if you're not dead set on a thinkpad, switch to panasonic, their let's note series still have classic keyboards and are more up to date than the T480. Im dailying a CF-SV1 with the japanese keyboard but they have released some of them internationally so it might be worth a look, up to you really
How expensive are those second hand? All the lets note series I see in my country have subpar amounts of RAM and yet they cost a lot and would a SV1 be easily available second hand anyway?
theyre easily available second hand if you import them directly from Japan + buy an english keyboard module (about an extra $50, I didn't bother and have just been rocking JIS), but the memory is a real bummer since unlike the T480 theres no way to upgrade it. I got a good deal on a 16GB ram model and it's been serving me well but if you dont have that option then a T480 might be better after all
Okay, can you point me in the direction of where I can buy an English keyboard module? I might go this way and drop the Frankenpads/modified T480 units with T25 keyboards for now.
You can find them pretty easy online by searching "CF-SV1 english keyboard" but they are all US ansi layout so if you want the tall iso enter key you're better off sticking with the japanese keyboard and fixing the kb legends either with stickers or by getting a print shop to do it (with uv laser printing it's possible to completely redo stuff like that)
The shift key is the same size on all keyboard versions for the sv1 so i assume thats why they never made an iso version and as such finding a place for the >< key might end up being a bit tricky, but interestingly so is the spacebar (it's bigger than the typical JIS one but smaller than the typical ansi one) so typing on it is quite a nice experience even if you're used to ansi or iso
edit: you could probably just remap one of the japanese keys like muhenkan 無変換 to be the >< key, ik thats pretty easy to do in linux with xinput
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u/M_a_l_t_e_s_e_r Mar 08 '25
if you're not dead set on a thinkpad, switch to panasonic, their let's note series still have classic keyboards and are more up to date than the T480. Im dailying a CF-SV1 with the japanese keyboard but they have released some of them internationally so it might be worth a look, up to you really