Lenovo ThinkPad X390: A trusty workhorse that means business but it's not without a few flaws

Lenovo's latest ThinkPad X390 arrived at Vulture Central and was promptly taken out on the road to assess how the business darling took to its new togs. We were given a unit based on Intel's Core i7-8565U CPU paired with a resolutely non-upgradeable 16GB of PC4-19200 DDR4 RAM and a 512GB PCIe SSD. The display was a relatively …

[Pascal Monett]

17.6 hours

Oh, I'm sure you can get that - if you throttle the CPU to 20% of its capacity and turn the screen brightness down to minimum, set the disk to sleep after one minute of inactivity and the screen to go blank likewise.

In other words, you'll get 17.6 hours of use if you make the i7 function like an anemic i3. Yay.

I'd like to see battery life expressed in real-life, pedal-to-the-metal situations. If you're a programmer, you're going to be taxing those 16GB of RAM and probably the disk as well. I want to know how long I will be able to work, not just look at a dimmed screen.

But that'll never happen. Nobody will like to publish those numbers, they're too weak.

[Tomato42]

Re: 17.6 hours

depends on the kind of programming you do, my sessions are minutes long periods when only the keyboard interrupt handler has anything to do interspersed by few seconds of activity when it's actually compiling something

In such situations I was able to get quite close to Lenovo stated numbers, but yes it did require setting the screen to minimum brightness

[Dave 126]

Re: 17.6 hours

> Nobody will like to publish those numbers, they're too weak.

They're also not desperately useful, either. Nobody - not an engineer, gamer or programmer - expects a full day's use from a mobile workstation at maximum performance, so you're going to be carrying the power brick anyway. And hey, many of these folks will on occasion have need of less power, when they are writing a report, taking notes, emailing colleagues or just unwinding with a film.

Anyone who really needs full performance away from a power socket will do their own research into how best to work in their challenging situation, looking at the power capacity of the laptop battery, the performance per watt of the chip, external batteries, power inverters in a vehicle, perhaps offloading the heavy calculations to a remote machine etc. They are not going to base their buying decision on the vendor's stated number for 'how long can I watch Netflix in a dark room'

[JDX]

Re: 17.6 hours

Your work and mine might vary enormously. Like MPG, you should treat these numbers as best-possible-case - and what's more you know that.

[AMBxx]

Re: 17.6 hours

It's a useful comparator, assuming that all the manufacturers fiddle their figures to the same degree. Same as MPG and cars.

For me, I'd be going to a meeting for 2-3 hours, possibly a couple of hours on the train. I'd be ok. My 3 year old Surface Pro 4, probably not, so I'd take the charger.

[Stoneshop]

Re: 17.6 hours

set the disk to sleep after one minute

It's SSD. They already consume fsck-all when just idle.

[Sebastian Brosig]

Re: 17.6 hours

gone are the days of the "dual battery" Thinkpads. Which gave you "infinite" run time if you carry spares. Or send PFY home to re-charge one while you are on your 36 hour Starbucks coding binge..

My daughter is running one of those.. because I'm a stingy bastard I shop on eBay for an X240 rather than Curry's latest HP or Dell consumer laptop. And just as well.. she does give the machine a hard time and I think a lesser machine would have bitten the dust already.

[James 51]

Re: 17.6 hours

Recently bought a x270 for the same reason. Of course my wife ended up appropriating it for her small business (ironically because an old but vital bit of software is too fuzzy to use on a HD screen and the suppliers have been promising an update/new version for several years...

[J. Cook]

Re: 17.6 hours

... the T580 that work issued me is dual battery, much to my annoyance when I went to force power-off the damned thing by yanking the battery only to find the damned thing was still chugging along...

The T580 is... decent enough for what I do with it (infrastructure admin, so lots of SSH, web GUI interfacing, and remote desktop), although Visio still causes it to grind to a studdering halt.

Haven't bothered with doing things like games or media, I have other devices for those tasks.

[Blockchain commentard]

Seems like a decent upgrade to my Lenovo x21 :-)

[seven of five]

Nope, you´ll need something along the x60 in between, these modern ones are so light yo´ll flip the x390 through the roof just out of habit when picking it up. Won´t hurt the device too much, sorry about the ceiling, though...

