computers dagboek  [permalink]

Dear HP,
More specifically: Dear HP-person that was responsible for the design of the HP Pavilion Keyboard 300,


Congratulations on the great design. I appreciate the effort that went into designing a keyboard that brings the evolution of the laptop design to the desktop user. (Though I have bought this keyboard because the keys on my laptop are coming loose. It's not an HP, don't worry.) The result is a sleek minimal design that fits well with most other accessories of contemporary office work.


"Modern" applications are using less and less of the function keys. So I understand that keys marked "f1" though to "f12" now have a primary function that controls multi-media, the screen, or open the search or configuration dialogs. If you need to press a function key, you can still unlock this function by combining the key press with the "fn" key. I'm willing to adapt. (Albeit grudgingly.) I'm also willing to forgive the dumb pricks from electronics that forgot to provide a 'fn-lock' feature, for example under a combination of "fn" and the padlock key, or "fn" and "esc".


A daring design decision must have been to drop the num-lock, caps-lock and scroll-lock indicators. They take up much space and are in a place that people don't notice anyway. Considering nobody ever has 'num' unlocked anymore — all keyboards have dedicated arrow keys, now —  I was pleasantly surprised to find a "paste" key where "num lock" is on other keyboards! It must have been a such big departure from current standards, that you've decided to keep a "scr lk" button as a reminder of all the good times. I too think there must be enough people using it in their daily work that it still merits a key of its own.


You can hear I'm quite positive. The one big regret, though, is you stole my right "ctrl". I used that one a lot. Especially with one-hand combinations with the arrow keys. Now I get "<" and the cursor not in the place I wanted. That'll be a lot harder to adapt to. It'll take so much concentration that I'd want to temporarily halt my music, but that's easily done now with a single press of the "f5" key — excuse me the "⏯" key.

 

Congratulations and thank you. I'll be thinking about you a lot.

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