One of the things that really irks me about Dell, is their laptop keyboards. They’re downright horrible in terms of noise pollution.
I’m soft sound sensitive. That means if you’re chewing gum, I can hear it. Yes, it bothers me. And yes, you’re a complete moron if you chew anything with your mouth open (don’t get me started on the complete idiots that crack gum in public… I will never hire you, if you’re on my staff, I will make sure you’re the first to be let go, and yes, if you’re my boss… I will be looking to work elsewhere).
Contrary to popular belief, people that are soft sound sensitive can’t do anything about it. It’s both a biological and neurological advent, and all the tricks in the word aren’t going to make you desensitized to it.
Anyways, back to Dell. Blindfolded, I can pick out a Dell keyboard just from the awful noise level. If someone sits down at a cafe behind me, I just say to myself “Oh, they have a Dell”, based on the awful keypress noises being echoed into my ear drums.
Worse, the plastic being used on the keys is susceptible to further noise enhancement with long fingernails (that means you, ladies). Now, all long fingernails will make a keyboard louder, but with Dell’s plastics, the problem is actually magnified even worse.
Apple on the other hand has spent exhaustive amounts of time on this problem since the late 90’s. The modern PowerBook and MacBook Pro keys are dead silent (especially compared to Dell). In fact, I’ve started pushing for a Pro Bluetooth keyboard from Apple, that simply yanks the set out from the MacBook Pro and puts it in a Bluetooth keyboard array (not much traction on that one… yet).
Even the cheaper MacBook and desktop keyboards use a flat design that resists making needless noise. Dell seems to just shovel whatever is cheap into their systems, even when switching keyboards would not even be marginally more expensive.
And, I’m not singling out Apple for praise either. When Toshiba went from all-internal design and production, to cookie cutter laptops from Quanta… the keyboard design stayed. Even dirt cheap Toshiba laptops keep the same constructs that high end Toshiba laptops have in terms of keyboard design… a design that’s quiet.
So Dell, please, sit down and listen to your laptops before they go into production… the world will thank you.