[Intractable Potsherd]

I'm current using my second X61 - brilliant machine! I swapped the spinning rust for SSD, and fitted an extended battery - oh, and ditched Windows for Linux Mint - but otherwise it is bog standard, and works perfectly. My wife's X230, though, is a heap of shit. The keyboard is horrible (chiclet rubbish) and the thing dies (literally - no warning, just system down) if it is used on anything other than a perfectly flat surface (it seems that something moves if the case flexes even a minor amount). Since it is a work-supplied machine, I won't take it apart to see if I can locate the problem, and the muppets in her IT department are not interested in playing with hardware. Based on that experience, I will keep my double-digit Xes going as long as I can! I have a case and a motherboard on the desk waiting to be joined together so that I have a spare to be on the safe side!

[Mage]

Interesting

Pro: decent size SSD. The common 120G is too small.

Con: Screen too small, price too high, Intel graphics.

Pro: more practical than sub 1920 x1080 screens for Windows.

Con: It's not going to replace an E460.

What's the keyboard like for typing 2K to 10K words per day? The article mentions "The key travel is as good as ever", however that's not everything.

Does Linux work on it?

Obviously as the article says it's for someone on the road, not the desk user replacing a tower with a laptop.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Re: Interesting

My old thinkpad has an awesome keyboard. The Dell? Not so much. The new HP? Well, you know what the keyboard on the original ZX Spectrum was like? The old "dead flesh" feel? The HP meakes you realise just how good that keyboard really was...

[phuzz]

Re: Interesting

"Does Linux work on it?"

I'd be bloody surprised if it didn't.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the features (eg that mobile broadband) don't work straight out of the box, but searching for obscure binary blobs and half translated commands on unanswered threads in dead forums is part of the fun of installing linux. If you wanted it to all work first time every time, get a mac.

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Interesting

I bought a T400 from Ebay a wile back, and that came with an Ericsson mobile broadband module (I'm pretty certain it was an ex-Vodafone machine, from the audit labels). Putting a Three PAYG SIM in it just worked on Linux. Popped up as a network in the Network Manager, and required almost no setup (apart from selecting the provider) at all.

Unfortunately, I let my SIM expire as well, which is a pity since Three don't do PAYG SIM packages the same way they used to. I used to be able to have a credit balance that I could activate in appropriate chunks depending what I was doing. Even with no activated credit, I could log in to the My3 admin site via the mobile network, which was all that was required to keep the SIM active.

Nowadays, the chunks are just too big for the occasional use, so I now end up setting my phone up as a pop-up Wifi access point if I need access while fully mobile.

At the time, it was Ubuntu 14.04, but it is also recognized with later versions.

[piscator]

Re: Interesting

| Does Linux work on it?

the only question which matters, or *BSD ?

[gypsythief]

Re: Interesting

"Does Linux work on it?"

I'd be very wary before splashing the cash. I had a Thinkpad a while ago, (I forget the model) which ran various Linux's and FreeBSD just fine apart from the wireless card (some dodgy Realtek thing as I recall) which had schlonky Linux/BSD drivers and dropped the connection continuously.

Not a problem, I had a spare Intel one lying about that was reputed to be great with open source drivers. I swapped it in, turned my laptop on and was greeted with a fantastic wireless connection.

Err, no, I wasn't. I was met with a BIOS boot screen proclaiming "Unauthorised hardware detected. The laptop will not boot."

Turns out Lenovo (and others, HP I seem to recall) are famous for this. The BIOS checks the hardware in the laptop and if something is not on the approved whitelist, it doesn't boot. Gee, thanks, you twats.

I worked around the problem with a USB wifi dongle, but it gave sub-par performance compared to an internal card with a proper antennae.

So yeah, be wary of Linux support on Lenovo (and HP (and probably others)) laptops.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Interesting

You can get around the whitelist problem with a good hex editor and some internet searching. Not that I would ever do anything like that, of course.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Interesting

”Turns out Lenovo (and others, HP I seem to recall) are famous for this. The BIOS checks the hardware in the laptop and if something is not on the approved whitelist, it doesn't boot. “

You can turn this check off. Personally I’d rather have the check (and be able to turn it off wgen necessary) than not have it at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Interesting

The whitelists for WiFi and WWAN cards are not an attempt by Lenovo to lock you in. It's because of the FCC compliance.

