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Thai vs. Chinese keyboard

post #1 of 5
1/1/06 at 7:06am
Thread Starter 
I don't have a Thinkpad yet, and the T43p I ordered won't arrive in a while. One of the most tempting features that led to me choose a Thinkpad T model was the keyboard I tried on someone's T42. I will be typing a lot on it, and a top-notch keyboard is a must.

I read in many places that the T series come in two types of keyboards, those manufactured in Thailand and those that are assembled in China.

So my question to T-series owners, which is best?
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post #2 of 5
1/3/06 at 8:43pm
Thread Starter 
Follow-up:

After some research, I found out that the T43/T43p keyboards come from three manufacturers, NMB (Thailand), ALPS (China), and Chicony (Taiwan).

From what I read in many forums and reviews on the web, the NMB is the superior keyboard. Many users reported problems with the ALPS keyboard, such as wobbly keys, squeaky tracking-point/touchpad buttons, and not as good a tactile feedback as the the NMB. I haven't found any information about the Chicony keybaords.

I called Lenovo today and asked the sales rep to install the NMB keyboard on my Thinkpad, which is still being assembled. He told me there's no way for him to request a specific keyboard, and if I got a non-NMB keyboard, I can't request a free replacement unelss it's defective.

That's a bummer because now it's a Russian roulette as to what keyboard I'm going to get with the notebook.
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post #3 of 5
1/4/06 at 1:41am
NMB is the best, trust me
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post #4 of 5
1/5/06 at 8:38pm
How can you tell which kind you have?

Is there a website that has pics and descriptions?

Mine seems fine to me but then again this is a dream compared to any of my previous notebooks.
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post #5 of 5
1/7/06 at 4:30am
Thread Starter 
dAEDaLus, you need to take the keyboard out and look at its part number. This page shows you how.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-46515

And then check this part number against this list for the T43p. At the bottom you'll find the NMB, ALPS, and Chicony part numbers for the US English editions.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...IGR-58491.html

Mine arrives on Monday. I hope it has the NMB
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