EU Laptop keyboard-layout hell

General Off-Topic
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I am extremely frustrated with Lenovo.
They removed the option to choose your keyboard layout when configuring any laptop, except on some old Thinkpads. And they disabled the option to ship to other EU countries from their shops.

I’m trying to get a Lenovo 14” Slim 7i Aura Edition (1920x1200 OLED / 32GB / 256V) with US/UK -layout. But every store refuses to either configure the layout or ship to my Luxembourg or Germany address.

I tried:

  • Lenovo DE store → Refuses to configure
  • Lenovo NL store → Refuses to ship anywhere outside NL
  • Lenovo UK store → Refuses to ship anywhere outside UK
  • Lenovo US store → Refuses to ship anywhere outside US
  • Amazon NL → “Item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location(s)”
  • Amazon UK → “Item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location(s)”
  • Amazon US → Limited options & huge fees (Example: “EUR 622.25 Shipping & Import Fees”)
  • YT Video description link → Sends me to bhphotovideo.com → Doesn’t state the keyboard layout. Email ignored.

If anyone from any EU country found a solution to this enforced keyboard layout problem hell, please let us know what solution or trick worked for you.

(I know that a lot of programmers in EU just go with Apple to solve this problem, but I don’t want another macbook.)

1 Like
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https://geizhals.de/lenovo-yoga-slim-7-14ill10-83jx005ege-a3468276.html why not try from other retailers, this should show a bunch of retailers that sells about the same model with a better screen, try checking if any of these ship to ur location, have the desired keyboard layout

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That is extremley frustrating. We’ve had a couple of keyboards with the wrong layout and it sucked!!!

2 Likes
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Maybe because laptops in US at this time are about half the price of most EU countries. Even with shipping, customs and vat added it still is a lot cheaper to buy from US - except it seems now nobody will sell outside their country.

Example: Macbook Air 13 M4 16/256 (on sale) in US is $749. The exact same in my EU country (also on sale) is $1416.

Even with shipping and taxes adding another $300 to the price, it’s still a LOT cheaper than EU, for a laptop with a keyboard where you need to hit 3-4 keys to type pipe, redirect, brackets, backslash - keys you need all the time in Linux.

I used to buy laptops in US, last was a Thinkpad X1 less than two years ago, no problem then. What happened? Has someone made it illegal to buy laptops in US for export?

@JustJosh Do you know? Is there any place that will ship to EU?

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I’m not Josh, but it might have to do with the recent tariffs in the US as well as the fact that Lenovo operates in these countries already?

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Tell me about it… I had an external ISO keyboard at a previous job several years ago and it sucked! I really hated the small left shift key with the slash between it and the Z key as well as the Enter key being oddly shaped…

That’s one reason I don’t buy laptops that don’t have ANSI keyboard layouts… I can’t get used to ISO… And I tried to! :frowning:

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But isn’t tariffs a tax USA applies on goods coming into USA, not going out?

Practically all the tech world already operate in both US and EU. It was never this much of a problem before. Of course they hate when you game their system, but hey, I buy where I get the same price, not where a vendor would like me to buy because they think some countries are looser with the money than others. Besides, as others already pointed out, you just can’t buy a laptop with US keyboard in EU, it’s just not on offer.

I found that if I login with my EU login to Amazon US, and enter a US address (for example to a forwarder) I am able to see the laptops on Amazon US, so I guess they just don’t want to ship to EU anymore. It is just odd and inconvenient, as Amazon has much better shipping rates than the forwarders, and never had a problem until a year or two ago. Surely something changed.

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Then maybe it’s a Lenovo policy that other OEMs also implement. You may have to look into a forwarding solution unfortunately, and I cannot help you with that because I don’t really have experience with that.