Is it safe to swap between ISO and ANSI keyboards with the T14 or P14s AMD models?

[pinemach]

I'm interested in potentially buying a T14 or P14s AMD Lenovo laptop.

The catch is that though I live in Finland, I want to get a laptop with an ANSI keyboard. I will primarily doing software development on this laptop, which will be much easier with an ANSI keyboard layout as opposed to ISO. So far I have not found a Finnish or other EU vendor which is selling T14 or P14s AMD laptops with an ANSI keyboard layout, only various ISO layouts.

I have found incomplete and conflicting information about whether it is sensible for me to purchase a T14 or P14s from a Finnish vendor with an ISO Nordic keyboard and then replace its keyboard with a separately purchased ANSI keyboard replacement part, or whether these parts are not interchangeable. Has anyone tried something like this? Did it work? Or else can anyone point me to some resource that could give me a more certain answer? Unfortunately, checking for myself could prove to be a very expensive experiment.

Thanks!

[dr_st]

Welcome to the forum.

In every Thinkpad I know, these keyboards are standard and interchangeable. Then again, it is not proof, only statistical evidence; however, I will be very surprised if something changed in that department. It seems very much not cost-effective to make the keyboards non-standard.

P.S. I feel your pain; ISO layout with the tiny left shift and the useless second backslash stuck next to it is horrible.

[pinemach]

Welcome to the forum.

In every Thinkpad I know, these keyboards are standard and interchangeable. Then again, it is not proof, only statistical evidence; however, I will be very surprised if something changed in that department. It seems very much not cost-effective to make the keyboards non-standard.

P.S. I feel your pain; ISO layout with the tiny left shift and the useless second backslash stuck next to it is horrible.

Thanks! Yeah, I'd be surprised at this point if the keyboards were not interchangeable. But Lenovo support says ISO and ANSI can't be exchanged, not that I'm sure if I fully believe it. But I really would not like to get stuck with an ISO keyboard on a 1,500 EUR+ machine that's a complete headache to actually use because I jumped on it when it wasn't a sure thing, unless I drag around an external keyboard with me everywhere.

I don't necessarily have anything against ISO layouts, but I've been typing on ANSI keyboards for so long that trying to switch back and forth with ISO really screws with my muscle memory.

[mikemex]

Not sure about newer models but on my X1C4 I replaced the original US keyboard (which I assume is ANSI) with a Spanish keyboard (which I assume is ISO) and I did not need to do anything else.

I don't think there is any technical reason preventing you from doing it. Why Lenovo claims it can't be done, I think it's more about not wanting users to deviate from factory defaults than anything else.

[RealBlackStuff]

Try a "US International" keyboard from European sellers.
That has ANSI layout, but with additional Euro (€) symbol on the 4-key.
Otherwise same as 'full' ANSI.
And ANSI/ISO keyboards from the same Series/models are fully interchangeable.
All you need to do in such a case is change your Region and Language settings.

[pinemach]

Look at that, finally a definitive answer! I do appreciate it, but I'm sorry to say that you're more than a year late, RealBlackStuff.

I waited a while, last year, and eventually it became possible to order a laptop with a "US International" keyboard. I'm typing on it right now. I don't know why it was unavailable for so long after the initial European release of the model. At the time I wrote the post, European vendors - including Lenovo's own website - offered only ISO keyboard options.

But good to know that the keyboard will be swappable, if it ever comes to that? And perhaps the thread will be useful to someone else.