Kevin,

I just stumbled across this post of yours. Interestingly, I posted an article on my blog (ulpcs.com) on the same day as you. I titled mine “Arrgh! Give Me Full-Size Shift Keys!”.

My conclusions were the same as yours, any netbook without this feature is no longer under consideration.

I also noted that Dell and Lenovo had blown it.

I hope the marketing folks are taking notice…

By the way, great blog.

>>>I think you certainly are being picky!

It’s his money, so why not?

Kev – is there a site or some place that i can compare and contract all the netbooks available; so i know what my choices are?? thanks

Mike, I purchased the Acer knowing full what what the return policy is, so while I own it now, I can still return it.

Alan, I don’t “touch-type” on any phone be it the iPhone or not. Comparing the typing ergonomics and approach of a phone and a computer with a nearly-full size keyboard doesn’t make sense to me.

I have never, ever used modifiers on the right side of the keyboard, desktop, laptop, netbook, or phone.

You’re an iPhone user too.. Does the lack of two shift keys bother you on that keyboard? You’re clearly adapting when you use the iPhone and it’s clear that it’s perfectly usable.. At least, for me.

I guess I agree that specs and build quality would matter a lot more to me than if it had a non standard keyboard layout. I own a full-size laptop with a non standard layout and just didn’t find it a problem.

I think you certainly are being picky!

>>>It would make more sense to me for the extra $20 to get the XP model with hard drive and extra 512 MB of memory.

Yeah, but you ALREADY OWN IT, so why not just add the HD to it? Or would you ebay it and get the XPed HDed one? Or pass it on to your kid and then buy the XP one? Feh, you rich people! Money to burn! (ROTF…)

Henry, I know that you can remap keys (see the last link in my post), but that doesn’t solve the key sizing issue for me. I could compromise on it if I have to, but I’d prefer not to.

Luscious, all good points, but they underscore a more important one that we make here time and time again: the “P” in “PC” stands for “Personal”, meaning we all have different computing needs. Examples: you prefer a hard drive with higher capacity storage, while I like to work with data in the cloud and don’t need more than a few gigs of capacity. The PC Card slot on the HP is appealing to you; I prefer USB ports for the peripherals I own. I’ve been using 800X480 and 1024×600 displays for 2.5 years, so I’m comfortable with them… 1280 wide would be nice, but it’s low on my priority list, etc….. Again, all very good points in your comment, but we all have differing requirements.

Before getting an HP laptop I’d make sure it didn’t have a Synaptics touchpad. My employer has one of these that I’ve been allocated and the touchpad is unbelievably twitchy — it often decides that I really meant to click on something if I hover over it. Which means I have to figure out, OK, what did I do there, what does this program think I wanted, and now, how do I undo it? I know that there’s a “tap to click” feature with a lot of touchpads, it’s supposed to be helpful and convenient, and maybe on some machines, for some people, that works great, but it absolutely drives me nuts, and I avoid working on that machine if I can. And when I do, having to be extra, extra careful with all GUI navigation is very distracting — fortunately I spend a lot of time in an editor that doesn’t depend on mucking with the pointer much.

There appears to be no way to modify this behavior; there are postings on HP’s web site from people complaining about this problem, but no response from HP, or anyone else, about what to do about it.

Your mileage may vary.

I use the left mouse button more than I use the right shift key – and the mouse buttons on a few of the mini-notebooks (including the One) are wonky. Forget it!

I can sympathize with you Kevin. That’s why I stopped using a slate tablet PC. Although it wasn’t only the right shift key I found annoying.

Kevin, as you said win xp performance with the SSD is not so good. I got some improvement by formatting it FAT32 but I’ve just ordered a 5mm Samsung 1.8″ 60GB HD and I’ll go for the tnkgrl HD mod as soon as it arrives.
stv

I never knew that many people used the right shift key. For me, it’s the one key I never use (sometimes I’ll hit the Pause/Break button for the “any key”)!

I wholeheartedly agree with the non-standard right shift being a dealbreaker. I bought an eeepc 701 without realizing how annoying this would become. Sure, you can remap the Up and right shift keys. But now you have a non-standard arrow key arrangement. I touch type ALL the keys so this really eliminated Lenovo, Asus, and Dell from my next netbook purchase. It’s the MSI Wind or Acer Aspire One for me.

@Luscious: while those are all good arguments for the 2133, what kills it is running Vista with a C7. I really hope HP gets its act together and drops in an Atom, or at least a Nano.

The shift key is, as you mention Kevin, quite a pet peeve for those who use their netbooks to type and don’t want to deviate from the ergonomics of their regular keyboards.

However, I’m kind of missing the point here why you didn’t make the jump on the HP mininote if the keyboard is the determining factor in your netbook purchase.

For me, I would choose the HP mininote over the Acer for the following reasons:

1. Build quality – magnesium alloy frame is always going to be more durable than plastic, especially if it helps act as a giant heatsink.

2. Screen – 1280 across is better for work than 1024 and let’s me see more without having to scroll.

3. Hard drive – the luxury of using a 2.5″ size drive gives me capacity and speed that smaller devices just cannot match, and it is easily user-replaceable. And remember, 320GB of WMV movies beats any portable DVD player.

4. PC card slot – for many people this is simply a “must-have” requirement and the ultimate deal-breaker. And I’m not just talking about mobile web cards that may already be deployed in corporate use. You open up the options for “new” ports (think USB 3.0), firewire 800, serial ports, GBE, eSata connections, TV tuners etc…

Finally, I have to mention the price. $399 gets you an Acer with XP. $579 gets you the HP with Vista.

Are all the bells and whistles I mention worth the extra $180??? That is the real question here. For some, the pc card slot may be worth it alone. For me, I feel these details combined are worth the extra $180.

While I like HP, I’m not an HP fanboy. I’ve been using netbooks for five years now and cannot emphasize their benefits to everyone who I show my old Fujitsu P1120 to.

Just my $0.02

Kevin, a program like keytweak can easily remap a key to function how you like, rendering their silly shift key placements moot. On my EEE 1000h, I changed the “up arrow” key to be a “shift” key and vice versa, and have been happily typing normally ever since. Going up a page sometimes can be annoying but otherwise no complaints.