[FrJackHackett]

Re: Interesting

"Does Linux work on it?"

Recently had to create a Config Mgr driver package for one of these at work. When I was finished, I put Ubuntu 19.04 on it. Haven't had much time to play with it, but it seems to work just fine and is very nippy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Interesting

It's a ThinkPad. Of course Linux works on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are these still popular?

Never understood the love for these dated looking, unstylish, overpriced, poorly specced (seriously, that screen?) laptops.

I get the history and how good the IBM ThinkPad was during certain periods. But in this day and age, this looks like a poor choice pretty much anyway you look at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why are these still popular?

They are reliable, tough as old boots and you can spec the innards/screen to whatever you want (typically 3-4 choices of panel for the display, same for CPU).

I spec them for my team because they don't go wrong and they take tons of abuse. I don't care what they look like.

[Alister]

Re: Why are these still popular?

Never understood the love for these dated looking, unstylish, overpriced, poorly specced laptops.

Ahh, a classic example of preferring form over function. Do you like crayons as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why are these still popular?

Nope, I prefer form AND function, and there are plenty of laptops out there that fulfil both criteria. This isn't one of them.

[Dave 126]

Re: Why are these still popular?

To an extent the attractiveness of the physical form is subjective, though at least it hasn't had a veneer of 'style' applied to it (i,e, non functional additions such as glowing logos, exaggerated vents, go faster stripes etc). For that reason, most of the target market won't consider it ugly, and appreciate that it isn't trying to be stylish. The designer of the original Think Pad, Richard Sapper, took inspiration from traditional Japanese lunch boxes. It's not a bad strategy, when designing a product in a new category, to look at objects that have been bought and used for decades, if there are appropriate similarities (i.e, a laptop, like a lunchbox, is of similar form, bigger than pocket size, and carried to work)

[Russ Tarbox]

Re: Why are these still popular?

Interesting history, thanks for sharing. Wasn't aware of that!

[Muppet Boss]

Re: Why are these still popular?

>Never understood the love for these dated looking, unstylish, overpriced, poorly specced (seriously, that screen?) laptops.

You mean, the love for these classic looking, expensive, excellently specced (finally, this screen does not seem to have PWM!) business laptops? Usually these are chosen by professionals who appreciate the ergonomics and productivity gains these excellent machines bring. While these can technically be used for watching pr0n, these are for work.

Regarding overpriced: old aftermarket Thinkpads are anything but expensive with very few cons.

--Typed from X220 16GB RAM, 512GB+1TB dual SSD, custom aftermarket PWM-free FHD

[DiViDeD]

Re: Why are these still popular?

Sorry, but all you naysayers are missing the point. Oh yes, these Thinkpads (my friends an me call em STINKPADS, hur hur) are durable, rugged, well specced, powerful, offer all sorts of customisation, good battery life, and all those inconsequentials, but seriously, how would you feel, sitting in a Starbucks with your skinny mocha latte and your bowl of Ricicles with sparkles, surrounded by people with oh so svelte (if somewhat underpowered and running a bit hot) space silver MacBook Airs and having to pull out your boring black laptop, with no glowing logo??

The shame would be palpable, I tell you. You might never be able to show your face at the Ramen popup again!

[Muppet Boss]

Re: Why are these still popular?

>how would you feel, sitting in a Starbucks ... and having to pull out your boring black laptop, with no glowing logo??

Like a hacker?

P.S. You know, sometimes colour is just colour...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why are these still popular?

Because they're as hard as a coffin nail.

[Reg Reader 1]

"resolutely non-upgradeable 16GB of PC4-19200 DDR4 RAM" One of the reasons I've liked the ThinkPad series is that they've been upgradable in damn near every way. To be fair, I've used T-series. I guess this is a way to make a laptop obsolete without reducing build quality.

