[stevep001]

I ended up with a ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen 2 -- it has a five row physical keyboard, with the top row as a virtual keyboard.

It was constantly registering touches on the top row when I didn't want them. With a laptop, I commonly rest my hand on the keyboard and touch -- but don't depress -- keys.

Today it's only used in a desktop configuration with an external keyboard.

I'm not the only one who felt this way -- see, for example, this Ars review of the gen 3, which said of the gen 2 keyboard:

"...the keyboard shed its top row of function keys, replacing them with a software-controlled touchable strip, and used a peculiar arrangement for buttons including home, insert, backspace, and delete. The result wasn't better; it was awkward."

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/thinkpad-x1-carbon-re...

[lj3]

Lenovo has a bad track record with all things touch. For example, I have a w530 and the trackpad is terrible. Apple, on the other hand, has a history of well engineered touch hardware, especially the touchpad.

Maybe a touch strip will be great or maybe it'll be rubbish, but don't pre-judge the feature based on Lenovo's increasingly shoddy engineering.