X230 Keyboard key slanted

[rchung]

Hello,

I just received my new X230 last week and I noticed my up and down arrow keys are not sitting flat. The down-arrow key is dipping down on the top right corner and the up-arrow key is slanting up on the top right corner.

I tried calling support and they say they have to send me a box and ship it in which will take a while. I really can't be without my laptop.

Does anyone have any ideas of why it's like this and how I can maybe make the key sit flat myself? It's really bugging me. I've never had a keyboard with keys that slant.

Here are some pictures:

http://i.imgur.com/sh065.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gFuyu.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Zmvk7.jpg

Thanks,

Ryan

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

From looking at the photographs, it looks like the problem is with the actual individual keycap and not with the keyboard as a whole.  Since your X230 is brand new, perhaps it can be repaired under warranty locally?  You might want to contact support again and see if there are any authorized repair facilities nearby.  Otherwise, shipping it in would be the best thing to do.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[Puppy]

Wow, the new no-ThinkPad-keyboard build quality is a loss. I've read similar reports about Edge keyboards.

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello Puppy,

Hard to say for certain with only a single report that I've seen of it on one X230 so far. 

I have two X100e's and an X120e with the island-style keyboards and have not seen this happen, and I have not heard of it occuring with those, so maybe it is an isolated incident..

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[Mark_Lenovo Former Administrator]

Rchung,

This seems to be a random anomaly - while I agree it should not be this way, I 'm sure you can understand how just glancing at the keyboard this might not be immediately obvious and one would have to look for it.  

We can follow up with you to see if we can just send out the keyboard - should be a couple of screws and you should be able to change this out yourself.   Thanks for noting this - we will see if others report similar.

Puppy,

I realize you may not agree with the design change on the keyboard, but I think we have to keep some perspective here when we ship tens, hundreds of thousands of systems.   As much as we try to inspect, there is always the possibility that individual irregularities can occur.   This was the case with prior keyboards as well, and so I'm not sure I agree that it is fair to use this example to criticize the new keyboard.  

Best regards,

Mark

[JeffBinCO]

I had a much, much worse warped keyboard in my refurbed x120e when it arrived.  I pulled up the keyboard and found two issues:

1. One of the keyboard assembly tabs that goes under the palmrest was not seated

2.  The aluminum keyboard backing frame (shiny underside) was bent in several places.

It looked like someone had either tried to force it up without removing the assembly screws or it was damaged prior to assembly.  The keys all functioned properly.  So I laid the keyboard out on a flat surface and pushed out the bent areas until it was flat(ish). 

I put everything back together and it works fine. 

Now I know what is meant by the "dent" in the "scratch and dent" category on the outlet.