[Dave 126]

Depending upon the Intel CPU, 16GB might be the maximum it can support without using a more power hungry type of RAM. Certainly this was the reason MacBook Pros were limited to 16GB until the last refresh, at which point Apple gave up waiting for Intel and decided to allow customers to take a hit on the power consumption.

And yeah, as you note, there are real Mobile Workststion-class Think Pads available that can't be realistically used too far from a plug socket. RIP the crazy W series with pull-out secondary screen and integrated Wacom digitiser - you were just too strange for this world.

[theblackhand]

I suspect this model actually supports 32GB (https://www.lenovo.com/us/en//laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/X390/p/20Q0002EUS) but it must be ordered from the factory.

The actual support depends on:

- memory used (LPDDR3 is supported upto 16GB/channel by CPU, DDR4 at 32GB per channel by CPU)

- number of channels (upto 2 but often only one channel utilised on laptops for thermal/space reasons)

- CPU...(change the CPU and you may find it doesn't support the DDR4 option)

- if the vendor has soldered the memory onto the motherboard or included it in DIMM slots.

- power usage of equipment

The real question is why Intel thinks creating so many market segments is useful...

[ovation1357]

Chiclet keyboard == No Sale

I'm still waiting in the vain hope that one day Lenovo will reintroduce traditional keyboards.

I've looked so many times at so many different makes and models yet anything made in the past 6 years or so has switched to Chiclet style keys (and in Lenovo's case also varyingly weird, bouncy touchpads).

I'm currently eeking out the lifespan of my T520 - it's got 16G Ram (defying Lenovo's claim that it only supports 8), a large SSD and and updated 1080p screen. The battery life isn't great but is surprisingly good for a 6 year old standard battery.

When I have to replace my T520 I'm really going to be stuck ☹️

[asphytxtc]

Re: Chiclet keyboard == No Sale

I honestly couldn't agree with this more! My T520 is still going strong too, and yep, 16G ram works just fine! I absolutely love the keyboard on this machine..

Really don't know what I'll do when this machine bites the dust, but with an msata ssd in there, the extra ram and an i7 as well it's certainly no slouch for its age.. more than enough for day to day coding and sysadmin tasks.

Regarding the battery, Duracell do a fantastic compatible battery for it (both standard and extended models) which for a little over £30 will make it like new again. They're great quality :)

https://www.duracelldirect.co.uk/laptop-notebook/lenovo/thinkpad-t520-battery-adapter-charger.html

Edit: A little under £40 for the battery now... wow, prices change fast in a year!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Chiclet keyboard == No Sale

Lost mine recently. Very sad. Was looking for another and was surprised how much people were asking and assumed it was because it was the last of the good keyboards.

Mine had cost £300 5/6 years ago. Made the usual upgrades and thought it would see me another 5 (drivers allowing). Unfortunately hadn't reckoned on my temper after making a costly (self afflicting) assumption. Still saved the RAM and SSDs

I'm being punished now, having to use an x551ma (celeron, ugh) as a stop gap and tied to a desktop the rest of the time.

That'll teach me.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Chiclet keyboard == No Sale

"varyingly weird, bouncy touchpads"

The "bouncy" touch pad is because it has "mouse" buttons under it giving yet more options on how to select/click/drag.

[mark4155]

Re: Chiclet keyboard == No Sale

"A 6-year old battery" well the solution is available at all good online stockists of laptop batteries. Toodle Pip.

[David Bird]

Looking forward to buying one in a few years

ThinkPads make good second hand bargains, typing this on a T430 (Linux, of course).

[MrMerrymaker]

Re: Looking forward to buying one in a few years

Seconded. Even down to the model! I replaced the screen on this refurbished one and it's clocking along brilliantly with Mint.

While I'm nominally glad to see Thinkpads still coming out... The real joy is in picking up a classic and proven model for a fraction of the price.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Looking forward to buying one in a few years

"The real joy is in picking up a classic and proven model for a fraction of the price."

^^ This!

[a pressbutton]

X220 forever

I still have an X220 as that was the last one that had a _proper_ keyboard.

Very few people care that this thing is 2cm thick or whatever rather than 4cm thick.

chicklet is fine for entering the name of your favourite cat video, but if you want sustained use you want a proper keyboard

most of the target market for this will use the keyboard a lot.

