Faded/worn keys, replacement keyboard labels, stickers, overlays

My 1-yr old $2.5K Sony Vaio notebook is losing the paint on its keys, especially the oft-usd "a" and "e" keys. Grrrr.

With the very low quality of most modern laptop keyboards, I'm guessing this must be a common problem.

A replacement keyboard from Sony costs over $110 and must be replaced by a technician since Sony do not release their Service and Repair manuals.

What to do? The best answers seems to be stickers or sticky key labels or overlays, like this:





The main supplier seems to be Hooleon.com ($18 per sheet of labels!)



Cheaper ones are available on eBay for around $2 per sheet, but I can imagine how long those would last.

Another big supplier is DataCal Enterprises



DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE OF USING KEY REPLACEMENT LABELS?
Any advice?

Thanks.

 

Being a touch-typist would solve your problem for free....

 

I doubt it. I've owned other computers that had unblemished keyboards after years of use. Next!

 

Neat solution!

About the touch typing thing. I had a client who had a gal working as their DTP'ing department manager. I once did some work on her PC at her home. She had used it so much 90% of the keys were BLANK...now that was someone who could type!! hehehehee...but some of us just never get used to being 100% touch typists no matter how much typing we do. It's not a short coming just something that we don't take to as well as another might. Myself I have been forcing myself to get better at it this past year. I will never be a typist but can at least ignore the keyboard most of the time now...weeeeeeeee....

ummmm, btw...a new keyboard is only like $20-$30 ain't they? They take like 5 minutes to install for most laptops anyway. Hardest part might be learning how to take the case apart enough to remove the keyboard.

 

Sad thing is, it would probably take me a while to notice whether or not the paint on my keys was wearing. You could check Ebay for a keyboard and then just pop the keys off of your current keyboard and replace them with the ones from the purchased keyboard. Also, if its used at home a lot you could get an external keyboard to save the keys on your laptop. Still no excuse as the paint shouldn't be wearing off that fast though.

 

May I ask what model you have by the way?

In my experience of my notebooks, the letters and symbols on the keys have not worn off at all, but the keys themselves become worn down and shiny. Its a shame to see these keys wearing off on your $2500 notebook but not on my $800-1000 notebooks.

 

stick-on keylabels is a good idea, for me anyway since my keyboard must supports 2 languages. good labels should be transparent as the key.feels must be smooth.

have not yet used it due to worn.out letter

cheers ...

 

Sony replacement keyboard runs well over $100 for a VGN-A600 from Sony, about $50 on the grey market.

The problem is replacing it. There are hidden screws that require special screwdrivers made by Sony to undo.

 

Couldn't you just replace the key buttons individually? (I noticed that some of the older laptops on stores had like missing button/faceplates for the keys).

 

Where do I buy the individual buttons?

 

you can find replacement keys on eBay...would be interested in learning more about the special tool for the screws. The old Mac's needed a special tool also to get the cases apart. So it does not suprise me at all...

 

hey is this the tool?

 

I got all of the laptop keys off without using any tools at all, except G and H (on QWERTY layout)... I'm not sure why they refuse to come off... But I think I messed up the QWERTY's X button... I can't really get it back on, the metal part under it seems to be bended.

Anyways, I was planning on repainting the keyboard (any reccommendations for the paint?) and I would also like some small stickers for buttons (all the letters, symbols and some special characters, if possible), and they should be small and not have the transparent part all over the key, but maybe maximum one millimeter around the letter. Where could I get those? It would be nice to get the tilde for Õ letters and the umlaut for Ä, Ö and Ü letters. Also Ž and Š keys (extra small, alternative keys) wouldn't do any harm.

 

since I wanted to type chinese on my computer, I bought the chinese keyboard stickers... which serves a 2nd great purpose which is to protect the original paint on my keyboard. But then after a while, the paint on the sticker started fading too ! So what I just purchased multiple sheets of the keyboard stickers and whenever one key is fading, I just replace it with a new one ! They are really cheap on ebay ~

Oh. And I use a pair of tweezers to place them on the keyboard.. thus eliminating crooked letters...

hope this helps.

 

hmmm... i'm actually thinking about wiping out all the keys clean with some sandpaper... i'm aiming for distinguished and neat look, however, i'll probably leave those "Fn" labels as i don't know all of them as i know regular keys...

greetings

 

LOL, touch typist. Not me, I make typos all the time being 6' 4-1/2" and my paws barely fit on a notebook keyboard.


note: hand actually sitting on keyb, not up in the air like they look.


Note sure how painting would work but the stickers seem like a good cheap solution. Shame to resort to stickers for a nice laptop though.