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Experiencing "Key Bounce"

10K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  mthielk 
#1 ·
Hello Everyone,

I am newbie forum user and 5 day-old Chromebook user. This seems like a good Forum with a lot of combined expertise. I'm having an issue which is really dragging down my experience on my Samsung 5 Chromebook so I thought I would post it here. I'm not sure if the OS Software forum is best place but it seemed the best of all the others. Also, I did multiple searches before starting this new thread and did not see any other folks discussing it. So here goes ...

I am a rapid touch-typer and generally get along with all keyboards. I've also used also other keyboards like the Chromebook -- my wife has a macbook air and I seem to get along with it just fine. My problem with my Samsung 5 is when I type specific letters (seems to be e,d,f,a) the output on the keyboard is 2x what I typed. For example, if I type "did father go to bed", it will come out like "ddidd ffatheer go to beedd". I'm not sure what to call this problem but some external searches lable it as "key bounce". If i slow way down and focus on my individual fingers I can make it go away -- in other words it seems to be dependent on the speed which I type.

This is very frustrating because i'm constantly backspacing and correcting my typing.

Is anyone else having this problem, or maybe is is possible I got a defective keyboard? I'm wondering if there may be some OS setting where I can tell the keyboard how sensative to be?

Thanks for any help in advance,
-Kevin
 
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#2 ·
Hi Kevin,

I'm in exactly the same boat as you: 5 day old Samsung 5 CB user who can touch type and I'm getting this keyboard bounce thing too. Not a problem if you slow down but it's there if you touch type. I can't see any settings that can be changed to improve this and, I agree, it's annoying.

The only thing I can think is to slow down and adopt more of a 90 degree bent finger style so that one's finger tip strikes the key in its centre, with minimum force and with as little as little skin contact as possible.

Pls re-post if you find any technique for reducing this unwelcome phenomenon.

Clive
 
#3 ·
As an Acer owner I can attest that my chromebook has one of the worst keyboards I've ever used on a laptop in this price range. Not quite as bad as an Atari 400 from the bad old days of computing -but not much better.

Perhaps I am just spoiled by the excellent keyboards I've been accustomed to on IBM/Lenovo machines but the keyboard of the Chromebook is very poor.

The keys are flat and have zero dish so it is very hard to tell where they are when touch typing. The feel and throw is pathetic. Key bounce/double-keying is common as well as strokes not registering. This happens if the key is not struck evenly and squarely in the middle -something that is very difficult due to the fact that there is no dish to the keys so the fingers can find where the center of each key is.

This is all made much worse by the fact that the "home" keys of F and J have the bumps so small that the index fingers can barely feel them, much less find them easily.

Typing in the dark is impossible as finding "home" is nearly impossible. They home bumps are difficult to find when one is concentrating on finding them and it is possible to miss them and pass right over them without even noticing them. Sometimes it can take 4-5 seconds to find home with my fingers if I can't see the keyboard. Having no keyboard backlight or screen-mounted like like the Lenovo laptops doesn't help either.

I"m a fast typist who uses his keyboard often and regularly. I type long posts like this to web forums and to google plus, as well as chatting in IM and doing email all day long.

After only a couple of months the keys are already starting to wear and the originally small nubs on the F and J keys are beginning to wear away already.

On a Lenovo keyboard these nubs will last well over a year -even after the letters have worn away and can't be seen any more on the most often used keys. The Lenovo keyboards are easy to change and I will do so when I can no longer feel the home keys. But the chromebook keyboard is already worse than a worn out Lenovo keyboard that I would have thrown away. I'm very disappointed in the Acer keyboard, as well as the Cr-48 that I was able to use for a long weekend when a friend let me borrow it. It was no better.

If the Samsung keyboard is a crappy as the Acer and Cr-48 then I can sympathize.

I'm not even going to go into how removing essential keys like Home, End, Delete, & Page-up made typing and entering/editing text a real nightmare even without considering how terrible and cheap the feel of the keyboard is. Even if the keyboard was the same build quality and designed like a Lenovo or other quality unit the lack of these keys would still relegate the keyboarding experience of the Chromebook as a toy kindergarten keyboard.

Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of the Chromebook and use mine every day as my main laptop computer when I'm away from my desktop -but it could have been perfect had they not put a toy keyboard on it.

For the excessive money this thing costs and the fact that they don't have to pay a huge licensing fee to Microsoft I don't understand why they had to skimp on the keyboard SOOOOOO much. Its not like the other hardware specs are that impressive either. Why does does this thing cost so much when it is so cheapo across the board and has no license fees.
 
#4 ·
I am also having the exxact probleem you describe, i am not correccting the key bounce here. I diddn't notice this at first, it has also been about 5 days. I think there iss a problem with these chromebooks. It is unacceptable to me so I will be trying to return mine.
 
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