(the new work laptop since April is a dell and ... I am still using the 8yo X220)

[gv]

Re: X220 forever

Apart from the battery, my T61 running Ubuntu Mate, still works remarkably well and that keyboard is superb.

[Nolveys]

Super Fishy

Does this come with UEFI code that has Windows install malware automatically, or do we have to install it ourselves?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Super Fishy

That was a nasty slip by Lenovo, but it only infected affected the consumer grade stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

£1500?

Why not just buy a Macbook Pro?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: £1500?

I think they are £2500, oh and US airlines just banned some Macbook Pros, nearly all of them are affected by the deadlybiscuitcrumb, and I recently tried to mend a 13" for a month, that tested fine in every way, but wouldn't work! I suspect thermal errors.and that was an i5..

I vote X220 too, as it costs £200, can have all the bits changed, takes dual SSDs, one in the WWAN slot, and it has a few connectors unlike the MBP.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: £1500?

You think they're £2500? You need to think harder! The Macbook Pro range starts at £1300 and even the entry level model has a screen that roundly trounces the mediocre panel fitted to this ThinkPad.

[Rockets]

Re: £1500?

Cause ThinkPad's have a keyboard that actually works, can't be failed by a speck of dust and is easily replaceable. SSD & and batteries also easily replaceable. There's also USB type A ports so you don't have to live the dongle life. Some of the latest models also have RAM slots for easy upgrades or a RJ45. It saddens me to see that more and more ThinkPad models are going all soldered on RAM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: £1500?

Some of the latest models also have RAM slots for easy upgrades...

Congrats for listing a feature that this particular laptop does not possess as a positive for owning it!

Ever since Lenovo took over, the build quality and upgradability of ThinkPads has gone steadily downhill to the point where they're no longer worth the premium.

[Rockets]

Re: £1500?

Congrats for listing a feature that this particular laptop does not possess as a positive for owning it!

Yes a feature that a X390 doesn't have but the T490 does and no MacBook has at all.

Ever since Lenovo took over, the build quality and upgradability of ThinkPads has gone steadily downhill to the point where they're no longer worth the premium.

It happening to all brands unfortunately. They are all following a lot of design decisions/trends from Apple and consumers are worse off for it. But the masses are eating it up and us techies who know better get pissed off. I'd love to have a new ThinkPad that had the same keyboard as my old X220 or T420 but I'd take a current ThinkPad over a Apple laptop any day of the week. ThinkPad still have the best keyboard of any laptop but it's true they aren't as good as they once were. If I had to buy a new laptop this week I'd buy a T490. Slim enough but has a RAM slot and a good spread of IO ports including RJ45 and can be docked.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Politics

My viewscreen is still out of order

Are Lenovo mere puppets of an evil commie regime that we must ban from all aspects of our wholesome nation

Or are they basically just IBM with an unfortunate made in China sticker ?

Has the great leader made a pronouncement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Politics

Pretty sure Lenovo are banned from central government departments in the UK.

In my experience, I'd take Lenovo over HP for deploying firmware updates to address Intel management crap so I guess it depends which bogeyman scares you more - some other vendor with hard to resolve Intel firmware issues or Lenovo with anything China has installed. While China may be bad, all the other baddies attempting to hit known exploitable issues concern me more.

Personally, it gives me warm fuzzies knowing that China are so interested in my ElReg postings that they want to see them before I hit submit.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Politics and history

I'm sure the Chinese intelligence agencies feel the same and wouldn't require them to spy, like they allegedly would with certain phone makers

[piscator]

Politics and history

"are they basically just IBM with an unfortunate made in China sticker ?"

Well, according to wikipedia,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo

"Lenovo acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005"

I remember it seemed like a very big deal at the time..

[JLV]

Re: Politics and history

Since we’re doing history let’s not forget Lenovo and Superfish, a rather unfortunate decision to install a root cert pushing ad$.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident

I tend to have a long memory for this type of crap, sorry. Don’t give a s**t either that it was not on their business range models.

Have they learned? Probably. But the more ongoing pain it causes the less they or others will hazard reputational risk by knowingly putting customer security at risk for profit$. cf Sony DRM rootkit.

