Keyboard backlight and logo on laptop cover!?

[moonwalkers]

Nowadays however, all the gimmicky stuff that Apple has added, like the Touch Bar and Neural chips, have worried me about getting a new MacBook Air with ARM chip. I'll rather wait a couple of years to se what happens, but in the meanwhile I might want to try out a Linux ARM laptop with the same form factor than a MacBook Air, which I like a lot.

I wouldn't call Neural Engine a gimmick. Touch Bar - that would depend on whom you ask. For someone who uses a lot the applications that take full advantage of Touch Bar - it can be a pretty useful feature. For someone who touch-types the fact that Apple completely replaced the function keys with it is a big downer. But then, if you touch type, why do you need keyboard backlight?

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The advantage of not being able to see your keys is that you get better at typing without looking.  And, you can learn Dvorak without swapping keytops.

Perhaps it's a bit the other way around - after I learned to touch type I found I no longer care about keyboard backlight. Even the key labels are kinda unnecessary now for me, especially since I do, in fact, use Programmer Dvorak. What I do miss, however, is the ThinkLight in the older ThinkPads - while it's questionably useful for lighting up the keyboard, it's very useful as an emergency light to read something off paper.