i’ve been wanting to change my laptop and actually already have a model in mind (from lenovo). my laptop has an azerty keyboard since i got it in France, but laptops in Japan – or worldwide for that matter lol – seem to only have qwerty keyboards.
this only wouldn’t be an issue, but qwerty keyboards lack specific keys compared to azerty and i’m just not comfortable with them so i’d like to stick to azerty. is it possible to purchase a laptop with this keyboard?? retailers from France don’t ship here and my laptop is on its deathbed at this point so i’m desperate 🥲🥲
thank u in advance !!
7 comments
Amazon France ships at least some of their laptops to Japan, including some Lenovo models.
It is not a QWERTY vs AZERTY difference but a ISO vs ANSI layout. Japanese keyboard is actually JIS layout and have more key that the other. If you use a Japanese keyboard you can set it as a French azerty keyboard and you won’t miss any physical key (done might have a different location) and if course the legend on the key will be wrong.
There are two ways to do this. Either self-import or use a third party to import a laptop from france. Alternatively you can buy a laptop locally here and import the replacement keyboard.
If you want a cheap option you might get lucky on Yahoo Auctions.
If you’re computer literate, [here’s an old laptop](https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d1091843710) with an azerty keyboard. It only has 4GB of RAM but if you install Linux on it it’ll run fine
I would never buy from those Lenovo bastards again, but can you not specify keyboard layout when ordering your laptop?
If you’re buying a new laptop, use the chat option in the website to talk to a sales rep, then tell them your particular needs and they will give you a quote. I think they only have English and Japanese keyboards available though.
The other option is to buy the french keyboard somewhere and install it yourself. Depending on the model, it might be very easy or next to impossible. I see they cost around 4,500 yen in Aliexpress, with shipping.
You can usually set your preferred keyboard layout in the operating system, if you don’t need to physically see the keys to type.