[jelabarre59]

Reducing functionality just like Apple?

So non-upgradable/non removable memory, and a **micro** SD card reader?

The memory thing would be enough to steer me away from this machine already, but seriously, folks, even as a "smaller-form-factor" laptop, there still has to be **PLENTY** of room for a full-sized SD/MMC card reader. Most of your digital cameras still use the full-size SD card, so why wouldn't you put the full reader on it? When you're dealing with cell phones, of course there isn't room. As for Android tablets, I'd expect they could do a fill-sized reader if they really wanted, but it's borderline either way. But a microSD on a computer? That's just sheer stupidity. (unless you'd like to put both; that would be OK)

[Rockets]

Re: Reducing functionality just like Apple?

I've got three X230's which are predecessors to this new model and they have a full sized SD card reader. They also have a RJ45 port & dual RAM slots. Lenovo have made the X2/3x0 series something it never was. Previously if you wanted supper thin and were prepared to sacrifice some ports and upgrade ability for that thinness you got a X1 Carbon. The X2/300 series used to have dual RAM slots, hot swap batteries and LAN ports which made it a great expandable road warrior laptop. All those features are gone now. I stopped buying the X series when Lenovo halved the maximum amount of RAM it could use to the previous generation. I think that may have be the X240. Been on the T4x0s series since but the new T490s has gone the same path as the X390. Next laptop will probably be a T series rather than a T slim now.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd just like to say

that trackpoints RULE!

As a long time Thinkpad user, in my opinion the trackpoint, when fitted with a rounded sandpaper surfaced nipple rather than the recent soft rubber one, is the best pointing device ever. With the right acceleration settings, it's way more accurate than a mouse or any track pad. It also keeps your fingers on the keyboard where they need to be.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'd just like to say

As a long time Thinkpad user, in my opinion the trackpoint, when fitted with a rounded sandpaper surfaced nipple rather than the recent soft rubber one, is the best pointing device ever. With the right acceleration settings, it's way more accurate than a mouse or any track pad. It also keeps your fingers on the keyboard where they need to be.

Of course the trackpoint is way more accurate to a nipple than a mouse or other track pad, especially with the right acceleration...

My coat is the one with a soft rubber on the left pocket. It's where I keep my fingers on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'd just like to say

Oh....you mean a clit mouse?

[Huw D]

Re: I'd just like to say

I once persuaded the Marketing Manager of a client that's what they were called.

Much hilarity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'd just like to say

A female friend used to always refer to it as that. I suggested that was why she liked to use it so much...

[JibberX]

Lenovo X250 Owner Report

Bought an X250 (new, back in the day) thinking of IBM levels of reinforced concrete, instead I got a flaccid plastic bag with some components inside.

Keys around the nipple were broken on arrival, so not great pre sales checking... WARRANTY

X250 returned using UPS who are systematically worst package company I've ever dealt with in my life over the years, no option to use another courier.

X250 arrived back, internal battery not plugged in.

Day to day use, the laptop screen was being eaten by the palm rest, the chafing on itself in a laptop bag leaves a nice groove on the screen... WARRANTY

The self eating continued after the replacement screen was fitted. I think it was designed for the glass touch screen not the plastic screen I opted for so...

Couldn't be bothered with warranty anymore, so I have a slight crap screen, and now it runs without too much incident.

Be nice to spend a grand on a machine that didn't eat itself.

Sadly Lenovo appear to be the last sturdy(ish) manufacturer after Sony and Tosh capitulated.

It was a toss up between an X250 and a Dell XPS13, I will never know which was the better option.

Pros and cons.

[Lusty]

Keyboard

They've STILL not worked out where the ctrl and fn keys should be, so it's a no from me.

[Rockets]

Re: Keyboard

Personally I prefer the Fn to the left of the CTRL key. Horse for courses.

[Lusty]

Re: Keyboard

I can only assume that's due to having Lenovo laptops for a long time as they're pretty much the only ones who put it there. For pretty much everyone else, this placement results in wanting to smash the laptop every time you try to copy/paste something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Keyboard

They can be reversed in the BIOS.