Nice idea. Keyboard design is stuck in typewriter era and my shoulders and wrists could use an ergonomics upgrade. There's nice split keyboards, but the price is steep (~300 euros vs my current sub 10 euro keyboard).

I agree you probably won't find this in a laptop ever, thanks to the standard keyboard design still being stuck with strange quirks, some of which were already outdated in the era of actual typewriters.

That said if you're a numpad user a keyboard with centered numpad is pretty much the best concept other than the rabbit hole of custom ergonomic keyboard layouts. Either way you can only get into that realm with a lot of money unfortunately.

Many Korean tripartite (세벌식) keyboard layouts have a virtual numpad accessible with shift. In a particular layout I'm using [1] it is HJKL:YUIOP for 0 through 9, so you can type 3.141592 with shift plus L.J:JYPK. Note that most symbols from the numpad can also be typed with shift, and full stop and comma can be specifically typed with or without shift. To me it is much better than the ordinary numpad (even at the middle) because it only takes two rows instead of three rows.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Sebeolsik_Flnal.svg

As someone with a disability who types with one hand, please for the love of God don't make this the standard

I've considered it!

I use an ErgoDox, and there's just enough space in the middle for a numpad.

But I often stick my phone there, and I just don't think I'd use it very often. Technically I can pop up a layer to turn the right side keys into a numpad (advantage of ortholinear) but I don't quite have the muscle memory to really take advantage of it so that's basically wasted.

I've mulled over having a special lighting routine that lights up only those characters, in distinct colors, that would probably get me close enough. But it's just enough hassle that I never get around to it.

That does sound neat and would actually be quite withing the realm of possibility for a System76 laptop since their controllers are open-source. If you got like 50 people to chip in, you could probably get the production cost for one unit under 100$, which is still cheaper than most desktop split keyboards on the market.

You could always get this e-ink keyboard that is being crowd-funded the nemeio where you can I guess completely customize the keys https://www.nemeio.com/ - seems interesting and could allow you to easily explore alternative layouts but not sure how good the ergonomics of a keyboard like that would be but it seems interesting to me.

I've been vaguely pining for an Advantage keyboard with a trackpad in the middle. In a typical display of mainstream keyboard makers being completely stuck on the same track, keyboards with an embedded trackpad have it on the right, despite laptops providing a ubiquitous example right in our faces and hands.

Get an mnt reform and build your own :D Or just invest the few bucks to go for an mvp: split 60% keyboard and a separate numpad simply stuck between the two splits. If you like it, build it properly. :D

This is a great idea!

It is also far more ergonomic than the current status quo.

It would be a great step.

Next step would be adding more keys under thumbs: backspace and arrows would be good candidates.

Some laptops have this on the touchpad, with a printed grid of numpad keys there.