L420 FN CTRL keys swappable in BIOS?

[vikebo]

Hi

I'm considering an L420, but as an Emacs user I don't think I would be happy with the mentioned keys.

From some searching it seems like "newer" Thinkpads have a BIOS option to swap these keys. Not being too familiar with Thinkpads, I don't know if "newer" includes the L420. The BIOS keyboard section in the user manual does not mention this.

Can anyone confirm they are swappable?

Thanks!

Eivind 

[tanujhanda Retired Partner · Accepted solution]

Hello vikebo and welcome to community,

The L420 laptop BIOS do no have this option available,

May be in future with BIOS update we get this option.

Best Regards,

Tanuj

[ColonelONeill]

I thought they were swappable on all newer systems after the __00 series.

[vikebo]

Hello, and thank you both for your reples.

Guess I'll have to wait for an update mentioning it specifically then or buy something else. Not so often I see anyone with Thinkpads in this area, so it's not so easy to check. Dell is the most common, but I don't want that.

Eivind 

[ColonelONeill]

I couldn't find anything that implicated the L420 specifically, except this article: http://blog.lenovo.com/design/switch-mode-for-fn-ctrl-keys-follow-up

As far as I know, all of the current ThinkPads have this toggle. My W520 certainly does.

[vikebo]

Yes, I've seen that article. There is a later follow up mentioning it for ThinkPad X100e, Edge 13", T410s, T410, T510, and W510:

http://blog.lenovo.com/design/switch-mode-for-fn-ctrl-keys-start-up

I don't know much about the various Thinkpads, but my guess was the L-series came after these and shuld be likely to have the option. However the L420/520 user guide has a section for BIOS settings, but fails to mention this particular setting. The other Thinkpad user guides I checked didn't have a section for BIOS setting so It's hard to tell if they just forgot to update/add it.

Tanujhanda in the second post seems quite sure it does not have the toggle.

I'll try to email a question to one of the online retailers, but I don't have too high hopes for this kind of question.

Thanks again for your reply!

Eivind 

[vikebo]

Got an answer from a retailer. As far as they can see, this setting is not available on the L-series.

Eivind 

[mm1on1]

I enter the bios of my L420 and change the setting of keyboard/mouse. There is a setting of FN and CTRL key swap, you could change in bios.

[martiniturbide]

Hi.

I can also confirm that on the Lenovo Thinkpad L420 (7856-3WS) (BIOS 1.20 - Dec 2 - 2012) has the "Fn and Ctrl key swap" function on the BIOS